r Academy of Management Annals

2019, Vol. 13, No. 1, 148–187.

https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2016.0121

TAKING STOCK OF MORAL APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP:

AN INTEGRATIVE REVIEW OF ETHICAL, AUTHENTIC,
AND SERVANT LEADERSHIP
G. JAMES LEMOINE1
University at Buffalo—The State University of New York

CHAD A. HARTNELL
Georgia State University

HANNES LEROY
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam

Moral forms of leadership such as ethical, authentic, and servant leadership have seen
a surge of interest in the 21st century. The proliferation of morally based leadership
approaches has resulted in theoretical confusion and empirical overlap that mirror
substantive concerns within the larger leadership domain. Our integrative review
of this literature reveals connections with moral philosophy that provide a useful
framework to better differentiate the specific moral content (i.e., deontology, virtue
ethics, and consequentialism) that undergirds ethical, authentic, and servant leader-
ship, respectively. Taken together, this integrative review clarifies points of inte-
gration and differentiation among moral approaches to leadership and delineates
avenues for future research that promise to build complementary rather than re-
dundant knowledge regarding how moral approaches to leadership inform the broader
leadership domain.

INTRODUCTION journals that pertain to just three of these: ethical

leadership (Brown, Treviño, & Harrison, 2005),
A vast focal shift has swept the field of leader-
authentic leadership (Gardner, Cogliser, Davis, &
ship research in the 21st century. Whereas schol-
Dickens, 2011; Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing,
ars had previously argued that leadership could
& Peterson, 2008), and servant leadership (Liden,
not or should not be concerned with issues of
Wayne, Liao, & Meuser, 2014b; van Dierendonck,
ethics and morality (e.g., England & Lee, 1974;
2011).2
Rost, 1991; Thompson, 1956), the moral nature
The emergence of these new models raises old
of leaders is now seen by many as not only nec-
questions that have persisted in the larger leader-
essary for the good of society but also essential
ship domain regarding the degree to which pro-
for sustainable organizational success (Free-
liferating leadership constructs are distinct (Lord,
man, Wicks, & Parmar, 2004; Gulati, Nohria, &
Wohlgezogen, 2010; Padilla, Hogan, & Kaiser,
2
2007). As a result, many new morally focused ap- Our review focuses on ethical, authentic, and servant
proaches and theories of leadership have emerged in leadership because they each explicitly reference moral
the literature, with nearly 300 articles in peer-reviewed content in their definitions, are conceptually well devel-
oped, and offer a substantial body of empirical research to
draw on. Other constructs such as spiritual (Fry, Vitucci, &
The authors gratefully acknowledge Bruce Avolio, Terry Cedillo, 2005), humble (Owens & Hekman, 2012), and re-
Blum, Jim Detert, JP Eggers, Bill Gardner, Hamed Ghahremani, sponsible (Maak & Pless, 2006) leadership might refer-
Alex King, Lisa Schurer Lambert, Bob Liden, Ian MacFarlane, ence alternate or complementary forms of moral leadership.
Eric Michel, Kerry Sauley, Christina Shalley, Paul Tesluk, We do not review these constructs here because of their
Linda Treviño, Dirk van Dierendonck, and Daan van relative lack of scholarly attention compared with ethical,
Knippenberg for helpful advice in constructing this authentic, and servant leadership; however, their examina-
manuscript. tion through the moral framework revealed in our review
1
Corresponding author. would constitute a promising future research direction.

148
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2019 Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy
Day, Zaccaro, Avolio, & Eagly, 2017; Meuser, Gardner,
Dinh, Hu, Liden, & Lord, 2016). Criticisms of the
leadership literature have been abundant throughout
much of its scholarly life, among which are a per-
ceived lack of theoretical development, overlapping
constructs, questionable measurement, and redun-
dant outcomes (Lombardo & McCall, 1978; Rost,
1991; van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013; Yukl, 1999).
Are moral leadership studies accumulating re-
dundant or unique knowledge? Is the literature re-
peating the mistakes of the past or is it breaking new
ground?
A comprehensive literature review can address
questions about constructs’ novelty or redundancy
by clarifying their conceptual and theoretical bound-
aries, and then documenting evidence from the em-
pirical literature to discern whether their theoretical
commonalities and differences are supported (Clark
& Watson, 1995). Following this model, the first
part of our review takes stock of more than a decade
of rapidly accumulating empirical research to ascer-
tain what we have learned about moral approaches
to leadership. Our review of the empirical litera-
ture reveals a plethora of commonalities. Although
some distinctions among ethical, authentic, and ser-
vant leadership are clearly drawn by their respective
foundational literatures (a point we subsequently
explore in our theoretical review), most of the em-
pirical work treats them much more generally and
homogeneously in terms of their moral content, ob-
scuring important theoretical distinctions. This ge-
neric approach creates three problems. First, to a
large degree, scholars link ethical, authentic, and
servant leadership to common outcomes with few
tests to delineate the degree to which they generate
construct-specific effects. Second, researchers typically
use common theory to justify the inclusion of com-
mon mechanisms without regard to each leadership
approach’s theoretical distinctions. Finally, em-
pirical measures feature a degree of common com-
position, or significant points of overlap. These
challenges are not uncommon for constructs in
early stages of validation, but they paint a pessi-
mistic picture of the field’s future prospects. Rather
than accumulating unique knowledge, our findings
raise uncertainty about the extent to which moral
forms of leadership are breaking new ground.
On its own, the lack of differentiation highlighted
in our review of the empirical literature would seem
to suggest that ethical, authentic, and servant lead-
ership should be consolidated into a single “moral
leadership” construct. Such a conclusion, however,
dismisses the meaningful distinctions in each construct’s
149
conceptual foundations. We explore these points of
divergence in the second part of our review as we
consider the theoretical origins and moral founda-
tions of each construct, illuminating a much more
promising path forward for the study of moral
leadership. This review reveals each leadership
approach’s unique and even contrasting answer
to the question: “What is moral?” (Blasi, 1984;
Eisenbeiss, 2012). We found that ethical, authentic,
and servant leadership are distinct in their emphases
on compliance with normative standards, self-
awareness and self-concordance, and stakeholders,
respectively. These “moral contents” reflect the
three major approaches to normative morality pro-
posed by the moral philosophy literature (e.g.,
Baron, Pettit, & Slote, 1997; Shafer-Landau, 2015):
servant leadership’s emphasis on stakeholder out-
comes is congruent with moral consequentialist
theory, ethical leadership’s focus on norms and
standards aligns with deontology’s core precepts,
and authentic leadership’s foundation in the leader’s
self-awareness and moral courage is consonant with
the most critical elements of the virtue ethics ap-
proach. We highlight exemplars from a growing mi-
nority of empirical work that feature these moral
foundations and provide initial evidence for dif-
ferences in nomological networks. More precise
linkages to each leadership approach’s moral foun-
dations highlight the tensions that may exist between
various approaches to moral leadership. Indeed, con-
sequentialists, deontologists, and virtue ethicists may
end up with completely different responses when
faced with the same moral dilemma (Shafer-Landau,
2015). These distinctions and even potential tensions
between the three approaches stand in sharp contrast
to the empirical overlap we identified in the first part
of our review.
Our integrative review, thus, raises critical issues
concerning points of convergence among the three
moral leadership approaches that threaten to un-
dermine the extent to which extant scholarship can
inform how leaders’ moral behaviors uniquely con-
tribute to our understanding of leadership and its
effectiveness. We leverage the theoretical founda-
tions to identify underemphasized connections be-
tween moral forms of leadership and their respective
moral underpinnings. In the final section of this re-
view, we describe how attention to these moral bases
can both attenuate the challenges of common out-
comes, theory, and composition identified in the
empirical review and also inform new research di-
rections which promise to meaningfully expand
our understanding of how morality and leadership
150 Academy of Management Annals
intersect. We discuss how these opportunities have
important implications for theory and measurement
within the broader leadership literature.
In summary, our review reveals substantial prom-
ise in the study of moral leadership, albeit promise
largely untapped in much (but not all) of the extant
research. A surface-level examination of the broad
body of empirical literature might indicate that au-
thentic, ethical, and servant leadership lack distinc-
tion and could be consolidated into a single moral
leadership construct without meaningful loss, but
a deeper investigation of their conceptualizations and
emerging substreams of research suggests that this
would be an atheoretical mistake. Considering any
of the three approaches to moral leadership as “ge-
nerically moral” obscures potentially important vari-
ance in both the constructs themselves and their
correlates and oversimplifies much more complex
phenomena. Their conceptual distinctions highlight
the need for more thoughtful consideration of the
forms of normative morality in moral leadership re-
search, and a small body of exemplar research show-
cases the promise of such an approach. The moral
foundations have significant import for improving
each construct’s validity by refining their conceptual
boundaries, further differentiating their nomological
networks, and disentangling commonalities among
their empirical measures. Resolving these issues illu-
minates an array of meaningful research questions with
potential to generate more robust theory on how mo-
rality and leadership intersect and interact in practice.
A CONSTRUCT VALIDATION APPROACH
We adopt a construct validation approach to
structure our review. Contrary to popular practice,
construct validation is not a stamp of approval
that exists in perpetuity once certain initial em-
pirical thresholds have been met. Rather, construct
validation is an iterative process of theoretical
development and refinement via empirical evalua-
tion (Cronbach, 1971). The theory is developed by
specifying a nomological network, or a pattern of
relationships based on theory and observation that
“make clear what something is” (Cronbach & Meehl,
1955: p. 290). Aspects of this nomological network
are tested empirically, the findings of which form
the basis of evidence for refined theory. Accord-
ingly, construct validation is a continual learning
process in which nomological networks expand
and contract based on new insights derived from
theoretical development and empirical investiga-
tion. This dynamic interplay between theory and
January
measurement underscores the importance of peri-
odically assessing the degree to which a construct’s
accumulation of empirical evidence supports their
theoretical bases and identifying opportunities for
scientific advancement via “ever more precise spec-
ification” (van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013: 45).
Our review follows the theoretical development,
empirical assessment, and theoretical refinement
steps of the construct validation process. We first re-
view ethical, authentic, and servant leadership’s
conceptual foundations. Next, we review the empiri-
cal literature to assess whether it corresponds with
theoretical distinctions. We then identify theoretical
refinements through reviewing the moral moorings
that underpin each form of moral leadership. Drawing
on these three components of our review, we discuss
the implications of theoretical refinement for the fu-
ture of ethical, authentic, and servant leadership re-
search as well as offer insight into how all three moral
forms of leadership can contribute uniquely to our
understanding of moral leadership in the workplace.
REVIEW OF CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS
We begin our examination of the three forms of
moral leadership by reviewing their definitions and
dimensional structure (Table 1) as a prelude to our
review of the empirical literature. Our purpose in
this portion of the review is not to critique or add to
extant theory. Rather, we summarize seminal con-
ceptualizations as a foundation upon which to exam-
ine whether extant empirical work has accentuated
points of theoretical commonality or distinctiveness.
Ethical Leadership—A Focus on Compliance with
Normative Standards
Ethical leadership is defined as “the demonstra-
tion 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” (Brown et al., 2005: p. 120).
An ethical leader acts both as a “moral person,”
maintaining fairness and honesty in relationships
with subordinates, and as a “moral manager,” dem-
onstrating and reinforcing desired and normatively
appropriate behaviors (Table 1) (Brown et al., 2005;
Treviño, Hartman, & Brown, 2000). Predicated on
these conceptual foundations, the framers of ethical
leadership posited that ethical leaders are credible
role models who emulate desired ethical attitudes
and behaviors for subordinates and provide rewards
2019 Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy 151

TABLE 1
Conceptual Definitions and Dimensional Structure
Conceptual Definition Dimensional Structure

