The impact of ethical leadership on member s creativity and career success: the mediating role of leader-member exchange

Abstract

Purpose-The aim of this study is to investigate possible direct and indirect effects (through leader-member exchange-LMX) of member's ethical leadership perception on their career success and individual creativity. Methodology-Survey method was used to test the hypothesized effects in the proposed model. A total of 212 employees from private sector companies in a province of Turkey participated in the survey. Survey results were analysed by structural equation modelling. Findings-The results show that ethical leadership affects LMX positively and in turn LMX has a positive and significant impact on creativity. Thus, ethical leadership was found to have only indirect effect on creativity through LMX. On the other hand, ethical leadership was found to have a positive and statistically significant direct effect on career success. Conclusion-Working with an ethical leader brings close interaction between employee and the leader, fosters employee's loyalty to the leader and commitment to the organizational tasks beyond formal requirements. In turn, high leader-member exchange leads to an increase in employee's creativity. Moreover, if employees believe that their leader adopts ethical beliefs and performs ethically, they would be satisfied with their improvement in achieving career goals regarding promotion, salary and work success regardless of the quality of their relationship with the leader.

The Factors That Influence the Creativity of Employee in Three Star Hotel

“…Leader member exchange and team identification have positive influence on employee creativity [15]. Another reseach also indicated LMX positive influence individual creativity [16,17].…”

The Directional Nature of Organizational Relationships and Their Effect on Individual Performance and Turnover

“…Yukl and Van Fleet (1990) and Kanbur and Özyer (2016) indicate that high-quality LMX represents mutual respect, worker autonomy, and commitment to leaders. It leads to a greater information sharing and personal support between individuals and superiors (Karabey & Aliogullari, 2018).…”

“…LMX theory (Wayne & Green, 1993) stresses leadership approaches in establishing relationships with subordinates (Karabey & Aliogullari, 2018). It classifies high-quality exchange subordinates as in-group (insiders) and low-quality exchange subordinates as out-group (outsiders).…”

“…It classifies high-quality exchange subordinates as in-group (insiders) and low-quality exchange subordinates as out-group (outsiders). High-quality LMX represents mutual respect, worker autonomy, and commitment to leaders (Yukl & Van Fleet, 1990); it also encourages employees to build stronger relationships with supervisors/leaders and to provide positive feedback in order to enhance job performance and evaluations (Karabey & Aliogullari, 2018).…”

“…However, low-quality LMX encourages employees to have reserved relationships with supervisors, who eventually become stricter when evaluating employee performance and capabilities (Karabey & Aliogullari, 2018). According to LMX theory, in-group employees receive more support, compensation, attention from leaders, and requests to take on more responsibilities; they also tend to follow formal rules (Karabey & Aliogullari, 2018).…”