Ethics and Leadership

Abstract

Leadership and ethics continue to be important areas of research. The devastating results of failed leadership in numerous Enron-like situations have ensured that this is the case. This chapter suggests how various leadership approaches and behaviors lead to or develop different types of employee behaviors that impact organizational outcomes. The framework reviews ethical, transformational, and servant leadership, and their relationship to self-regulatory focus. Specifically, promotion-oriented leaders tend to reflect transformational and servant-leadership behaviors and resulting organization cultures, while prevention-oriented leaders match the ethical leadership style and related organization culture. The prevention orientation is a conservative mindset guiding consistent leader and employee behavior, while the promotion orientation provides more opportunity for unique and innovative behaviors.