Ethical leadership “The demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal c Moral person
actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such c Moral manager (reinforcement
conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and modeling)
and decision-making.” (Brown et al., 2005: 120)
Authentic leadership “A process that draws from both positive psychological capacities and c Self-awareness
a highly developed organizational context, which results in both greater c Balanced processing
self-awareness and self-regulated positive behaviors on the part of c Relational transparency
leaders and associates, fostering positive self-development.” (Luthans & c Internalized moral perspective
Avolio, 2003: 243)
“(a) The role of the leader is a central component of their self-concept,
(b) they have achieved a high level of self-resolution or self-concept
clarity, (c) their goals are self-concordant, and (d) their behavior is self-
expressive.” (Shamir and Eilam, 2005: 398–399)
Servant leadership “The servant-leader is servant first... the difference manifests itself in the c Behaving ethically
care taken by the servant - first to make sure that other people’s highest- c Creating value for the community
priority needs are being served... do those served grow as persons? c Putting others first
Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more c Helping others grow and succeed
autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And what is c Emotional healing
the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit or, at least, c Empowering others
not be further deprived?” (Greenleaf, 1977: 13–14) c Conceptual skills
The servant leader acknowledges “his or her moral responsibility not only
to the success of the organization, but also to his or her subordinates, the
organization’s customers, and other organizational stakeholders.”
(Ehrhart, 2004: 68)

for ethical conduct and consequences for “those who
don’t follow the standards” (Brown et al., 2005:
p. 120). They combine a general, consistent moral
character with a focus on organizational or cultural
norms, standards, and rule compliance. These con-
ceptual emphases appear in the unidimensional me-
asure of ethical leadership, representing both the
moral person and manager (Brown et al., 2005).
Authentic Leadership—A Focus on Self-Awareness
and Moral Self-Concordance
In contrast to ethical leadership’s focus on compli-
ance with external expectations, authentic leadership
is primarily concerned with a leader’s self-awareness,
self-regulation, and self-concordance, and modeling
these characteristics to subordinates (Luthans & Avolio,
2003). Authentic leadership uniquely and consis-
tently focuses on leaders’ self-concept and concordant
self-expression (Shamir & Eilam, 2005). Authentic
leaders are described as individuals who value a sa-
lience of self over role (Henderson & Hoy, 1983),
“persons who have achieved high levels of authen-
ticity in that they know who they are, what they be-
lieve and value, and they act on those values and
beliefs while transparently interacting with others”
(Avolio, Gardner, Walumbwa, Luthans, & May, 2004:
p. 802). Authentic leaders, thus, make moral judg-
ments freely and independently, without concern
for potentially opposing normative or external social
pressures (Guignon, 2004; Taylor, 1991).
As shown in Table 1, authentic leadership is
composed of four dimensions: self-awareness (i.e.,
knowing oneself), balanced processing (i.e., objec-
tively thinking through both sides of issues), re-
lational transparency (i.e., acting in accordance
with one’s true nature rather than contrived or fake
manners), and an internalized moral perspective
(i.e., moral self-regulation and behaving in accor-
dance with these moral values) (Walumbwa et al.,
2008). Although this operationalization has been
dominant in research and its dimensional structure
has been validated (Neider & Schriesheim, 2011),
a variety of definitions and understandings of the
construct have emerged (Gardner et al., 2011, for
a review). The common element among them is a
focus on the leader’s self-confidence, self-concept,
self-awareness, authenticity, and general character.
Servant Leadership—A Focus on Multiple
Stakeholders
Robert Greenleaf defined servant leadership as: “The
servant-leader is servant first. . . the difference manifests
152 Academy of Management Annals
itself in the care taken. . . to make sure that other people’s
highest priority needs are being served. . . × Do those
served grow as persons? Do they, while being served,
become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more
likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the
effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit
or at least not be further deprived?” (Greenleaf, 1970: p.
27). This conceptualization is frequently referenced
(e.g., Pless & Maak, 2011; van Dierendonck, 2011), but its
usefulness as a construct definition is limited due to
defining servant leadership in terms of its outcomes
rather than its behaviors.
Whereas many scholars cite and build from Green-
leaf’s definition of servant leadership, multiple efforts
have attempted to refine its conceptual focus. Ehrhart
(2004: p. 68) defined servant leadership as one in
which the leader recognizes “his or her moral re-
sponsibility not only to the success of the organization,
but also to his or her subordinates, the organization’s
customers, and other organizational stakeholders.”
The emphasis on stakeholders is prevalent in other
definitions of servant leadership, such as “an un-
derstanding and practice of leadership that places the
good of those led over the self-interest of the leader”
(Laub, 1999: p. 23); “[a style of leadership which] em-
phasizes leader behaviors that focus on follower de-
velopment, and de-emphasizing glorification of the
leader” (Hale & Fields, 2007: p. 397); “a model that
identifies serving others – including employees, cus-
tomers, and community – as the number-one priority”
(Spears, 2002: p. 4); “a group-oriented approach
to leadership that emphasizes serving others”
(Schaubroeck, Lam, & Peng, 2011: p. 865); and
“influence behaviors, manifested humbly and ethi-
cally within relationships, oriented towards follower
development, empowerment, and continuous and
meaningful improvement for all stakeholders”
(Lemoine, 2015: p. 45). In sum, Greenleaf’s conception
and subsequent definitions align in their suggestion
that servant leadership’s distinctive focus is on serving
multiple stakeholders. The most prominent oper-
ationalizations of servant leadership (Ehrhart, 2004;
Liden, Wayne, Zhao, & Henderson, 2008) comprise
similar dimensions and include behaving ethically,
creating value for the community, putting others first,
helping others grow and succeed, emotional healing,
empowering others, and conceptual skills (Table 1).
Comparing Ethical, Authentic, and Servant
Leadership
Although ethical, authentic, and servant leader-
ship are commonly grouped together as somewhat
January
homogeneous moral approaches to leadership (Dinh,
Lord, Gardner, Meuser, Liden, & Hu, 2014), their
definitions reveal potentially meaningful distinctions
in their conceptual emphases. Ethical leadership
focuses on compliance with normative standards,
authentic leadership focuses on self-awareness and
self-concordance, and servant leadership focuses
on benefiting multiple stakeholders. It was with this
framing in mind that we commenced our full
review.
In the ensuing empirical literature review, we
document the outcomes and mediators examined in
nearly 300 articles focusing on ethical, authentic,
and servant leadership. The study-specific results of
this review are reported in Appendices 1–3, which
are available as online supplements to this article.
Appendix 1 reports the direct effects between ethi-
cal, authentic, or servant leadership and a study’s
outcome(s). Appendix 2 documents the mediating
mechanisms through which ethical, authentic, and
servant leadership indirectly affect a study’s outcome.
These tables collectively attest to the voluminous
and diverse empirical support for the criterion-related
validity of the three approaches to moral leadership.
Appendix 3 illustrates the more limited body of liter-
ature documenting antecedents to ethical, authentic,
and servant leadership. Rather than focusing on the
granular detail of each individual study, we report
conclusions derived from broad patterns that emerged
within our review.
EMPIRICAL LITERATURE REVIEW
Our review of the empirical body of literature re-
veals that similarities among ethical, authentic, and
servant leadership’s effects are far more prevalent
than their differences. Our review identified three
problems that require attention to increase the use-
fulness of research into moral forms of leadership:
common outcomes (i.e., emphasis on criterion-related
validity), common theory, and common composition
(i.e., construct measurement overlap).
Common Outcomes—Emphasis on Criterion-
Related Validity
A substantial volume of scholarship has focused
on connecting ethical, authentic, and servant lead-
ership to common organizational outcomes such as
positive employee attitudes and behaviors to estab-
lish criterion-related validity in each respective
stream of research. Table 2 illustrates the extent of
this issue, listing the most frequent outcomes and
2019 Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy 153

TABLE 2
Ethical, Authentic, and Servant Leadership’s Criterion-Related Validity (Direct and Indirect Effects)
Type of
Outcome Ethical Leadership Authentic Leadership Servant Leadership

Perceived 2 studies: Brown et al. (2005); Toor 2 studies: Emuwa and Fields (2017); 3 studies: Flynn et al. (2016); Hale and
leader and Ofori (2009) Peus et al. (2012) Fields (2007); Winston and Fields (2015)
effectiveness
Justice 6 studies, including Demirtas (2015); 3 studies: Hsiung (2012); Kiersch 6 studies, incuding Kool and van
Shin et al. (2015); Wang et al. and Byrne (2015); Li et al. (2014) Dierendonck (2012); Mayer et al. (2008);
(2015) Walumbwa et al. (2010)
Job satisfaction 10 studies, including Avey et al. 14 studies, including Cerne et al. 11 studies, including Barbuto and Wheeler
(2012); Neubert et al. (2009); Ren (2014); Olaniyan and Hystad (2006); Neubert et al. (2016); van
and Chadee (2017) (2016); Read and Laschinger (2015) Dierendonck and Nuijten (2010)
Work 6 studies, including Cheng et al. 10 studies, including Azanza et al. 6 studies, including Carter and Baghurst
engagement (2014); Den Hartog and Belschak (2016); Giallonardo et al. (2010); (2014); De Clercq et al. (2014); Ling et al.
(2012); Qin et al. (2014) Wong et al. (2010) (2016)
Organizational 10 studies, including Hansen et al. 10 studies, including Gatling et al. 12 studies, including Chinomona et al.
commitment (2013); Kim and Brymer (2011); (2016); Leroy et al. (2012); Rego (2013); Schneider and George (2011);
Nyves and Story (2015) et al. (2016) Zhou and Miao (2014)
Intention to 7 studies, including DeConinck 5 studies, including Fallatah et al. 6 studies, including Hunter et al. (2013);
turnover (2015); Lam et al. (2016); Ruiz (2017); Kiersch and Byrne (2015); Jaramillo et al. (2009); Kashyap and
et al. (2011) Olaniyan and Hystad (2016) Ragnekar (2016)
Well-being 5 studies, including Harvey et al. 11 studies, including Laschinger and 4 studies, including Chen, Chen, and Li
and stress (2014); Mo and Shi (2017b); Yang Read (2016); Rego et al. (2014); (2013); Rivkin, Diestel, and Schmidt
(2014) Semedo et al. (2017) (2014); Tang et al. (2016)
Individual 10 studies, including Bonner et al. 10 studies, including Clapp-Smith 11 studies, including Liden et al. (2008);
performance (2016); Letwin et al. (2016); et al. (2009); Li et al. (2014); Schaubroeck et al. (2011); Schwepker
Schaubroeck et al. (2016) Walumbwa et al. (2008) and Schultz (2015)
Team 2 studies: Elbaz and Haddoud (2017); 3 studies: Hannah et al. (2011); 6 studies, including Hu and Liden (2011);
performance Walumbwa et al. (2012) Lyubovnikova et al. (2017); Rego Liden et al. (2014b); Song et al. (2015)
et al. (2015)
Firm 1 study: Shin et al. (2015) 2 studies: Clapp-Smith et al. (2009); 5 studies, including Barbuto and Wheeler
performance Hmieleski et al. (2012) (2006); Huang et al. (2016); Peterson et al.
(2012)
OCBs 21 studies, including Eisenbeiss and 8 studies, including Al Zaabi et al. 21 studies, including Bobbio et al. (2012);
van Knippenberg (2015); Kacmar (2016); Hirst et al. (2016); Shapira- Ehrhart (2004); Panaccio et al. (2015)
et al (2013); Tu and Lu (2016) Lishchinsky and Tsemach (2014)
Proactivity 1 study: Den Hartog and Belschak 2 studies: Valsania et al. (2016a); 1 study: Bande et al. (2016)
(2012) Leroy et al. (2015)
Creativity and 4 studies, including Dhar (2016); 8 studies, including Malik et al. 10 studies, including Erkutlu and Chafra
innovation Chen and Hou, (2016); Yidong and (2016); Semedo et al. (2017); (2015); Liden et al. (2014); Yang et al.
Xinxin (2013) Valsania et al. (2016b) (2017);
Deviance 12 studies, including Hannah et al. 4 studies, including Laschinger and 1 study: Verdorfer et al. (2015)
(2014); Kolthoff et al. (2010); van Fida (2014); Laschinger and Read
Gils et al. (2015) (2016); Shapira-Lishchinsky and
Tsemach (2014)
Customer 2 studies: Qin et al. (2014); 11 studies, including Chen et al. (2015);
service Schaubroeck et al. (2016) Kwak and Kim (2015); Wu et al. (2013)
behaviors

