Ethical Leaders: Trust, Work-Life Balance, and Treating Individuals as Unique

Abstract

This study examined the ethical behaviors of leaders and managers in organizations. Specifically, we explored the frequency with which employees perceive their managers to be ethical, as well as managerial traits that influenced employees’ perceptions. Respondents were asked to specify how frequently their managers exhibited ethical behaviors. We found that managers are not perceived as being routinely ethical. Interestingly, we found that trust, work-life balance, and treating individuals as unique positively influenced employee perceptions of their manager’s ethical behavior. The interrelationship between work-life balance and treating individuals as unique emerged as an unexpected finding which is new in the literature.