Leaders matter morally: The role of ethical leadership in shaping employee moral cognition and misconduct.

Abstract

There has long been interest in how leaders influence the unethical behavior of those who they lead. However, research in this area has tended to focus on leaders' direct influence over subordinate behavior, such as through role modeling or eliciting positive social exchange. We extend this research by examining how ethical leaders affect how employees construe morally problematic decisions, ultimately influencing their behavior. Across four studies, diverse in methods (lab and field) and national context (the United States and China), we find that ethical leadership decreases employees' propensity to morally disengage, with ultimate effects on employees' unethical decisions and deviant behavior. Further, employee moral identity moderates this mediated effect. However, the form of this moderation is not consistent. In Studies 2 and 4, we find that ethical leaders have the largest positive influence over individuals with a weak moral identity (providing a "saving grace"), whereas in Study 3, we find that ethical leaders have the largest positive influence over individuals with a strong moral identity (catalyzing a "virtuous synergy"). We use these findings to speculate about when ethical leaders might function as a "saving grace" versus a "virtuous synergy." Together, our results suggest that employee misconduct stems from a complex interaction between employees, their leaders, and the context in which this relationship takes place, specifically via leaders' influence over employees' moral cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record

Moral Obligation, Public Leadership, and Collective Action for Epidemic Prevention and Control: Evidence from the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Emergency

“…Specifically, the village cadres could put effort into formulating a village public health governance scheme with the effective participation of the villagers. Then, the villagers can master this scheme in various ways, which could help them to internalize the epidemic prevention and control rules into their moral obligation [53]. On the other hand, village cadres' public leadership, as an external constraint for villagers, can effectively motivate villagers to participate in collective action for epidemic prevention and control.…”

Moral Disengagement

“…Hodge and Lonsdale found that moral disengagement mediated the relationship between controlling coaching styles and higher levels of anti-social behavior toward teammates and opponents [24]. Moore et al have similarly found that moral disengagement mediates the relationship between how ethical an employee's leader is and the likelihood they will engage in unethical workplace behavior [53]. Moral disengagement has also been studied as a mediator in the relationship between positive ethical antecedents and outcomes.…”

“…In their study of youth offenders, DeLisi et al found that the relationship between psychopathy and criminal behavior was direct for delinquents who showed high levels of psychopathy, but was mediated through moral disengagement for youths who had lower levels of psychopathy [20 ]. Relatedly, Moore et al found that the indirect relationship between ethical leaders and employee misconduct through moral disengagement was moderated by employees' moral identities: whether ethical leaders inspired more ethical behavior or unethical leaders encouraged more deviant behavior through moral disengagement depended on how important being moral was to the employee in the first place [53]. These studies hint at the complex interactive processes that combine to produce our moral behavior: a function of who we are when we enter a given context, as well as how that context affects us.…”

The Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS): Italian adaptation and exploration of the nomological network in a health care setting

“…Scholars have also examined why leaders who behave ethically promote the ethical behaviour of their followers. Two theories to describe this transmission process are social learning theory and social exchange theory (Brown & Treviño, ; Brown et al, ; Moore et al, ). Social learning theory (Bandura, ) establishes that virtually anything can be learned through vicarious learning, enacted through a person who acts as a role model and uses rewards and punishments.…”