select citations for the multitude of articles study-
ing the relationship (either direct or indirect) be-
tween one of the three forms of moral leadership
and each outcome (the full version of this table
with a complete citation listing can be accessed in
online Appendix 4). Research on common covariates
is necessary to establish each leadership style’s
importance in organizations (particularly for rela-
tively new approaches to leadership), but the sheer
volume of work relating moral forms of leadership
to variables common to any form of effective lead-
ership adds little to our understanding of the most
distinctive elements of each construct. Although
replication studies are helpful in any scientific
154 Academy of Management Annals
field, there comes a point at which effects are
clearly established and research becomes redun-
dant. No fewer than 50 articles, for example, have
revealed links between moral leadership and or-
ganizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) (an un-
surprising finding, given the link between other
leadership styles and OCB). Continuing to investi-
gate common outcomes may be justified if studies
examine unique mechanisms through which moral
forms of leadership influence important outcomes
such as leader effectiveness and follower attitudes
and behaviors. However, the vast majority of em-
pirical work that we reviewed examined a common
set of mediating mechanisms as well, as shown in
Figure 1, and the arguments for their inclusion are
generally similar. Many of these mediating mecha-
nisms are “the usual (empirical) suspects” that are also
frequently hypothesized across general (and non-
morally focused) leadership behaviors. Such simi-
larity among the three constructs raises questions
FIGURE 1
The Usual (Empirical) Suspects—Mediators and Outcomes Common to Ethical, Authentic, and Servant
Leadership
Moral forms of leadership Mediators
Context
Justice climate
Trust climate
Positive climate
Affect/well-being
Positive affect
Emotional exhaution (-)
Cognition
Efficacy
Promotion focus
Team process
Communication
Motivation
Ethical leadership Intrinsic motivation
Authentic leadership Need satisfaction
Servant leadership Perceived org./supervisor support
Psychological capital
Psychological empowerment
Psychological ownership
Psychological safety
Work engagement
Org./group/personal identication
Overall justice
Distributive/procedural/interactional justice
Trust in leader
Behaviors
Knowledge-sharing
Lower-level leadership (behavioral contagion)
LMX
January
about their distinctiveness: if all three predict similar
outcomes via similar mediators, to what degree are
three separate constructs necessary? Furthermore, if
these outcomes and mediators are similar to those
found in research on more goal-focused and less
ethics-centric forms of leadership, what makes moral
leadership uniquely important?
The abundance of common criteria documented in
the extant literature disregard novel outcomes that
reflect the theoretical distinctions among the three
moral forms of leadership. Furthermore, with a pre-
ponderance of evidence supporting ethical, authen-
tic, and servant leadership’s criterion validity, we
must conclude that continued research repeatedly
examining well-established links between moral
forms of leadership and common outcomes is re-
dundant. Sustained efforts in this respect threaten to
blur important distinctions among the moral forms
of leadership established in original theory and stall
the progression of knowledge. This conclusion does
Outcomes
Leader effectiveness
Perceived leader effectiveness
Affect/well-being
Burnout (-)
Stress (-)
Well-being
Job attitudes
Job satisfaction
Supervisor satisfaction
Organizational commitment
Affective commitment
Turnover intention (-)
Behaviors
OCB
Voice
Extra effort
Org./group/individual performance
Creativity/innovation
Proactivity
Customer service behaviors
Deviance (-)
2019 Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy 155

not suggest discontinuing empirical research on
moral leadership; rather, it calls attention to the need
for investigating moral leadership’s effects on more
theoretically specific outcomes.
Common Theory—Shared Mechanisms and Logic
In addition to the focus on common outcomes,
another factor that drives empirical similarities
among authentic, ethical, and servant leadership is
the use of common theories to explain how and why
each moral form of leadership is related with par-
ticular outcomes. The “usual (theoretical) suspects”
among ethical, authentic, and servant leadership
are identified in Table 3. Not surprisingly, our re-
view reveals that social exchange theory and social
learning theory were used most ubiquitously to
explain the effects of moral forms of leadership,
collectively accounting for more than half of the
research in which a guiding theoretical perspective
was listed (Table 3). An inspection of authentic,
ethical, and servant leadership research using these
two theories reveals a common underlying logic.
Social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) has been ap-
plied within moral forms of leadership to suggest
that moral leaders engender positive relationships
with followers who reciprocate by engaging in pos-
itive behaviors (that may be directed toward the
leader, colleagues, the work unit, or customers) that
their leader values. Similarly, social learning the-
ory (Bandura, 1977) suggests that followers ob-
serve their moral leaders’ behaviors because leaders
are attractive and credible role models. Followers
emulate these positive behaviors because they are
expected to be valued, rewarded, and supported
in the workplace. Taken together, these two theo-
ries within the moral forms of leadership literature
draw similar conclusions about leaders’ effects on
followers as the leadership and affect literature
(van Knippenberg & van Kleef, 2016). That is, moral
forms of leadership engender positive relationships
that develop followers’ positive affect and cogni-
tions, resulting in followers engaging in positive
behaviors that generate positive outcomes. The
body of evidence establishing this phenomenon in-
dicates that continuing to retread this ground would
do little to enhance our understanding of how moral
leadership works.
Table 3 shows that social identity theory, self-
determination theory, and social cognitive theory are
also points of theoretical commonality among moral
approaches to leadership. Using these theories
broadly has led researchers to generate a body of
research with more empirical similarities than dif-
ferences because they consider similar sets of me-
diating mechanisms. For instance, social identity
theory (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Tajfel & Turner, 1986)
is invoked to consider the extent to which moral
forms of leadership compel followers to identify
with the supervisor, workgroup, or the organization.
When applied loosely, these theories generate the
conclusion that positive forms of leadership are
similarly motivational (i.e., meet followers’ needs,
influence followers to identify with the collective,
and build followers’ confidence in their compe-
tence). Empirical similarities driven by common
theoretical applications have, thus, led scholars to
become increasingly wary of generic research
models in which multiple forms of leadership are
seemingly substitutable. Our point is not that these
theories are irrelevant (in fact, they seem relevant for
any positive leadership approach). Rather, it is to
underscore the importance of applying general the-
ories in more specific ways to better elucidate the
theoretical differences among forms of leadership
(moral or otherwise).

TABLE 3
The Usual (Theoretical) Suspects—Theoretical Perspectives Common to Ethical, Authentic, and Servant Leadership
Count of Papers That Invoke Common Theoretical Perspectives

Ethical Authentic Servant Total Across Three Moral

Leadership Leadership Leadership Forms of Leadership

Theoretical Perspectives
Social exchange theory 24 9 34 67
Social learning theory 45 5 12 62
Self-determination theory 1 12 11 24
Social identity theory 4 6 11 21
Social cognitive theory 3 6 6 15
156 Academy of Management Annals January

Common Composition—Construct authentic, and servant leadership’s distinctive di-

Measurement Overlap
A detailed comparison of the items underlying the
most frequently used validated measurement scales
indicates that commonalities in their item composi-
tion may contribute to the substantive empirical
overlap identified earlier. The operationalization of
each moral approach to leadership should be derived
from its theoretical underpinnings (Clark & Watson,
1995; Cronbach & Meehl, 1955). Consistent with
the theoretical differences that underlie ethical, au-
thentic, and servant leadership, our review of each
construct’s operationalization revealed some distinc-
tive emphases. Despite these important differences,
we also uncovered several points of commonality.
Figure 2 illustrates the conceptual overlap among
ethical, authentic, and servant leadership, as well
as the dimensions unique to each approach to moral
leadership. Table 4 identifies specific sample items
from the measurement scales that illustrate com-
monalities and differences among ethical, authentic,
and servant leadership. We first discuss ethical,
mensions and then elaborate on their shared aspects.
Distinctive dimensions. Consistent with their
respective conceptual definitions, the core opera-
tional distinctions among ethical, authentic, and
servant leadership are compliance with normative
standards, self-concordance and self-awareness, and
stakeholders, respectively. Among the moral ap-
proaches to leadership, ethical leadership is unique
in its use of rewards and punishments to hold fol-
lowers accountable for organizational standards
and values. Ethical leadership’s novel focus on
compliance with normative standards is exemplified
by the item “[my manager] disciplines employees
who violate ethical standards.” Authentic leaders
uniquely demonstrate self-awareness and actively
seek feedback for personal growth. These behaviors
are consistent with the theoretical importance of
self-awareness and self-regulation to authentic
leadership and are evidenced by items such as “[my
manager] solicits views that challenge his or her
deeply held positions.” A novel aspect of servant

FIGURE 2
Empirical Commonalities and Distinctions among Ethical, Authentic, and Servant Leadership

Ethical leadership Authentic leadership

Moral consistency

Uses rewards and Demonstrates self-

punishments to hold awareness and actively
followers accountable seeks feedback for
for organizational personal growth
standards and values
Moral/ethical
behavior

Enhances followers’
Concern for followers
personal growth

Servant leadership

Creates valued
outcome for multiple
stakeholders
 2019

TABLE 4
Comparison of Ethical, Authentic, and Servant Construct Operationalizations
Ethical Leadership Example Items Authentic Leadership Example Items Servant Leadership Example Items

Most frequently used
measurement scales
Theoretical dimensions
Exhibits moral/ethical
Behavior
Holds high ethical
standards
Interacts openly, fairly,
and honestly
Moral consistency
Concern for followers
Enhances followers’
personal growth
Holds followers
Brown et al. (2005) Neider and Schriesheim Liden et al. (2008) Ehrhart (2004)
(2011); Walumbwa
et al. (2008)
Role modeling “Sets an example of how to Internalized moral “Makes difficult Behaving ethically Behaving ethically “Holds high ethical
normatively do things the right way perspective decisions based on standards”
appropriate (i.e., in terms of ethics” high standards of
ethical) behavior ethical conduct”
Treating employees fairly; “Makes fair and balanced Relational transparency “Says exactly what he Forming relationships “My manager is always
Communicating with decisions”; “Can be or she means”; with subordinates honest”; “My manager
openness and honesty trusted” “Tells you the hard spends the time to form
truth” quality relationships
with department
employees”
Moral Person “Conducts his/her Internalized moral “Makes decisions
personal life in an perspective based on his or her
ethical manner” core values”
Caring “Has the best interests of Emotional healing
employees in mind” Helping subordinates Helping subordinates grow “My manager puts my best
grow and succeed and succeed interests ahead of his/
her own”
Relational transparency “Encourages everyone Empowering Empowering subordinates “My manager encourages
to speak their me to handle important
mind” work decisions on my
own”
Using rewards and “Disciplines employees
Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy

