Abstract
Ethical scandals in business have led to calls for more ethical or moral leadership. Yet, we still know very little about what characterizes ethical leadership and what its positive consequences actually are. We argue that the major question is not about what leaders value, but rather whether their ethical values are regularly reflected in behavioral patterns across situations and situational challenges. To address this, we have begun to build the Ethical Leadership Behavior Scale, which is based on behaviors reflecting concrete manifestations of ethical values (e.g., fairness, respect) across occasions and situational barriers. A study with 592 employees of 110 work units in two departments provided a first test of this scale and demonstrated that the level of ethical leadership behavior predicts important work-related attitudes (job satisfaction, work engagement, affective organizational commitment) and outcomes (health complaints, emotional exhaustion, absenteeism).
References
1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173–1182.
(1999). Ethics, character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior. Leadership Quarterly, 10, 181–217.
(2007). Applying the Rasch model: Fundamental measurement in the human sciences. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
(2006). Ethical leadership: A review and future directions. The Leadership Quarterly, 17, 595–616.
(2005). Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97, 117–134.
(1975). Arbeitszufriedenheit
([Work satisfaction] . Bern, Switzerland: Hans Huber.2004). Ethics, the heart of leadership. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
(1999). The importance of leadership in shaping business values. Long Range Planning, 32, 166–172.
(2005). Fragebogen zur Erfassung von affektivem, kalkulatorischem und normativem Commitment gegenüber der Organisation, dem Beruf/der Tätigkeit und der Beschäftigungsform (COBB). In
([Questionnaire for the assessment of affective, calculatory and normative commitment regarding the organization, profession/occupation and form of occupation] , ZUMA-Informationssystem. Elektronisches Handbuch sozialwissenschaftlicher Erhebungsinstrumente. Version 9.00. Mannheim, Germany: Zentrum für Umfragen, Methoden und Analysen.2005). “Can you see the real me?” A self-based model of authentic leader and follower development. Leadership Quarterly, 16, 343–372.
(2007). Privacy needs in office environments: Development of two behavior-based scales. European Psychologist, 12, 93–102.
(1999). Beanspruchungssystem bei Humandienstleistungen (BHD-System). Manual
([Demand system for human services. Manual] . Frankfurt, Germany: Swets Test Services.2002). Authenticity. In , Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 382–394). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
(1984). Estimating within-group interrater reliability with and without response bias. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69, 85–98.
(1998). A general measure of ecological behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 28, 395–422.
(2001). Ethical values of transactional and transformational leaders. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 18, 257–265.
(1972). Causal schemata and the attribution process. In , Attribution: Perceiving the causes of behavior (pp. 1–26). Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press.
(2002). To parcel or not to parcel: Exploring the question, weighing the merits. Structural Equation Modeling, 9, 151–173.
(2001). Leadership, values, and subordinate self-concepts. The Leadership Quarterly, 12, 133–152.
(2003). Developing the moral component of authentic leadership. Organizational Dynamics, 32, 247–260.
(1996). Forming inferences about some intraclass correlation coefficients. Psychological Methods, 1, 30–46.
(1998). Individual values in organizations: Concepts, controversies, and research. Journal of Management, 24, 351–389.
(2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 879–903.
(2005). Spiritual values and practices related to leadership effectiveness. The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 655–687.
(2006). A cross-cultural examination of the endorsement of ethical leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 63, 345.
(1973). The nature of human values. New York, NY: Free Press.
(2009). Ethische Führung–Gütekriterien einer deutschen Adaptation der Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS-D) von Brown et al. (2005)
([Ethical leadership–quality criteria for a German adaptation of Brown’s (2005) Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS-D)] . Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie, 53, 57–69.2001). The role of values in servant leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 22, 76–83.
(2003). The Utrecht work engagement scale: Preliminary manual. Utrecht, The Netherlands: Utrecht University.
(1982). Managerial values and expectations: The silent power in personal and organizational life. New York, NY: Amacom.
(1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theory and empirical tests in 20 countries. In , Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 1–65). New York, NY: Academic Press.
(2005). The role of personal values in the charismatic leadership of corporate managers: A model and preliminary field study. The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 221–244.
(2010). Sacred values and ethical decision making. In , Sozialpsychologie und Ökonomie. Beiträge des 25. Hamburger Symposiums zur Methodologie der Sozialpsychologie (pp. 112–125). Lengerich, Germany: Pabst.
(2010). How much for your honesty? Implications of honesty as a protected value for business choices. Manuscript submitted for publication.
(2004). Contextual conditions of ecological consumerism: A food-purchasing survey. Environment & Behavior, 36, 94–111.
(2003). A qualitative investigation of perceived executive ethical leadership: Perceptions from inside and outside the executive suite. Human Relations, 55, 5–37.
(2000). Moral person and moral manager: How executives develop a reputation for ethical leadership. California Management Review, 42, 128–142.
(2008). Authentic leadership: Development and validation of a theory-based measure. Journal of Management, 34, 89–126.
(1994). Reasonable mean-square-fit-values. Rasch Measurement Transactions, 8, 370.
(2004). Die Beschwerden-Liste. Manual
([Complaint list. Manual] . Weinheim, Germany: Beltz.