Leadership Research Summary:
- The effectiveness of ethical leadership has been extensively investigated. However, compared to the outcomes of ethical leadership, we still lack enough knowledge about the mechanisms underlying ethical leadership and its outcomes. Drawing from social information processing theory, this paper explores an emotional explanation for the effectiveness of ethical leadership. Adopting a time-lagged research design with responses from 64 leaders and 289 followers, the present research found that ethical leadership invokes followers’ other-praising emotions and eventually enhances their moral actions. Further, leader core self-evaluation contributes to the positive effects of ethical leadership on followers’ other-praising moral emotions and subsequent moral actions.
Leadership Research Implications and Findings:
- The research study contributes to literature in multiple ways. By introducing the affective perspective, it has offered an emotional explanation about why ethical leadership matters. Previous scholars had consistently suggested that while considering the vital effects of moral emotions on moral actions (Harvey et al., 2016), it is essential for future leadership research to understand the role of moral emotions (Brown and Mitchell, 2010; Lindebaum et al., 2017). For example, followers’ hostile affective states can help explain how followers translate their leader’s mistreatment into their own deviant behaviors (Mayer et al., 2012b). However, although researchers have demonstrated that ethical leadership can benefit followers and teams in multiple ways (Brown et al., 2005; Avey et al., 2012), the question of what role emotions play in employees’ reactions to ethical leadership has not been answered clearly. This answer is important because it helps us understand the causal relationship between ethical leadership and follower moral actions (Brown and Mitchell, 2010) and distinguish ethical leadership from other positive leadership approaches in influencing followers. Drawing on social information processing theory, we have found that ethical leadership evokes followers’ other-praising moral emotions and enhances their moral actions. Specifically, by displaying high moral standards and behaving ethically, ethical leaders invoke follower’s other-praising moral emotions such as elevation, awe, and inspiration, which eventually motivates followers to report more unethical issues and engage in less unethical behavior. Thus, our research has provided an emotional linkage between ethical leadership and follower moral actions, contributing to literature on ethical leadership.
- The research study also contributes to emotion literature by focusing on other-praising moral emotions and offering new insights on the association between emotions and behaviors in the moral domain. It is well-documented that emotions have significant effects on individual’s attitudes and behaviors (Cropanzano et al., 2017; Lebel, 2017). However, previous studies have paid more attention on more generalized emotions such as positive emotions and negative emotions (Matta et al., 2014). Although those efforts increased our understanding about how emotions shape individual behaviors, several theorists have argued for more specific-domain research on the differentiated influences of specific emotions on behaviors (Tangney et al., 2007; Brown and Mitchell, 2010; Horberg et al., 2011). For example, several scholars have called for future research to pay attention to moral emotions by revealing its unique role in linking organizational moral standards and employee moral actions (Tangney et al., 2007; Lindebaum et al., 2017). In response to such calls, the research examined the positive association between ethical leadership, follower moral emotions, and moral behaviors. Specifically, the study’s results showed that followers are more likely to generate other-praising moral emotions toward their ethical leaders and then conduct more moral actions, such as reporting more unethical issues. Thus, the study’s research contributes to emotion literature by extending our knowledge about the influence of emotions on behaviors in the moral domain.
- Finally, the study’s research has contributed to ethical leadership literature by exploring the boundary conditions under which ethical leaders could be more influential in invoking follower moral emotions. Although the positive impacts of ethical leadership have been examined in previous studies (e.g., Brown et al., 2005; Avey et al., 2012), researcher knowledge about the conditions under which ethical leadership will be more effective is still far from being satisfactory. Several scholars have noted that without revealing the boundary conditions of effectiveness of ethical leadership, we would not be able reach a comprehensive understanding of ethical leadership (Brown and Treviño, 2006). In response, the results showed that ethical leadership will be more effective when the leader has high core self-evaluation. By contrast, when an ethical leader has low core self-evaluation, followers will not generate other-praising moral emotions toward their leader. The research thus contributes to ethical leadership literature by investigating how leader characteristics influence the impact of ethical leadership on followers.
- The study’s results verify the effectiveness of ethical leadership on follower moral actions, suggesting that ethical leadership is effective to promote employees to behave more ethically. Moreover, the findings show that ethical leaders trigger followers to foster other-praising moral emotions. Organizations should actively hire or cultivate more ethical leaders, since those leaders could benefit followers and, at the same time, the organization. Meanwhile, following our finding that ethical leadership elicits followers’ moral actions, leaders should themselves be more willing to behave ethically. Furthermore, our findings show that when an ethical leader has high core self-evaluation, followers’ moral emotions will be more likely invoked. This result suggests that ethical leaders should be self-motivated and express strong self-confidence in front of their followers. The study’s result also indicates that when the leader has low core self-evaluation, the positive effects of ethical leadership on followers’ moral emotions will be neutralized. This finding could act as a reminder that ethical leadership may not always be useful.