accountable punishments to hold who violate ethical

followers accountable standards”
for ethical conduct
Demonstrates self- Self-awareness; Balanced “Shows he or she
awareness processing understands how
specific actions
impact others”
Creates valued Conceptual skills Having conceptual skills “My manager has
outcomes for a thorough
multiple understanding of our
stakeholders organization and its
goals”
Putting subordinates first Putting subordinates first “My manager seems to care
more about my success
than his/her own”
Creating value for the Creating value for those “My manager is always
community outside of the interested in helping
organization people in our
community”
157
158 Academy of Management Annals
leadership is that it is attentive to and creates valued
outcomes for multiple stakeholders internal and
external to the organization. This focus is opera-
tionally exemplified by dimensions that reference
creating value for others, and items such as “My
manager is always interested in helping people in
our community.” As shown in Table 4, all three of
these unique foci are prominently featured in the
constructs’ measurement, providing the most useful
basis for establishing their distinctions. These points
of differentiation are critical to establishing dis-
criminant validity.
Common dimensions. As would be expected of
all moral approaches to leadership, ethical, authen-
tic, and servant leadership model moral/ethical be-
havior. However, the measurement items used to
assess their approaches to moral/ethical behavior
are undifferentiated. All three constructs ask re-
spondents to assess the degree to which their man-
ager holds or makes decisions based on high ethical
standards. Ethical leadership assesses ethical be-
havior by the item: “[my manager] sets an example
of how to do thing the right way in terms of
ethics.” Authentic leadership includes the item
“[my manager] makes difficult decisions based on
high standards of ethical conduct.” Servant leader-
ship similarly measures the item: “[my manager]
holds high ethical standards.” These items appear to
measure the same thing. Although generic morality
is a theoretical component of each approach to moral
leadership, these items may nonetheless obscure
empirical distinctions among the scales. Similarly,
other common behaviors include being open, fair,
honest, and respectful.
Whereas this moral/ethical behavior is common
to all three moral forms of leadership, other com-
monalities exist between two of the three leader-
ship approaches. Ethical leadership and authentic
leadership, for instance, share a focus on moral
consistency, although the nature of this consistency
varies in a way that mirrors each concept’s con-
ceptual emphases. Authentic leadership scales
assess a self-concordant approach to moral consis-
tency by measuring the degree to which behaviors
are consistent with core values and beliefs. For
ethical leadership, this dimension refers to the
congruence between the leader’s actions and the
norms they enforce to their followers. That is, eth-
ical leaders hold themselves to the same high ethi-
cal standards that they expect of others, showing
consistency and modeling appropriate behaviors. This
common focus on moral consistency suggests that be-
havioral integrity (Simons, 2002), or the alignment
January
between words and actions, is important for both eth-
ical and authentic leaders.
Ethical leadership also shares a point of com-
monality with servant leadership: concern for fol-
lowers. Concern for followers pertains to leaders’
focus on advocating for and protecting their fol-
lowers’ best interests, not using their followers as
a resource to promote self-interested, personal gain.
Ethical leadership scales assess the degree to which
a manager “has the best interests of employees in
mind.” Servant leadership similarly asks followers
to evaluate the extent to which a manager “puts my
best interests ahead of his/her own.” These com-
monalities indicate that prosocial motives and be-
haviors (Bolino & Grant, 2016, for a review) are
shared across ethical and servant leadership.
Servant leadership and authentic leadership are
both attuned to followers’ development and personal
growth. They develop followers through empower-
ing them and encouraging them to be highly in-
volved and participate in making important work
decisions. These behaviors foster followers’ personal
growth by building autonomy and self-efficacy
which, consequently, enhance their pride in and
personal responsibility taken for work outcomes.
These commonalities between authentic and servant
leadership indicate that coaching (Hackman &
Wageman, 2005) is an essential behavior for both,
helping followers acquire skills essential to their
personal growth and development.
Our review of construct operationalizations re-
veals that measures address their respective moral
form of leadership’s unique theoretical emphases,
but they also incorporate other, more generic
moral content that obfuscates their distinctiveness.
Points of commonality among ethical, authentic,
and servant leadership—including general positive
leader behaviors such as generic morality, behav-
ioral integrity, prosocial behaviors, and coaching
behaviors—can be problematic for discriminant
validity because they can create confounds among
the three constructs. When facets of authentic, ethical,
and servant leadership are measured with similar
items, a risk emerges that research may be accumu-
lating redundant information, or worse yet, generat-
ing spurious conclusions.
Altogether, common outcomes, common theory,
and common composition raise serious doubts about
the usefulness of multiple approaches to moral lead-
ership. The following section more closely inspects
each leadership approach’s theoretical foundations
and empirical exemplars in an effort to more clearly
differentiate among moral forms of leadership.
2019 Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy
CHALLENGE TO THE STATE OF THE SCIENCE
The Promise of Authentic, Ethical, and
Servant Leadership
The meaningful theoretical and empirical issues
identified in the previous section may spark doubt
as to the usefulness of studying multiple moral ap-
proaches to leadership. After all, if they all have
similar structures, are measured in overlapping
ways, and work through similar mechanisms to
reach similar outcomes, can we truly assume they are
distinct? Does research on authentic, ethical, and
servant leadership add new knowledge to our un-
derstanding of how morality affects leadership, or
are they merely symptoms of our field’s construct
proliferation? The body of research described thus
far suggests that ethical, authentic, and servant
leadership’s effects are overly similar to the point of
redundancy. In addition, significant overlaps in
measurement lead to highly correlated constructs,
building the case that the three might, indeed, be
redundant.3
Despite these troubling commonalities, there is
also evidence of promise. Although a great deal of the
literature around moral forms of leadership seems
overlapping and limited in contribution, the original
theory developing authentic, ethical, and servant
leadership clearly builds constructs which are
meaningfully distinct from one another as well as
other leadership constructs and theories. Further-
more, there is a small but substantial body of empir-
ical work examining and highlighting each leadership
approach’s unique elements. In this section, we in-
vestigate these promising areas of distinction and illu-
minate connections among them with seminal theories
of moral philosophy.
Authentic, ethical, and servant leadership are all,
in general terms, moral. Each, however, uses a
markedly distinct theoretical approach to normative
morality (or the question of what is good and right,
and what is not: Shafer-Landau, 2015). These normative
3
To be fair, questions of similar theory, mechanisms,
measurements, and outcomes have been asked of virtually
all branches of leadership research for decades, includ-
ing but not limited to consideration and structure (e.g.,
Schriesheim & Kerr, 1974), transformational-charismatic
leadership (e.g., van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013; Yukl,
1999), and LMX (e.g., O’Donnell, Yukl, & Taber, 2012;
Schriesheim, Castro, & Cogliser, 1999). We acknowledge
that these criticisms may not be unique to the moral forms
of leadership, but this makes them no less pressing or es-
sential to resolve.
159
moral foci are referred to in multiple literatures as
the content of morality or the criteria an individual
uses to determine what is fundamentally right or
wrong (Eisenbeiss, 2012). Put another way, multi-
ple individuals with equally strong moral identi-
ties, sensitivities, and maturation (Hannah, Avolio,
& May, 2011a) might agree that it is important to
take the action judged to be most morally correct,
but those individuals could disagree on what, ex-
actly, constitutes the morally correct answer. As
Blasi (1984; p. 132) noted, “where one person sees
compassion as being essential to his or her identity,
another emphasizes instead fairness and justice;
where one considers obedience as a central ideal,
another stresses moral freedom.”
Put another way, it is clear that authentic, ethical,
and servant leadership have all been positioned as
“moral” forms of leadership. But much more rarely
addressed is the question of what, specifically, that
morality entails. Both political conservatives and
liberals view their opinions as moral, but if those
opinions contradict (as they often do), how can both
be right? Different people view morality from dif-
ferent perspectives, answering fundamental ques-
tions of what is right and what is wrong very
differently (Haidt, 2012): those on the political left
and right, for example, often view the other’s ap-
proach as amoral or even immoral. This is not just
a theoretical argument about ideology. The moral
forms of leadership indicate that the question
“What is moral?” can be addressed in meaningfully
distinct ways. These distinctions—rooted in con-
sequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics—are
alluded to in theory but have only rarely been
addressed in the extant empirical literature, repre-
senting both omission and opportunity.
Servant Leadership: A Consequentialist Focus
on Multiple Stakeholders
Rather than being constructed through a review
of the literature and extant theory, the ideas for ser-
vant leadership were generated during the decades
in which Robert Greenleaf observed managers and
employees working together, noting the most effec-
tive approaches and competencies (Frick, 2004).
As noted previously, Greenleaf’s impetus for de-
veloping the servant leadership concept was groun-
ded in the belief that a more caring and other-focused
leadership approach is essential to the good of
businesses, communities, and broader society
(Greenleaf, 1977, 1996a, 1996b, 1998). This motiva-
tional thrust is similar to writings on stakeholder
160 Academy of Management Annals
theory (Freeman, 1984; Freeman & Gilbert, 1988) that
prioritize external stakeholders in equality with, not
inferior to, financial stakeholders. Servant leader-
ship’s multiple stakeholder emphasis, thus, extends
a leader’s concern beyond the traditional focus on
employees or the organization to include the well-
being of external stakeholders such as customers
and communities.
A small but growing subset of the servant leader-
ship literature examines effects directly connected
to servant leadership’s stakeholder focus. Illustrative
exemplars showcasing models specific to servant
leadership theory and documenting relationships
with stakeholder-focused criteria are noted in
Table 5. Several articles, for instance, connect ser-
vant leadership with contextual cues, such as serv-
ing culture and service climate, focused on broadly
helping others (Hunter, Neubert, Perry, Witt,
Penney, & Weinberger, 2013; Liden et al., 2014b;
Ling, Lin, & Wu, 2016; Neubert, Hunter, & Tolentino,
2016). Servant leadership predicts a variety of
service-related outcomes, including customer-first
orientation, customer-focused citizenship, and cus-
tomer value cocreation, which involve organization
members transcending simple “customer service” to
go above and beyond in their efforts to help customers
(Chen, Zhu, & Zhou, 2015; Hsiao, Lee, & Chen, 2015;
Jaramillo, Grisaffe, Chonko, & Roberts, 2009). As such,
customer service behaviors and quality are unique
outcomes to servant leadership (Liden et al., 2014b,
2016).
In addition to customers, followers are important
stakeholders for servant leaders. Servant leadership
is related with follower outcomes not directly related
to performance such as work–family positive spill-
over, work–family balance (Wang, Kwan, & Zhou,
2017), and workplace spirituality, a concept that
concerns an employee’s community, meaningful
work, and inner life (Williams, Randolph-Seng,
Hayek, Haden, & Atinc, 2017). Stakeholders also
extend beyond the organization’s followers and
customers to the broader community. For example,
Liden et al. (2008) found that servant leadership
predicted subordinate community citizenship, de-
fined as attitudes and behaviors beneficial to the
broader society outside of typical organizational
boundaries. One unique and key individual charac-
teristic that facilitates servant leaders’ concern for
a broad set of stakeholders is empathy (Washington,
Sutton, & Feild, 2006). Empathy’s effects are dem-
onstrated by findings relating servant leadership to
high degrees of care for others, such as research in-
dicating that the followers of servant leaders in
January
health-care contexts most effectively help patients
manage their pain (Neubert et al., 2016). Altogether,
this more communal focus may explain why, unlike
other more charismatic or leader-centric forms of
leadership (Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002),
servant leadership is negatively predicted by extra-
version (Washington et al., 2006). Research in-
dicating that women are more likely than men to act
as servant leaders (Fridell, Belcher, & Messner, 2009)
provides additional evidence of an enhanced com-
munality. Servant leadership is also uniquely pre-
dicted by community building (Parris & Peachey,
2013), demonstrating further alignment with a stake-
holder focus.
Servant leadership’s novel focus on serving the
needs of multiple stakeholders—benefiting fol-
lowers, organizations, customers, communities, and
societies (Chen et al., 2015; Ehrhart, 2004; Liden
et al., 2008) while avoiding causing harm (Greenleaf,
1977, 1996a, 1996b)—is concordant with the nor-
mative moral theory of consequentialism (Mill,
1863; Ryan, 1987). Consequentialism, one of the
three major theories of normative philosophy (or
perspectives on how individuals choose what is right
and what is wrong: Baron et al., 1997), argues that
what makes an attitude or behavior moral is how it
impacts the good of the world (Moore, 1903). As the
name suggests, consequentialism mandates exam-
ining the consequences of actions, and from there
determining whether actions are morally appropri-
ate. It is these consequences, rather than expecta-
tions, norms, standards, or personal benefit that
determines morality. The fundamental value of the
moral consequentialist is the overall state of affairs,
or the way the world is (Scheffler, 1988; Sinnott-
Armstrong, 2015). Utilitarianism, the most prom-
inent form of consequentialism, defines the “valued
ends” of morality as well-being for all. Stated dif-
ferently, it maximizes happiness and creates “the
greatest good for the greatest number” (Shafer-
Landau, 2015). In the utilitarian’s mind, service to
all people is important, regardless of whether or not
those people happen to be part of an organization
or whether they purchase from an organization.4
Consequentialism’s unique approach to morality
can be demonstrated by the classic “trolley car di-
lemma” (Foot, 1967), a popular thought experiment
in philosophy theory. In this dilemma, a runaway
4
Although we acknowledge utilitarianism as just one form
of consequentialism, we use the terms “consequentialist”
and “utilitarian” interchangeably from here forward, con-
sistent with the philosophy literature.
 2019

TABLE 5
Selected Research Demonstrating Servant Leadership’s Consequentialist Moral Content
Content Relevant to Consequentialism

