Mission Research
Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing
Research Summary
Michael E. Brown, Linda K. Treviño and David A. Harrison (2005) describe what ethical leadership means, its relationship with other leadership styles and formulates a way to measure ethical leadership.
Details
- Authors: Michael E. Brown, Linda K. Treviño, David A. Harrison
- Article Name: Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing
- Journal: Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process
- Date: 2005
- Issue: 97
- Page Numbers: 117–134
- URL/DOI: DOI:10.1016/j.obhdp.2005.03.002
- Accessed: 2 April 2022
Summary
This essay aims to create a descriptive perspective of ethical leadership using a nomological network approach (p. 117). It also creates a measure for ethical leadership, the Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS) (p. 118). It uses social learning theory as the theoretical foundation that underpins the concepts (pp. 129–130).
Whilst discussions of particular leadership styles, namely transformation/charismatic leadership, incorporate ethical considerations, these are not broad enough to wholly encompass ethical leadership (pp. 117–119). Furthermore, charismatic or transformational leaders are not necessarily ethical, because they might not be motivated by altruism (p. 118).
Important aspects of ethical leadership include integrity, honesty, trustworthiness, justice, fairness, principled decisions, setting strong ethical standards and accountability (pp. 118–119). As ethical leaders influence via modelling (p. 119), they must be credible role models and motivated by altruism (p. 120). The ethical behaviours of the leaders or ethical behaviours within the organisation must be, therefore, observable (p. 119). One way to do this is through punishment and reward (p. 119).
Brown et al. define ethical leadership as ‘the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement and decision-making.’ (p. 120) The term ‘normatively appropriate’ allows for the consideration of cultural views of what is deemed ethical so is intentionally vague (p. 120).
Brown et al. conducted several studies to create and validate their definition and the ELS.
Key Terms and Ideas
- nomological network: a network of patterns between hypothetical constructs and observable attributes, that allow for the validation of concepts.
- deontological: (not mentioned in the article) actions are right because they are defined as being right; the outcome is not considered.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
- Good: Academically rigorous in its study.
- Bad: The different sections repeat each other. Does not go into depth about the ethical framework it uses for the ELS: it appears to have a deontological emphasis without clearly defining the ethical behaviour.
- Ugly: The definition is too vague to actually define what is ethical. The definition is aware of cultural and contextual differences in ethics, but the studies do not seem to take this into account. Some of the words are very obscure and academic, making the applicability of the paper somewhat difficult.
Questions
- What ethical frameworks could be used to underpin this approach?
- Can the definition of ethical leadership be refined further?
Links to Other Research
Linda K. Treviño also co-wrote ‘The study of behavioral ethics within organizations: A special issue introduction’. This interestingly notices the need to define the definition of ethical behaviours in business further.
Helena Lui is very critical of these models of leadership theory.
Justin Marsh is a missionary who has served in Asia for over six years. He is the country leader of a team of missionaries and has just completed an MA that looks at missional practice. Whilst his team works within a range of contexts across the country, Justin’s focus is the Muslim minority groups. He is the owner of the publication THE CO-MISSION.
