Despite the general expectation that ethical leadership fosters employees’ ethical behaviors, surprisingly little empirical effort has been made to verify this expected effect of ethical leadership. To address this research gap, we examine the role of ethical leadership in relation to a direct ethical outcome of employees: moral voice. Focusing on how and when ethical leadership motivates employees to speak up about ethical issues, we propose that moral efficacy serves as a psychological mechanism underlying the relationship, and that leader–follower value (...) congruence serves as a boundary condition for the effect of ethical leadership on moral efficacy. We tested the proposed relationships with matched reports from 154 Korean white-collar employees and their immediate supervisors, collected at two different points in time. The results revealed that ethical leadership was positively related to moral voice, and moral efficacy mediated the relationship. Importantly, as the relationship between ethical leadership and moral efficacy depended on leader–follower value congruence, the mediated relationship was effective only under high leader–follower value congruence. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Evidence from a growing number of studies suggests leader character as a means to advance leadership knowledge and practice. Based on this evidence, we propose a process model depicting how leader character manifests in ethical leadership that has positive psychological and performance outcomes for leaders, along with the moderating effect of leaders’ self-control on the character strength–ethical leadership–outcomes relationships. We tested this model using multisource data from 218 U.S. Air Force officers and their subordinates and superiors. Findings provide initial support (...) for leader character as a mechanism triggering positive outcomes such that only when officers reported a high level of self-control did their honesty/humility, empathy, and moral courage manifest in ethical leadership, associated with higher levels of psychological flourishing and in-role performance. We discuss the implications of these results for future theory development, research, and practice. (shrink)

We develop and test a process model demonstrating how leader charisma and constructive and destructive forms of narcissism interact to influence follower psychological empowerment and moral identity, using survey data from 667 direct reports of leaders from 13 different industries. Study results revealed that leader narcissism moderates the relationship between leader charisma and follower psychological empowerment such that when leaders possess a more constructive and less destructive narcissistic personality, their charisma has a stronger positive relationship with follower psychological empowerment. Study (...) results also revealed that follower psychological empowerment mediates the differential interactive effects of leader charisma and constructive and destructive narcissism on follower moral identity. Implications of these results for future theory development, research, and practice are discussed. (shrink)