Authors Theory Antecedents Mediators Moderators Dependent Variable Core Findings

Graham (1991) Servant leadership “requires that organizational Servant leadership focuses on social responsibilities and
actions benefit, or at least not harm, all stakeholder the good of all organizational stakeholders
groups... ,Servant leadership. will include
sensitivity to the needs and interests of all
organizational stakeholders.” (p. 112)
Ehrhart (2004) The servant leader acknowledges “his or her moral Servant leadership has a moral responsibility to benefit
responsibility not only to the success of the stakeholders internal and external to the organization
organization, but also to his or her subordinates, the
organization’s customers, and other organizational
stakeholders.” (p. 68)
Washington, Sutton, Empathy and Followers’ perceptions of leader empathy values and
and Field (2006) integrity leader integrity are positively related with follower
perceptions of supervisors’ servant leadership
Hsiao, Lee, and Chen Employee service- Customer value Supervisor servant leadership influences employee
(2015) oriented citizenship co-creation customer value co-creation through service-oriented
behaviors citizenship behaviors
Hunter, Neubert, Service climate Group helping and sales Store manager servant leadership influences followers’
Perry, Witt, behavior aggregated sales behavior, coworker citizenship
Penney, and behavior, and individual turnover intentions through
Weinberger (2013) store-level service climate.
Jaramillo, Grisaffe, Customer orientation Customer directed Manager servant leadership influences salesperson
Chonko, and extra-role performance customer-directed extra-role performance through
Roberts (2009) salesperson customer orientation
Liden, Wayne, Liao, Serving culture Customer service Store manager servant leadership influences employee
and Meuser behaviors customer service behaviors through store-level serving
(2014b) culture
Ling, Lin, and Wu Employee service- Service Employee service quality Supervisor servant leadership influences employee
Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy

(2016) oriented behaviors climate service quality through employee service-oriented

behaviors. The relationship between servant leadership
and service-oriented behaviors is stronger when service
climate is high
Wang, Kwan, and Work-to-family positive Work–family balance Supervisor servant leadership influences salesperson
Zhou (2017) spillover work–family balance through salesperson work-to-
family positive spillover
Williams, Randolph- Workplace spirituality Supervisor servant leadership increases employee
Seng, Hayek, (i.e., inner life, creativity through workplace spirituality. The
Haden, and Atinc meaningful work, relationship between servant leadership and workplace
(2017) and community) spirituality is stronger when leader political skill is high
Chen, Zhu, and Zhou Service quality, Store manager servant leadership is positively associated
(2015) customer- focused with employees’ service quality, customer-focused
citizenship behavior, citizenship behavior, and customer-oriented prosocial
and customer-oriented behavior
prosocial behavior
Liden, Wayne, Zhao, Community citizenship Supervisor servant leadership dimensions (i.e., helping
and Henderson behaviors subordinates grow, behaving ethically, and creating
(2008) value for the community) are related with individual-
level employee community citizenship behaviors
161
162 Academy of Management Annals
trolley car is out of control and headed straight for
a section of track to which five people have been tied.
If you (as the observer) do nothing, those five people
will die. However, you happen to be standing next to
a switch which will divert the trolley car onto a dif-
ferent set of tracks to which only one person is tied.
Therefore, you can do nothing and allow the trolley
car to kill the five people on the current track or pull
the switch, sacrificing one person to save those five.
The consequentialist approach to this problem is
simple: saving five lives creates more well-being
than saving only one. For this reason, the con-
sequentialist argues, it is morally right to pull the
lever and save five at the expense of one. Similarly,
consequentialists judge any moral decision by how it
will improve the lives of the many, with the greatest
ratio of benefits to drawbacks. Consequentialist ap-
proaches are often used to promote initially un-
popular views, such as the abolishment of slavery
(Bentham, 1996), on the grounds that some discom-
fort to a powerful few is outweighed by the greater
needs of the many. On the other hand, arguably im-
moral acts, such as lying, stealing, or even murder,
are justifiable by consequentialists if they result in
the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
Punishment for a crime is only moral if it will im-
prove lives by facilitating repentance or preventing
further crime. Punishment for the sake of punish-
ment is not moral in this view.
The similarities between consequentialism and
Greenleaf’s (1977) conceptualization of servant lead-
ership (“make sure that other people’s highest pri-
ority needs are being served”) are striking. Rather
than prioritizing reciprocation and exchange, norms
and rules, or even the emergence of a shared vision,
theory indicates that servant leaders’ actions priori-
tize serving the good of multiple stakeholders. Fur-
thermore, Greenleaf’s (1977: p. 14) original servant
leadership definition (Table 1) transparently indi-
cates the importance of consequences (e.g., “what is
the effect on the least privileged in society; will they
benefit, or, at least, not be further deprived?”) to
servant leadership. Servant leadership further aligns
with consequentialism via its acknowledgement
that the organization itself is a valued stakeholder.
Prominent servant leadership scholars have long
argued that the organization’s success is one of many
valued ends for servant leaders (Liden, Panaccio,
Meuser, Hu, & Wayne, 2014a). Similar to stakeholder
theory (de Luque, Washburn, Waldman, & House,
2008; Freeman, 1984), servant leaders believe that
serving other stakeholders benefits the organization
because it leads to long-term organizational success
January
(van Dierendonck, 2011). Reciprocally, organiza-
tional success is beneficial to other stakeholders
(e.g., employees) and affords the organization an
opportunity to continue to serve its community and
society (Greenleaf, 1977). This reasoning is consis-
tent with the consequentialist view that individual
success allows individuals and organizations to
better position themselves for future aid to others
(Sidgwick, 1907; Singer, 1979). After all, if an orga-
nization closed its doors, it would be incapable of
helping others and may endanger the well-being of
several other stakeholders dependent on the orga-
nization’s existence (e.g., employees). Therefore,
servant leadership’s explicit focus on performance
(distinct among the forms of moral leadership) is not
only compatible with its moral nature but also con-
cordant with its broad stakeholder allegiances
(Brink, 1986; Freeman, 1984; Greenleaf, 1977).
Ethical Leadership: A Deontological Focus on
Compliance with Normative Standards
Rather than prioritizing stakeholders as a moral
emphasis, the ethical leadership construct instead
focuses on compliance and alignment with stan-
dards and normative expectations. This focal moti-
vation is best illustrated by the development of what
would become the ethical leadership construct in
qualitative data collected by Treviño, Brown, and
Hartman (2003) and Treviño et al., (2000) involving
structured interviews with chief executives and
ethics officers. These executives noted that one of
their primary motives for acting ethically was to
prevent scandals, lawsuits, and negative publicity
within their organizations. For example, Treviño
et al. (2000) noted executives’ response to the ques-
tion: “What does ethical leadership accomplish?”
“The executives we talked with said that ethical
leadership was good for business, particularly in the
long term, and avoids legal problems. ‘It probably
determines the amount of money you’re spending in
lawsuits and with corporate attorneys. . . you save a lot
of money in regulatory fees and lawyer fees
and settlement fees.’” (p. 136)
Ethical leadership theory maintains that alongside
basic moral elements such as fairness and honesty,
the construct’s view of morality is guided chiefly by
the importance of compliance with norms and stan-
dards (e.g., Brown et al., 2005; Brown & Mitchell,
2010; Brown & Treviño, 2006; Treviño et al., 2003).
Ethical leadership is, therefore, evaluated relative to
the context within which leaders are embedded and
2019 Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy
is bound by subjective interpretations (Brown et al.,
2005; Eisenbeiss, 2012). Brown and Mitchell (2010)
noted that the phrase “normatively appropriate
conduct” in ethical leadership’s definition is inten-
tionally ambiguous because it reflects the belief that
ethical behavior is determined by compliance with
norms and rules relative to the organization, in-
dustry, and national culture. Treviño et al. (2003)
argued that the general right or wrong of an ethical
leader’s actions might be idiosyncratic as “the ethi-
cal dimension of executive leadership is likely to be
a highly subjective phenomenon open to multiple
interpretations. Ethical issues are often ambiguously
defined and observers’ evaluations of ethical lead-
ership are likely to depend on subjective perceptions
of the leader’s character and motives” (p. 8). Some
executives in Treviño et al’s (2000) qualitative de-
velopment of ethical leadership did mention con-
cern for stakeholders (critical to servant leadership
theory), and the authors themselves propose that
ethical leaders should be interested in the greater
good (Treviño et al., 2003), but these emphases
were not included in the formal ethical leadership
construct (Brown et al., 2005).
In our review of the extant literature on ethical
leadership, we only discovered a relatively small
body of research that specifically exploits the op-
portunities in ethical leadership’s unique focus on
standards and compliance; a sample of these ethical
leadership exemplars are listed in Table 6. Alone
among moral leadership constructs, ethical leader-
ship predicts an individual’s duty orientation to re-
spect and honor organizational rules and principles,
which mediates an indirect negative effect of ethical
leadership on acting in opposition to laws and poli-
cies (Hannah, Jennings, Bluhm, Peng, & Schaubroeck,
2014). A compliance culture also mediates ethical
leadership’s impact on rule compliance and within-
organization whistle-blowing (Mayer, Nurmohamed,
Treviño, Shapiro, & Schminke, 2013; Schaubroeck
et al., 2012). Unlike the other approaches to moral
leadership, ethical leaders use transactional disci-
pline to reinforce norm-based expectations (Brown
et al., 2005; Treviño et al., 2000). These actions, in
turn, predict outcomes such as impressions that sub-
ordinates are being judged by their managers (Stouten,
van Dijke, Mayer, De Cremer, & Euwema, 2013).
Table 6 indicates that moderators also accentuate
ethical leadership’s compliance focus. Ethical lead-
ership most powerfully impacts outcomes such as
whistle-blowing when followers are focused more
on rules than on the consequences of their actions
(Bhal & Dadhich, 2011), and ethical teammates may
163
be a necessary precondition for ethical leadership to
affect whistle-blowing (Mayer et al., 2013). Ethical
leadership suppresses corrupt acts such as accepting
bribes and selling confidential information in cul-
tures less concerned for helping others and acting
independently (Kolthoff, Erakovich, & Lasthuizen,
2010). Of the moral approaches, only ethical lead-
ership is associated with political skill (Harvey,
Harris, Kacmar, Buckless, & Pescosolido, 2014), but
individuals with low political skill may benefit the
most from the ethical compliance environment
generated by ethical leaders (Kacmar, Andrews,
Harris, & Tepper, 2013). Furthermore, research sug-
gests that ethical leaders may even exploit policies
and rules to enhance their own ends (Den Hartog &
Belschak, 2012). These findings suggest that ethical
leaders might act in ways that other approaches
to morality might judge immoral. Supporting this
perspective, ethical leadership may suppress citi-
zenship in the presence of strong rules and HR pol-
icies (Kalshoven & Boon, 2012) and is unrelated
to a leader’s own workplace deviance behaviors
(Harvey et al., 2014).
Notably, many of these relationships are unique
to ethical leadership, relative to other moral leader-
ship approaches. We found only one article relating
ethical leadership to stakeholder service-related
constructs that are more prevalent in the servant lead-
ership literature. The study in question (Schaubroeck,
Lam, & Peng, 2016) had two outcomes: service per-
formance, which was operationalized as employee
evaluation ratings, and service adherence, or com-
pliance to company guidelines and rules around
customer service. For both outcomes, there was no
direct relationship with ethical leadership; rather,
the effects flowed through the mediating variable
of normative belief, or the perception of salient and
important norms in the workplace. Put another way,
this mediating mechanism indicates that ethical
leadership only increased service behaviors through
making clear to employees that such behaviors were
required by company norms and standards. Ethical
leadership’s distinctions from servant leadership’s
more consequentialist emphasis are also empirically
supported by studies finding that subordinates of
ethical leaders develop skills at identifying legal, but
not more generally moral, ramifications of scenarios
(Kuntz, Kuntz, Elenkov, & Nabirukhina, 2013); that
the effect of ethical leadership on whistle-blowing
is suppressed when there is a stronger focus on
negative societal consequences of decisions (Bhal &
Dadhich, 2011); and that ethical leadership is not pre-
dicted by consequentialist ideology, but it develops
 TABLE 6
Selected Research Demonstrating Ethical Leadership’s Deontological Moral Content
164
Content Relevant to Deontology

