“…One, contributing to a rosy picture of empowering leadership is that the field has not recognized that constructs similar to dimensions of empowering leadership can contribute to unethical behavior. Research has shown that autonomy and decision-making authority, leaders’ expressions of high expectations and trust, and goal setting when people have unmet goals and are told to do their best or when they have high performance goals can result in ethical lapses (Foulk et al, 2018; Gaspar & Schweitzer, 2021; Lu et al, 2017; Pitesa & Thau, 2013a, 2013b; Schweitzer et al, 2004; Shepherd et al, 2013; Welsh & Ordóñez, 2014). Problematically, empowering leadership research has not acknowledged these tangential, and yet relevant, findings, and we extend the literature by demonstrating that the gestalt construct can cause employees to morally disengage and exhibit a specific type of unethical behavior, UPB.…”