Ethical Leaders

Transformational leaders encourage followers to embrace moral values and to act in the interest of the collective rather than self interest. Transformational leaders are thought to raise followers’ level of moral development and to focus followers’ attention on higher level needs and values. Transactional leaders rely on rewards and punishments to direct followers’ behaviour. Transactional leaders are inconsistent with moral leadership because transactional approaches ignore followers’ needs and aspirations and that transactional leaders focus on the status quo rather than on an inspiring vision of the future and may be motivated by their own achievement and power rather than followers’ needs. Multidimensional transformational leadership construct
Ethical leaders are thought to be moral persons because they are honest and trustworthy, take good care of their people, and do the right things in both their personal and professional lives. They make decisions based on values and ethical decision rules, and they are fair and concerned about stakeholders’ interests and long-term outcomes. As moral managers, ethical leaders are clear about their expectations of followers. They are visible role models of ethical behaviour, communicate with their people about their ethical and values-based expectations, and use the reward system to hold followers accountable for ethical conduct. The relationship between leadership and employee ethical conduct can be explain by social learning and social exchange. In accordance with a social learning perspective, they behave ethically in their personal and professional lives, and they make decisions based on ethical principles and the long-term interest of multiple stakeholders. Ethical leaders send clear messages to organizational members about expected behaviour and use the reward system to hold everyone accountable to those
Ethical leaders are likely to influence their followers to engage in ethical conduct and to refrain from unethical conduct by way of multiple processes that rely on both transformational and transactional approaches to leadership. There are several potential limitations on the role of leadership. First, we expect that some employees will be less influence by leaders than will others. Second, employees at the lowest levels of cognitive moral development (preconventional) should be less influenced by leaders than by reward system contingencies. Third, ethical leadership may be less influential in homogeneous settings where leaders and their followers share values based on age and cultural similarity. Fourth, Supervisory leaders may be more or less influential depending on characteristics of their work group such as size and type of work. For example, the larger the span of control, the more difficult it may be to communicate ethical standards and to hold work group members