Authors Theory Antecedents Mediators Moderators Dependent Variable Core Findings

Brown, Trevino, and Ethical leadership represents “the Ethical leadership focuses on modeling and enforcing
Harrison (2005) demonstration of normatively behavior consistent with norms, which may vary by
appropriate conduct... The term organizational and cultural context
“normatively appropriate” is deliberately
vague because... what is deemed
appropriate behavior is somewhat context
dependent.” (p. 120)
Eisenbeiss (2012) Ethical leadership “... [leaves] open what Ethical leadership leverages a more “relativistic” approach
norms ethical leaders may refer to when to morals based on organizational and cultural norms. It
promoting them to followers... does is plausible that these norms could conflict with moral
ethical leadership behavior always mean judgments made by more individually based
compliance with the prevalent frameworks
organizational norms? What if these
norms demanded behavior that is not in
accordance with general moral values and
standards?” (p. 793)
Harvey, Harris, Political skill Leader deviance Leader political skill predicts ethical leadership, which in
Kacmar, Buckless, turn impacts employee commitment and stress. High
and Pescosolido levels of political skill enable even deviant leaders to be
(2014) perceived as ethical leaders
Letwin, Wo, Folger, Deontological Deontological ideology predicts ethical leadership,
Rice, Taylor, ideology whereas consequentialist ideology does not
Richard, and
Taylor (2016)
Hannah, Jennings, Duty orientation Ethical behavior and Ethical leadership suppresses instances of employee
Bluhm, Peng, and deviance deviance (breaking laws and organizational policies)
Schaubroeck through enhancing employee inclination to “honor [the
(2014) organization’s] codes and principles”
Mayer, Nurmohamed, Fear of retaliation Reporting violations Across multiple studies, the combination of ethical
Treviño, Shapiro, for breaking of organizational leadership and coworkers who act ethically and follow
and Schminke rules codes of conduct rules lead to the lowest fear of retaliation for whistle-
(2013) blowing, which in turn predicts whistle-blowing
Stouten, van Dijke, Moral reproach OCB Across multiple studies, ethical leadership curvilinearly
Academy of Management Annals

Mayer, De Cremer, relates with OCB (inverse U-shaped) through moral

and Euwema reproach, or a feeling of being judged by the leader
(2013)
Bhal and Dadhich Consequences of ethical Whistle-blowing Ethical leadership’s impact on whistle-blowing is most
(2011) actions powerful when followers focus on rule-following, but
least powerful when followers focus on the
consequences of their actions
Den Hartog and Leader Machiavellianism CWB Some ethical leaders may use rules and compliance
Belschak (2012) enforcement to further their own ends, limiting ethical
leadership’s positive impact on followers
Kolthoff, Erakovich, Specific moral cultures Law-breaking The effect of ethical leadership on illegal behaviors such as
and Lasthuizen bribery and conflicts of interest (COIs) is strongest in
(2010) countries with cultures highest in moral concern for laws
and rules, but weakest in countries with stronger
cultures of independence and benevolence
Kuntz, Kuntz, Ability to identify Ethical leadership helps individuals identify potential legal
Elenkov, and legal and ethical issues, but does not predict their ability to recognize
Nabirunkhina ramifications of nonlegal but ethical dilemmas and their ramifications
(2013) scenarios
Schaubroeck, Formal and Rule-breaking ethical Ethical leaders embed ethical expectations into cultures
Hannah, Avolio, informal transgressions, and focused on ethical behavior and rule compliance,
Kozlowski, Lord, ethical culture intentions to report with measurable trickle-down effects throughout the
Trevino, others for organization, resulting in moral efficacy, exemplary
Dimotakis, and transgressions behavior, and reduced rule transgressions
January

Peng (2012)
2019 Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy
more frequently in those with deontological moral
mindsets (Letwin et al., 2016).
Overall, our review suggests a striking alignment
between ethical leadership and the broad norma-
tive moral approach of deontology. Like con-
sequentialism, deontology is one of the three major
approaches to normative ethics, but it differs from
consequentialism in that it is wholly unconcerned
with the outcomes of actions (Anscombe, 1958;
MacDonald & Beck-Dudley, 1994). Instead, the de-
ontological approach to what is right and what is
wrong depends on the structure of an act, and how
the act itself aligns with established rules, norms,
and ideas of justice. Where a consequentialist would
judge the morality of an act by its outcomes and
how well they improve broad well-being, the de-
ontologist instead examines the act itself and
whether it is judged as correct according to set stan-
dards of behavior. In the trolley car example pre-
sented earlier, the consequentialist would pull the
switch, sacrificing one person to save five, priori-
tizing the well-being of the many. The deontologist
would struggle with this act because, regardless of
the outcome, taking an active action that would kill
an innocent human being does not align with moral
codes. It does not matter that it is only one person, or
that more lives could be saved by sacrificing that one
person; the act of killing an innocent person is wrong
according to moral standards of behavior, regardless
of the outcome. The deontologist argues that even if
an act that breaks our moral rules and maxims has
positive outcomes for well-being, it is still immoral
(Shafer-Landau, 2015). Consider the case of a man
who cheats on his taxes to support his family or steals
from the state to give to the poor, but the amount is so
little that the government’s operations are not af-
fected. The consequentialist might argue that this act
is moral because well-being is enhanced without
causing harm to anyone, whereas the deontologist
would argue that stealing or cheating on taxes is
fundamentally wrong according to standards and
law.
The most popular form of deontology is Kant-
ianism, which postulates that immoral acts are those
which are fundamentally contradictory to their
context (Baron et al., 1997). This position is estab-
lished in the principle of universalizability (Pettit,
2000): if everyone in the world acted a certain way,
would the action be plausible and its goal achieved?
For instance, if everyone stole others’ property, then
the concept of property would be meaningless, so
stealing would have no purpose, and hence the ac-
tion is immoral. Considering ethical leadership, if
165
employees did not follow organizational standards,
the organization’s structure and framework would
fall apart and the organization could not exist;
therefore, standards and rules are moral. A related
form of deontology, the philosophy of law (Coleman,
1989), argues that laws, rules, and standards them-
selves create moral obligations: they coordinate so-
cial activities (such as everyone driving in the correct
lane or forming orderly queues for service), and in-
dividuals who act against these conventions may
needlessly endanger or frustrate others, causing
moral harm.
Regardless of the specific form, the uniqueness of
the deontological approach to morality is the focus
on morality as adherence to a system of rules. Kant
wrote that it is irrelevant whether an act creates an
outcome that we or others care about; the act is moral
because the actor obeyed their moral duties, and
nothing more (Paton, 1971). The ethical leader seeks
to make these duties and norms a salient part of the
day-to-day mindset of followers (Treviño et al., 2000)
through active attempts to institutionalize those
norms as part of team cultures (Treviño et al., 2003).
Although the ethical leader encourages voice, as an
extension of the fairness exhibited by the moral
manager (Brown et al., 2005; Lam, Loi, Chan, & Liu,
2016; Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009), the ethical
leader is less open to criticism of company standards
and policies, and certainly intolerant of non-
compliance (Hannah et al., 2014; Mayer et al., 2013).
Questioning of organizational norms may, therefore,
be frowned upon by ethical leaders. In support,
Brown and Mitchell (2010: p. 596) observed, “Het-
erogeneity in ethical values within an organization
could work against attempts to foster an effective
ethics and compliance program. . . ×” Exactly what
ethical leaders consider to be right and wrong, be-
yond basic values such as honesty and compliance to
norms and standards, is vague (Eisenbeiss, 2012).
This ambiguity is deliberate such that behaviors or
mindsets considered unethical in one industry or
country might be quite acceptable in another (Brown
& Mitchell, 2010). In sum, this evidence points to
the paramount nature of norms, standards, rules, and
laws as the focal normative context of ethical
leadership.
Another unique aspect of ethical leadership rela-
tive to the other moral approaches to leadership is its
reliance on transactional influence as a method to
compel followers to conform to normative standards
(Brown et al., 2005; Brown & Mitchell, 2010). This
focus is clear in ethical leadership’s seminal theo-
retical development and operationalization, and
166 Academy of Management Annals
congruent with deontology. Whereas a conse-
quentialist might ask whether society would benefit
from punishing a rule breaker, the deontologist ar-
gues that on principle, wrongdoers deserve punish-
ment (Kant, 1887; Shafer-Landau, 2015). This is
a notable distinction from servant leadership.
Greenleaf specifically argued against coercion in fa-
vor of persuasion, even for the most heinous of acts
such as slavery (Greenleaf, 1970). Altogether, a de-
ontological focus on compliance to and enforcement
of norms, rules, and laws emerges as the most dif-
ferentiating aspects of ethical leadership relative to
servant and authentic leadership.
Authentic Leadership: A Virtue Focus on
Self-Awareness and Moral Self-Concordance
The hallmark of authentic leaders is their authen-
tic and transparent expression, and action in con-
cordance with their beliefs (Avolio et al., 2004).
Authentic leaders’ morality is proposed to be in-
dependent of external expectations, such that the
authentic leader would make decisions based on
their own moral compass, rather than on other peo-
ple’s opinions of ethics (Guignon, 2004). Gardner,
Avolio, Luthans, May, and Walumbwa (2005) sug-
gested that self-awareness and self-regulation are
core competencies of authentic leadership that pro-
vide positive modeling whereby followers learn and
develop authenticity. The most dominant theoretical
perspectives used in developing the concept of au-
thentic leadership were authentic functioning and
self-determination. Kernis’ (2003) theory of authen-
ticity was not specific to leadership but was meant to
differentiate an optimal or stable self-esteem from
a fragile or defensive self-esteem. Authentic func-
tioning would result from and help build optimal or
stable forms of self-esteem. Kernis’ work identified
four components of authenticity: self-awareness,
unbiased processing of self-relevant information,
behavior in accordance with one’s true self, and
openness and honesty in relationships. Authentic
leadership’s dimensional structure (Walumbwa
et al., 2008) bears a close resemblance to these di-
mensions. Whereas scholars on servant and ethical
leadership have written extensively regarding the
use of persuasion (Greenleaf, 1977) and positive and
negative incentives (Brown et al., 2005) to guide
followers to moral paths, authentic leadership relies
less on these methods. As Luthans and Avolio (2003)
wrote, “The authentic leader does not try to coerce
or even rationally persuade associates, but rather the
leader’s authentic values, beliefs, and behaviors
January
serve to model the development of associates” (p.
243). Authentic leaders model authenticity to de-
velop trust and serve as role models (Gardner et al.,
2005), passively “projecting” their authentic self to
followers (Walumbwa et al., 2008).
Self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) was
foundational to authentic leadership’s conceptual
development (Gardner et al., 2005; Gardner et al.,
2011; Ilies, Morgeson, & Nahrgang, 2005). Inherently
autonomous motivation occurs when individuals’
goals are concordant with their personal values and
beliefs, and they experience high levels of interest
and enjoyment pursuing goals because the effort is
self-expressive (Gagné & Deci, 2005). This intrinsic,
or autonomous, motivation is a central element of
authentic leadership, alongside autonomy and self-
concordance. Indeed, Gardner et al. (2005: p. 345)
argued that a leader’s own authenticity and moral
freedom, as described earlier, are the “first and
foremost” elements of authentic leadership. As such,
authentic leaders’ moral behaviors and their honest
and fair treatment of subordinates emerge specifi-
cally through their own regard for autonomy, trans-
parency, and moral freedom. In sum, authentic
leaders maintain self-concordant moral freedom,
thereby developing the authenticity and autonomy
of followers (Gardner et al., 2005; Leroy, Anseel,
Gardner, & Sels, 2015).
Attention to these unique aspects of authentic
leadership in the empirical literature are somewhat
seldom seen, but some scholars have begun to focus
on these distinctions (illustrative exemplars are
shown in Table 7). For instance, research indicates
that authentic leadership is uniquely predicted by
a leader’s strong physical enactment of their true
emotions and values and their tendency to tell stories
about their past, particularly stories of the more
sensitive, negative, and potentially embarrassing
aspects of their past (Weischer, Weibler, & Petersen,
2013). Authentic leadership is also the only approach
to moral leadership predicted by self-consistency, self-
knowledge (Peus, Wesche, Streicher, Braun, & Frey,
2012), and cultures oriented on flexibility (Azanza,
Moriano, & Molero, 2013)—all constructs connected
to self-awareness and the display of the leader’s au-
thentic self. Because of these self-concordant behav-
iors, authentic leaders are viewed as possessing high
levels of behavioral integrity (Leroy, Palanski, &
Simons, 2012) and are, therefore, judged by fol-
lowers as predictably consistent in their values and
beliefs (Peus et al., 2012). Research also indicates that
men are more likely than women to emerge as au-
thentic leaders (Monzani, Bark, van Dick, & Peiro,
 TABLE 7
2019
Selected Research Demonstrating Authentic Leadership’s Virtue Ethics Moral Content
Content Relevant to Virtue Ethics

