The Impact of Ethical Leadership Behavior on Employee Outcomes: The Roles of Psychological Empowerment and Authenticity

Abstract

The topics of authentic leadership and the ethical behavior of leaders have received significant interest in recent years due to the plethora of ethical scandals in corporations. In this paper, we developed a theoretical framework that maintains that employees' psychological empowerment mediates the relationship between leaders' ethical behaviors and employees' organizational commitment and trust in leaders. We also argue that authenticity (i.e., the consistency between leaders' true ethical intention and behavior) moderates the relationship between leaders' ethical behaviors and employee outcomes. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the proposed model for work on authentic leadership.