Accountability and Moral Competence Promote Ethical Leadership

Abstract

Accountability and moral competence are two factors that may have a positive effect on ethical leadership in organizations. This study utilized a survey methodology to investigate the relationship among accountability, moral competence, and ethical leadership in a sample of 103 leaders from a variety of industries and different countries. Accountability was found to be a significant positive predictor of ethical leadership. Moral competence was also found to moderate this relationship such that increases in moral competence enhanced the positive effects of accountability on ethical leadership. The results of the study suggest that organizations can increase ethical leadership throughout the company via accountability (especially selfaccountability) and moral competence by training their leaders to use self-monitoring behaviors and increasing moral education. Introduction In today’s rapidly changing business environment, leaders must make ethical decisions on a regular basis (Hsieh, 2017; Khokhar & Zia-ur-Rehman, 2017) and function as ethical leaders to promote, sustain, and maintain ethical behavior in followers (Jeewon, Jung Hyun, Yoonjung, Pillai, & Se Hyung, 2018; Kalshoven, Den Hartog, & De Hoogh, 2011; Northouse, 2013). Continual scandals in business and public sectors over the last decades have increased interest in ethical leadership (Khokhar & Zia-ur-Rehman, 2017; Marquardt, Brown, & Casper, 2018). The increase in the importance of ethics in business and management has led many scholars to focus on ethical leadership behavior (Ardelean, 2015; Eubanks, Brown, & Ybema, 2012; Javed, Rawwas, Khandai, Shahid, & Tayyeb, 2018; Mayer, Kuenzi, Greenbaum, Bardes, & Salvador, 2009; Northouse, 2013; Resick et al., 2011; Trevino, den Nieuwenboer, & KishGephart, 2014). Moreover, it has provided opportunities for researchers to investigate methods that produce increased knowledge of ethical behavior in organizations that can result in facilitating and sustaining the development of ethical leadership behavior. Volatility in today’s global economy confronts organizational leaders with numerous complex ethical dilemmas, and makes ethical decision-making an important component of leadership behavior. To sustain ethical leadership behavior in business and management, organizations need to decrease the likelihood that the leader will engage in inappropriate conduct (Beu & Buckley, 2001; Newman, Round, Bhattacharya, & Roy, 2017) by adopting mechanisms for enhancing ethical leadership behavior. KASSEM A. GHANEM, WINDSOR, ONTARIO, CANADA PATRICIA A. CASTELLI, SOUTHFIELD, MICHIGAN, U.S.A.