Authors Theory Antecedents Mediators Moderators Dependent Variable Core Findings

Luthans and Avolio Authentic leadership is “a process... which results in Authentic leaders prioritize understanding themselves
(2003) both greater self-awareness and self-regulated and acting in accordance with their true natures
positive behaviors on the part of leaders and
associates, fostering positive self-development... the
authentic leader is true to him/herself....” (p. 243)
Shamir and Eilam For the authentic leader, “(1) The role of the leader is Authentic leaders are highly self-aware, and use that self-
(2005) a central component of their self- concept, (2) they awareness to achieve and maintain both internal
have achieved a high level of self-resolution or self- consistency and authentic honesty in their
concept clarity, (3) their goals are self-concordant, relationships with others
and (4) their behavior is self-expressive.” (p. 398–399)
Weischer, Weibler, Leader value Leader enactment positively influences followers’
and Petersen enactment and perceptions of authentic leadership (i.e., authenticity).
(2013) story-telling Life storytelling influences followers’ perceptions of
authentic leadership when leader enactment is strong
Peus, Wesche, Self-knowledge Leader Perceived supervisor self-knowledge and self-
Streicher, Braun, and self- predictability consistency are positively related to supervisor
and Frey (2012) consistency (consistency) authentic leadership; supervisor authentic leadership
influences followers’ supervisor satisfaction, affective
commitment, extra effort, team supervisor satisfaction,
and team effectiveness through perceived leader
predictability
Erkutlu and Chafra Employee self- Manager authentic leadership influences employees’
(2017) concordance organizational job embeddedness through employee
psychological ownership and self-concordance
Hannah, Avolio, and Moral courage Supervisor authentic leadership influences followers’
Walumbwa (2011) ethical and prosocial behaviors through followers’
display of moral courage
Hannah, Walumbwa, Team authenticity Supervisor authentic leadership (i.e., authenticity)
and Fry (2011) influences teamwork behavior and team productivity
through team authentic leadership (i.e., authenticity)
Hirst, Walumbwa, Self-concordance Department leader’s authentic leadership influences team
Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy

