The appropriate way to define and measure ethical leadership has been a source of conceptual confusion in the leadership literature. Different measures have been developed, but they all have limitations. Some questionnaires are missing key indicators of ethical leadership, or they include behaviors that do not seem directly relevant. In this study, the authors assess the validity of a new questionnaire for measuring essential aspects of ethical leadership independently of other types of leader behavior. The research also examines how ethical leadership is related to leader-member exchange and work unit performance. Although the primary purpose of these analyses is to assess criterion-related validity for the new questionnaire, the results help answer important questions about the benefits of ethical leadership. The authors found that ethical leadership makes a small but significant contribution to the explanation of leader-member exchange and managerial effectiveness.

In this article we explain different conceptions of flexible and adaptive leadership and the reasons why such leadership is essential in today's organizations. Then we briefly describe several streams of research that provide useful knowledge about flexible and adaptive leadership. It was not feasible to provide a comprehensive and detailed review for each research stream, but we describe the primary research methods, summarize major findings, and provide some practical guidelines for leaders on how to become more flexible and adaptive. Finally, we point out limitations of the available research and make recommendations for future research.

Leader empathy, ethical leadership, and relations-oriented behaviors as antecedents of leader-member exchange quality If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Leader empathy, ethical values, and relations-oriented behavior all appear to be relevant for effective leadership, but nobody has examined how all three variables are jointly related to leader-member exchange quality (LMX). The purpose of this study is to examine these relationships and test a proposed model describing them. Design/methodology/approach -Data were collected with a questionnaire from subordinates of leaders in several organizations, and SEM path analysis was used to test alternative models. Findings -The results indicated that a leader's relations-oriented behavior fully mediated the relationship between leader empathy on LMX and partially mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and LMX. Recommendations for future research to verify and extend the results were provided. Originality/value -This is the first empirical study to simultaneously examine the complex relationships among these four different aspects of leadership (i.e. a skill, values, behaviors, and exchange relationship). The authors' measure of ethical leadership minimizes confounding with other constructs, which is a problem in earlier studies. The practical implication is that leader empathy and ethical leadership should be included in leadership selection and development programs.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how ethical leadership and empowering leadership are related to leader‐member exchange relations (LMX), affective commitment, and leader effectiveness.Design/methodology/approachData were collected using questionnaires filled out by 259 subordinates of public and private sector managers. Relationships among variables were analyzed using structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results indicated that ethical leadership and empowering leadership have positive associations with LMX, subordinate affective commitment, and perception of leader effectiveness.Originality/valueThis study is the first to examine the independent and joint relationships of empowering leadership and ethical leadership with leadership effectiveness and the mediating role of LMX.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine how task-oriented, relations-oriented and change-oriented leader behaviors are related to managerial effectiveness and subordinate job satisfaction, to identify incorrect findings in a recent meta-analysis of these relationships and to verify that leader problem solving is an important task-oriented behavior. Design/methodology/approach In total, 235 employees were surveyed to measure 11 specific behaviors used by their leader, and again two weeks later to measure the two outcome variables. Multiple regression analysis was used to assess how the leader behaviors are related to each outcome. Findings Task-oriented, relations-oriented and change-oriented behaviors were all related significantly to managerial effectiveness, but only relations-oriented behavior was related significantly to subordinate job satisfaction. Problem solving was the task-oriented behavior with the strongest relationship to managerial effectiveness. Recognizing was the least important relations-oriented behavior for job satisfaction. Research limitations/implications Limitations included a convenience sample, common source data and possible effects of unmeasured situational variables. Ways to avoid these limitations in future research are suggested. Practical implications The findings can be used to improve leadership training and development for most managers. Originality/value The results support the idea that examining specific leader behaviors in addition to broad meta-categories can improve leadership theory, research and training.