Exploring Ethical Leadership

Ethical leadership is defined as “the demonstration of normatively appropriate behavior in both personal and interpersonal contexts and the active promotion of socially responsible behavior at all levels in the organization reinforcing a moral ethos through communication and ethical decision making” (Brown, Treviño, Harrison, & processes, 2005; Snell, 2000).This ethical leadership is based on the principles of justices, respect and trustworthiness (Werhane, Beauchamp, Bowie, & Business 3rd edition, 1988). Ethical leadership theories views ethical leadership from two perspectives, firstly, individual characteristics of moral reasoning (Ciulla, 2005) and secondly, situational influences from moral context (Brown & Treviño, 2006). But ethical leadership’s role in the organization and how it influences organizational behavior (Hemingway & Maclagan, 2004) is more important. This leadership theory suggests that ethical leaders are very conscious about interactional justice (Chiaburu & Lim, 2008; Neubert, Carlson, Kacmar, Roberts, & Chonko, 2009) and are very concerned to external and internal stakeholder’s interest that they should treated fairly and in a consistent manner. This shows ethical leader concern about employees, their personal growth, stakeholder’s engagement that create social consensus and communicating social responsibility within community. This make ethical leaders perception as honest and trustworthy for their followers (Brown & Treviño, 2006; Neubert et al., 2009). This trust on leader generate motivation and positive behavior among employees which results in organizational commitment and job satisfaction(Neubert et al., 2009).

Ethical Leadership and Other Leadership Styles

Leader’s ethical behavior is key component of every leadership style such as, for example, spiritual leadership(Fry & Matherly, 2006), charismatic leadership (Conger & Kanungo, 1987), authentic leadership (Luthans & Avolio, 2003), and transformational leadership (Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999). But ethics is just one aspect among different aspects of leadership style, researcher studied ethical leadership as a construct on its own in order to capture the characteristics of ethical leadership behavior and to investigate its antecedents and outcomes.

Ethical Leadership is distinct from other leadership styles on conceptual and empirical bases (Brown & Treviño, 2006; Mayer et al., 2009; Ofori, 2009). Transformational type leaders mainly focus on values, vision and intellectual stimulations as compared to ethical leadership that emphasizes moral values and moral management (Brown & Treviño, 2006, p. 598) Similarly moral management is a basic difference between ethical leadership and spiritual leadership. Unlike authentic leadership that focus on “self-awareness”, ethical leaders emphasize on “others” awareness. The ethical leaders enhance moral management while focus of spiritual leader is on visioning, optimism, or belief(Brown & Treviño, 2006).

But all leadership styles have some common characteristics and overlap each other. Ethical leaders, for example, influence follower behavior in ways that can be similar to other leadership like idealized influence (Brown et al., 2005), individual consideration and inspirational motivation(Wazni et al., 2010). Ethical leader like transformational leaders through role modeling influences follower behavior (Avolio, 1999; Howell & Avolio, 1992), integrity and in ethical decision making while like transactional leaders use reward and punishment system for employees.

Social Learning Theory Perspectives

Social learning theory emphases on the significances of ethical leadership and proposes that ethical norms can be learned through two ways; first by individual’s own experience, and secondly through observation of others(A. J. J. o. s. Bandura & psychology, 1986). In general individual have a “role model” from whom individual learn such norms and imitate them (Brown & Treviño, 2006). Ethical leaders by acting as role models demonstrates integrity and established high ethical standards for others as well as for themselves(Brown et al., 2005). Employees then imitate the value driven conducts of their ethical leaders(Brown & Treviño, 2006).With the help of motivation and informational sources role model influences the ethical behavior (A. Bandura & Walters, 1977). They use reward and punishment to disseminate the desired action of ethical behavior. At the same time they also provides guidelines for acceptable conducts.

By setting standards, communicating ethical expectations and by implementing ethical policies, procedures and practices, ethical leaders signals their employees that how to conduct company’s affair(Brown & Treviño, 2006; Trevino & Youngblood, 1990). By doing so, they shape organization’s ethical climate and discourage unethical behavior and support ethical behavior (Mayer, Kuenzi, & Greenbaum, 2010; Sims & Brinkman, 2002). As a result, employees are more likely to perceive an ethical organizational environment.

Voluntary Pro environmental work Engagement

In Literature, there is a distinction within the workplace pro-environmental behavior; firstly task-related pro-environmental behavior, which is the part of job duties and secondly voluntary pro-environmental behavior, that is discretionary pro-environmental behavior which is not the part of job duty and not prescribed nor rewarded. Such behaviors are conceptually different (Bissing‐Olson, Iyer, Fielding, & Zacher, 2013; O. Boiral, Talbot, Paillé, & Environment, 2015; Dilchert, Ones, & psychology, 2012; Norton, Zacher, & Ashkanasy, 2015) while having different antecedents (Bissing‐Olson et al., 2013; Norton et al., 2015). As employees’ pro-environmental behavior is multidimensional, in our study we focus merely on voluntary behavior. Reason behind this is voluntary pro-environmental behavior signify the vast majority personnel enact as compared to 13%-29% required pro-environmental behavior (Dilchert et al., 2012) and among researches far more common and linked to environmental performance at the firm level (Paillé, Chen, Boiral, & Jin, 2014).

From literature review of pro environmental workplace behavior, scholars outlined different change areas for management. First aligning organization values with green agenda(Russell, McIntosh, & climate, 2011), secondly the presence of strong leadership having environmental focus as change agents(Anderson & Bateman, 2000; Robertson & Barling, 2013), thirdly employees engagement, encouragement and involvement through rewards, communication and participation (Cox, Higgins, Gloster, Foley, & Darnton, 2012; Osbaldiston, Schott, & Behavior, 2012) and fourthly the way which is most suitable to implement change either by management through planned way (Burnes, 1996) or through employees as an ongoing process of environmental requirement (Todnem By, 2005).

Pro-environmental behavior is a pro social behavior so with traditional leadership approaches it is difficult to convince and motivate employees to engage in such behavior by mangers (Paillé & Boiral, 2013). Brown and Treviño (2006) suggest that ethical leaders are very concerned about society, organizations and for employees instead of own self-interest. Perhaps to trigger such behavior, our study proposes ethical leadership approach that can arouse pro environmental behavior.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ethical leadership plays a crucial role in shaping organizational behavior and fostering a positive ethical climate within a company. Grounded in principles of justice, respect, and trustworthiness, ethical leadership goes beyond individual characteristics and considers the moral context and situational influences. It stands out as distinct from other leadership styles, such as transformational or authentic leadership, emphasizing moral values and management.