Aryee, Butarbutar, and trickle-down leader’s individual-level LMX through team leader’s
and Chen (2016) authentic authentic leadership; team leader’s authentic
leadership leadership and individual-level LMX influence
followers’ citizenship behavior through followers’ self-
concordance
Leroy, Palanski, and Perceptions of Team leader’s authentic leadership influences followers’
Simons (2012) leader affective organizational commitment through
behavioral followers’ perceptions of leader behavioral integrity;
integrity leader behavioral integrity influences followers’ work-
role performance through followers’ affective
organizational commitment
Leroy, Anseel, Basic need Authentic Work-role Follower authenticity (i.e., authentic followership) and
Gardner, and Sels satisfaction followership performance team leader authentic leadership influence follower
(2015) (underpinning (proficiency, work-role performance through follower need
self- adaptivity, and satisfaction; follower need satisfaction mediates the
determination) proactivity) interaction of follower authenticity and team leader
authentic leadership on follower work-role
performance
Mehmood, Hamstra, Follower learning Supervisor authentic leadership influences follower in-
Nawab, and Vriend goal orientation role and extra-role performance through follower
(2016) learning goal orientation
Valsania, Moriano, Intrapreneurial Supervisor authentic leadership influences follower
and Molero (2016) behaviour intrapreneurial behavior through organizational
empowerment and organizational identification
167
168 Academy of Management Annals
2015), whereas women were more often seen as ser-
vant leaders (Fridell et al., 2009). This finding might
be explained by gender roles which position women
as more caring and careful not to upset others, whereas
men are more independent and blunt.
Followers of authentic leaders grow in their own
self-concordance (Erkutlu & Chafra, 2017; Hirst,
Walumbwa, Aryee, Butarbutar, & Chen, 2016) and
moral courage to stay true to their convictions
(Hannah, Avolio, & Walumbwa, 2011b). This self-
concordance motivates followers to learn and engage
in creative processes, as evidenced by authentic
leadership’s unique effects on followers’ learning
goal orientation (Mehmood, Hamstra, Nawab, &
Vriend, 2016) and intrapreneurial behavior (Valsania,
Moriano, & Molero, 2016). Authentic leadership may
be strongest when it is combined with authentic fol-
lowership, such that leaders and followers share their
core values in a psychologically safe environment,
assess their situations honestly and frankly, and work
together to ensure fulfilling and productive experi-
ences (Leroy et al., 2015). Indeed, theory suggests that
a core motivation of authentic leaders is to have au-
thentic followers who similarly feel free to express
themselves transparently and make their own moral
judgments. Several studies have examined the unique
impact of the authentic leader on this process
(e.g., Hannah, Walumbwa, & Fry, 2011c; Özkan &
Ceylan, 2012). Outcomes involving moral courage
and freedom are unique to authentic leadership.
Authentic leadership theory, conceptualization,
and measurement all place strong emphasis on the
authentic characteristics of the leader and behaviors
that build these qualities in followers. Authentic
leadership definitions focus on self-awareness and
self-concordance, and operationalizations empha-
size the leader’s own self-views and self-consistency.
It is clear that authentic awareness, expression, and
moral freedom are unique points of differentiation
for authentic leadership. Self-awareness and self-
concordance compel authentic leaders to approach
questions of morality by valuing their own judgments
over the rules or preferences of others (Guignon, 2004;
Taylor, 1991). They trust that ethicality emerges from
most closely following their own moral compass
(May, Chan, Hodges, & Avolio, 2003). This approach is
markedly dissimilar from the moral views espoused
by consequentialism and deontology, but is consonant
with the final of the three major approaches to nor-
mative morality: virtue ethics.
Drawing from Aristotle, virtue ethicists argue
that the core of morality exists not in attention
to norms and rules (deontology) or outcomes
January
(consequentialism) but within the virtues of the
moral decision-maker (e.g., Foot, 1978; Hursthouse,
1999). To understand morality, Aristotle argued
that one must first understand the nature of a moral
person, including their own moral courage, con-
sistency, generosity, and wisdom, because these
are the characteristics (or virtues) from which good
deeds spring (Annas, 1993). In the strict Aristotelian
form, virtue ethics theory focuses on character
traits that contribute to individuals fulfilling their
own unique function and purpose such as confi-
dence and practical wisdom. These virtues focus on
self-awareness and understanding. They are, by
definition, self-concordant—they do not conflict,
but rather combine to produce an overall virtuous
or moral individual. Without self-awareness, Aris-
totle wrote, one could find neither happiness nor
morality.
Deontological and consequentialist approaches
offer a specific set of decision-making tools that
theoretically provide a morally correct response to
any situation, regardless of moral complexity. Virtue
ethicists instead argue that such predetermined de-
cision rules are invalid because true morality arises
from the reflection and consideration of the wise
and the self-aware (Anscombe, 1958). In such indi-
viduals, potential courses of action provoke emo-
tions that not only indicate areas of moral relevance
(not dissimilar to the situational activation of moral
traits: see Tett & Burnett, 2003) but also motivate
and guide moral behaviors (Shafer-Landau, 2015).
These moral sensitivities and characteristics, or
virtues, precipitate both moral motivation and the
moral awareness to take morally correct actions
(Hannah et al., 2011a). Whereas deontologists and
consequentialists argue that individuals are moral
because they use moral decision rules to make moral
choices, virtue ethicists instead theorize the oppo-
site: individuals make moral choices because those
individuals are fundamentally moral and self-aware.
The virtue ethicist’s reliance on their own moral
judgment raises the possibility that they may change
their mind as to what is moral, as is argued for au-
thentic leaders: “They have the credibility to. . . seek
alternative ways of approaching them without being
perceived as disingenuous or shifting with popular
opinion. They can change their mind and be seen to be
acting consistent with their end-values and therefore
authentic” (Luthans & Avolio, 2003: p. 249).
It is clear from our review that the founders of
authentic leadership theory explicitly envisioned it
with the virtue ethics approach to morality in mind.
Several initial theoretical articles on authentic
2019 Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy
leadership begin with the root concept of authen-
ticity, tracing it back to Greek philosophy and posi-
tioning it as the core of the positive leader. Shamir
and Eilam (2005) characterize authentic leadership
as an “eudaimonic activity,” drawing from Aris-
totle’s conception of flourishing in concordance
with one’s true self (Kernis & Goldman, 2006). Con-
currently, Ilies et al. (2005) wrote that authentic
leadership manifests in the authentic leader’s
eudaimonia, such that they realize who they truly are
by expressing who they truly are. This honest self-
expression would, in turn, cause followers to con-
sider their own self-concordance and start down the
path to their own authentic eudaimonia. Authentic
leadership draws heavily on theories of self-
determination and authenticity; virtue ethics and
the concept of eudaimonia are prominent within
both theories (e.g., Beadle & Knight, 2015; Kernis &
Goldman, 2006; Ryan, Huta, & Deci, 2013).
Authentic leadership highlights the philosophy of
virtue ethics, but not necessarily the study or in-
clusion of specific virtues (Peterson & Seligman,
2004). Rather, authentic leadership aligns with the
existential philosophy of moral freedom and respon-
sibility that gave rise to the importance of virtues. This
philosophy supports authentic leadership’s unique
approach to what is moral: rather than focusing on
standards or stakeholders, authentic leaders view
morality as that which aids individuals in under-
standing themselves, acting in self-concordant
manners, and following their own moral compass
regardless of the expectations of society or others
(May et al., 2003; Taylor, 1991). Conceptualizations
of primary virtues, such as optimal self-esteem and
authenticity (Kernis, 2003; Kernis & Goldman, 2006),
and a more personal and flexible system of moral
judgments (Kasser, Vansteenkiste, & Deckop, 2006;
Luthans & Avolio, 2003) form the basis of authentic
leadership theory and provide a salient basis to dis-
tinguish authentic leadership from other approaches
to leadership.
AVENUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
The specific theoretical frameworks proposed by
the founders of ethical, authentic, and servant lead-
ership theory and illustrative empirical exemplars
illuminate rich distinctions that coalesce with the
three approaches to normative ethics. These con-
nections pose important implications, highlighting
interesting new research questions for moral lead-
ership and providing opportunities to overcome
challenges which have emerged in the literature thus
169
far. Specifying the relationships between ethical,
authentic, and servant leadership with deontology,
virtue ethics, and consequentialism, respectively,
reveal opportunities to reengage in the iterative
process of theoretical development and refinement
(Cronbach & Meehl, 1955) to strengthen each con-
struct’s validity. Differentiating moral forms of
leadership according to their normative moral con-
tent provides opportunities not only to address the
three limitations unveiled in our review of the em-
pirical literature but also to explore meaningful new
research directions that draw on a deeper perspec-
tive on how specific forms of morality manifest in
leadership. We discuss each of these opportunities
in turn.
Attenuating Commonalities in Moral Leadership
Research
Anchoring ethical, authentic, and servant leader-
ship to their respective moral foundations affords
opportunities to increase each construct’s content
validity and illuminate differentiated nomological
networks (i.e., attenuating common outcomes),
integrate theoretical perspectives unique to each
specific moral framework (i.e., attenuating com-
mon theory), and ameliorate deficiencies in pre-
vailing empirical measures (i.e., attenuating common
composition).
Attenuating common outcomes. “A good theory
articulates not only what a construct is, but also what
it is not” (Clark & Watson, 1995: p. 311). Although
ethical, authentic, and servant leadership theory has
done a respectable job defining what each leadership
approach is, their conceptual boundaries (i.e., what
they are not) are much more amorphous. Ambiguous
conceptual boundaries pose problems for differen-
tiating among moral forms of leadership (as well as
other forms of leadership). It also exacerbates the
proclivity for researchers to examine the effect of
moral forms of leadership on common outcomes,
leading to the tenuous conclusion that positive forms
of leadership all lead to (the same) positive out-
comes. Moral foundations diminish the tendency to
examine moral forms of leadership with generic
outcomes by tightening each construct’s theoretical
boundaries and specifying antecedents, mediators,
and outcomes that are theoretically pertinent to each
moral form of leadership’s moral emphasis.
Moral foundations clarify inclusion and exclusion
criteria for ethical, authentic, and servant leader-
ship’s constituent content. For instance, ethical
leaders’ normative ethics in character and action
170 Academy of Management Annals
(Brown et al., 2005; Treviño & Brown, 2004) help us
understand why they conform to organizational
norms and enforcement of those norms. Conse-
quently, ethical leadership’s components focus on
maintaining order through modeling and enforcing
compliance to standards, norms, and laws. A de-
ontological focus on compliance, however, is ag-
nostic about a leader’s moral freedom or concern for
all stakeholders. Authentic leaders’ virtue ethics
form the foundation of why they value self-awareness,
relational transparency, and balanced processing
(Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Walumbwa et al., 2008).
Consistent with virtue ethics, authentic leadership’s
internally focused behaviors emphasize leaders’
behavioral conformance to their personal convic-
tions regardless of social norms, social pressure,
and external expectations. This moral focus is po-
tentially antithetical to the other two moral ap-
proaches’ foci on conformance to norms and
concern for stakeholders. Finally, servant leaders’
other-oriented consequentialism (Greenleaf, 1977;
Liden et al., 2014a) compels them to express con-
cern for the community, invest their efforts in
emotional healing, and help others to grow and
succeed. The dimensions of servant leadership,
thus, reflect a consequentialist focus on the en-
hancement and benefit of a wide variety of organi-
zational stakeholders. Although servant leadership
behaviors are theoretically expected to be congru-
ent with the leader’s core values, self-concordance
is much less important to servant leadership than
a concern for stakeholders. Furthermore, servant
leadership is equivocal about conformance to
standards, norms, and laws. Taken together, moral
foundations provide clarity regarding the theoretical
boundaries (i.e., the inclusion/exclusion criteria) for
ethical, authentic, and servant leadership.
In addition to tying each moral form of leader-
ship’s internal dimensions together into a congruous
whole, the three moral foundations provide guid-
ance for identifying differentiated and theoretically
specific antecedents, processes, and outcomes. As
shown by the illustrative exemplars in Tables 5–7,
testing the theory specific to each leadership approach
illuminates the effects unique to ethical leadership
(e.g., followers’ compliance and strong ethical cul-
tures), authentic leadership (e.g., followers’ learning
orientations and mutual respect), and servant leader-
ship (e.g., followers’ volunteerism and stakeholder
focus). There is little reason to expect servant or au-
thentic leadership to relate to compliance with po-
tentially arbitrary rules and standards, or for ethical
or authentic leaders to prioritize corporate social
January
responsibility beyond any immediate benefits per-
ceived for the organization. Similarly, authentic
leaders are expected to allow their subordinates
a degree of moral autonomy that might be in-
appropriate for ethical or servant leaders. This au-
tonomy would further apply to authentic leaders
themselves, who would chafe at the moral re-
strictions inherent in the more explicit decision cri-
teria used by ethical or servant leaders. In this
manner, these moral foundations highlight theoreti-
cally relevant constructs within each leadership
approach’s nomological network that collectively
contribute a more integrated view of how ethical,
authentic, and servant leadership uniquely inform
our understanding of moral leadership and its effects
in organizations. Differences in moral content fore-
shadow differences in nomological nets, and it is
those differences that both establish construct dis-
tinction and uniquely add to our insight on moral
leadership.
Attenuating common theory. A general approach
to the moral content of leadership suggests a general
approach to theorizing its effects, limiting our un-
derstanding of the underlying processes of these
phenomena. Leadership can be defined as the pro-
cess of motivating or influencing others toward the
achievement of collective goals (e.g., Rost, 1991;
Yukl, 2010). Morality in general and moral philoso-
phies specifically clearly are relevant to the study of
leadership because morality highlights the shared
social norms that leaders could use to motivate
others toward collective goals. By espousing and
enacting any of these three moral philosophies, the
leader paints a picture for followers of a well-
functioning collective where everyone adheres to
the same principles. Two basic principles underlie
this approach to leadership (regardless of moral
content) and are well represented in our review: so-
cial exchange and social learning. By espousing the
value of morality through their leadership, leaders
are asking (or sometimes requiring) followers to buy
into a social exchange system: if you do this for the
collective, the collective will serve you in the fol-
lowing way. Furthermore, conveying this moral
philosophy is often done through espousal of the
underlying philosophy, a vision for the future that
followers can imagine, as well as enacting it such that
the underlying philosophy becomes more tangible in
the minds of followers. This attempted transmission
of morality is perhaps what most clearly distin-
guishes the moral approaches to leadership from
other amoral (goal-focused) or immoral approaches.
And because of this common moral nature, some
2019 Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy
overlap among ethical, authentic, and servant lead-
ership’s nomological networks is inevitable. For
instance, given that all three approaches feature
generally moral behaviors such as honest and fair
subordinate relations, it is not surprising that all
three are related to outcomes such as trust, justice
perceptions, and relational quality.
Therefore, social exchange and social learning
paradigms are certainly logical processes by which
moral leadership phenomena can emerge, but per-
spectives such as these are not comprehensively
explanatory. Furthermore, because similar social
exchange and learning processes operate for amoral
forms of leadership, exclusive attention to these
general theories risks creating redundant knowl-
edge. Instead, we propose that differences in moral
content point to distinct theories, which, in turn,
may best explain exactly how authentic, ethical, and
servant leadership uniquely predict outcomes of
interest. For instance, servant leadership’s con-
sequentialist focus naturally aligns with stakeholder
theory (Freeman, 1984) and its predictions that
stakeholder good generates desirable business out-
comes. One might argue that the stakeholder re-
ciprocation implied by stakeholder theory falls under
the umbrella of the aforementioned social exchange
paradigm, but stakeholder theory nonetheless repre-
sents a more precise perspective on the phenomena
expected from a consequentialist approach to moral-
ity. As such, it promises to better explain servant
leadership processes than a more general approach
might. Similarly, although self-determination theory
has been invoked to explain multiple leadership ap-
proaches, it is most relevant for authentic leadership,
given that authentic leaders’ focus on autonomy.
Ethical leadership’s more transactional approach to
morality, meanwhile, suggests a link with a normative
approach to reinforcement theory (e.g., Treviño, 1986;
Weiner, 1972).
These examples are representative, but certainly
not all-inclusive. The “usual theoretical suspects”
such as social learning and social exchange are also
relevant theoretical lenses that explain moral forms
of leadership’s influence, but these perspectives
apply broadly to influence behaviors in general. If
a theory can explain many leadership behaviors and
styles, as well as dyadic influence processes un-
related to leadership, a question arises as to whether
it helps us understand what makes any of those forms
of influence unique. Sharper theoretical specifica-
tion offers the promise of more precisely explaining
leadership phenomena and helping us identify dis-
tinct mediators, moderators, and outcomes of both
171
practical and theoretical importance. Theories more
specifically attuned to each form of moral leadership
provide complementary perspectives that help pro-
vide the robust theoretical frameworks from which
meaningful research can emerge.
Attenuating common composition. Anchoring the
three approaches to moral leadership in their re-
spective moral foundations offers opportunities to
better differentiate current points of compositional
overlap (as shown in Table 4 and Figure 2) and more
precisely define how ethical, authentic, and servant
leaders uniquely approach a similar set of behaviors.
Although the moral leadership scales were originally
constructed based on the primary theoretical ele-
ments underlying each construct, theoretical re-
finements reveal opportunities to similarly refine
measurement to maintain construct validity (Clark &
Watson, 1995; Cronbach & Meehl, 1955). The issues
discussed in the following paragraphs focus on
a fundamental question that is a pressing concern for
this research as well as the larger leadership
literature—What are respondents really reporting
when they assess scales associated with moral forms
of leadership: general perceptions of leader liking
(Mumford & Fried, 2014) and leader effectiveness
(van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013) or specific evalua-
tions of leader behaviors?
Aligning measurement and theory. The common-
alities in item content across moral forms of lead-
ership raise questions about whether common or
distinctive dimensions drive the variance in outcomes.
As illustrated in Table 2, the dominant measures of
authentic, ethical, and servant leadership are mixed in
their distinctiveness; whereas each scale has items that
reflect unique elements such as accountability for
ethical standards (ethical leadership), balanced pro-
cessing (authentic leadership), and a multi-stakeholder
focus (servant leadership), some other aspects of the
scales are quite similar. Broad, multidimensional
operationalizations are conducive to linking moral
leadership approaches to general organizational out-
comes but may introduce questions about whether, for
instance, it is truly servant leadership that drives OCB
or whether it is general morality such as leader fairness
or truthfulness that explains the variance. Put another
way, is it important for OCB that moral leaders em-
phasize a stakeholder perspective, or is a stakeholder
focus irrelevant for OCB when considering the impact
of general honesty and impartiality? The similar results
among the three moral forms of leadership across cri-
teria suggest the latter may be true. Attention to the
moral forms of leadership’s dimensions has been rare
since their introduction, and the nature of how these
172 Academy of Management Annals
dimensions interrelate and predict outcomes remains
poorly understood. The assumption that all dimen-
sions have an equal contribution to the leader’s
moral emphasis, for instance, remains doubtful. A
dimension-specific approach to moral forms of leader-
ship may help move the field forward by illuminating
more specific sets of leadership behaviors that ac-
count for leadership’s effectiveness (van Knippenberg &
Sitkin, 2013; Yukl, 2012).
Answering questions related to whether ethical,
authentic, and servant leadership’s distinctive moral
foundations drive their relative predictive validity is
challenging with current scales because varying
levels of item specificity may produce responses
that are disconnected from what measurement scales
intend to measure. As measurement items become
more abstract (as is often the case for broad ap-
proaches to morality) and, thus, less behaviorally
focused, scales risk measuring generic follower at-
tributions and attitudes rather than followers’ eval-
uations of discrete leader behaviors. Bagozzi and
Edwards (1998) suggest that variability in item depth
may distort what we are intending to measure by
eliciting general affective and cognitive attributions.
Item depth. Item depth refers to items in a mea-
surement scale that are written at different levels
of abstraction. Three types of construct depth—
component level, facet level, and global level—
represent the lowest level of abstraction, intermediate
level of abstraction, and the highest level of ab-
straction, respectively (Bagozzi & Edwards, 1998).
Component-level items are the most concrete and
objective in terms of observations and experiences.
They often describe observable behaviors. Facet-
level items require subjective interpretations of
words like “fair,” “honest,” and “trust.” Global-level
items assess overall attitudes or require general re-
sponses to abstract concepts (e.g., “holds high ethi-
cal standards”).
Example items from the measurement scales in
Table 2 show that all three moral forms of leadership
mix levels of abstraction from concrete, observable
behaviors to higher level factors (fairness, honesty,
and trustworthiness) to more abstract, global as-
sessments (high ethical standards). The heterogene-
ity in item depth is particularly problematic for
moral forms of leadership because abstract questions
trigger broad cognitive and affective (e.g., leader
liking and leader effectiveness) responses that con-
volute theoretical distinctions among leadership
types. This issue is especially salient for items tap-
ping a general moral leadership factor (such as hon-
esty and fairness), which are often framed more
January
globally and abstractly than other items, increasing
this attribution risk. Consequently, moral leadership
measures are vulnerable to “halo effects” (Meindl &
Ehrlich, 1987). That is, generic items may lead re-
spondents to view all three approaches to leadership
as generally positive and, therefore, extrapolate or
assume high ratings for other seemingly positive
characteristics and behaviors based on their general
appreciation and admiration of the leader. It is, thus,
not surprising that meta-analytic effects between the
three moral forms of leadership and relational per-
ceptions such as trust in the manager and leader–
member exchange (LMX) range from 0.65 to 0.71
(Hoch, Bommer, Dulebohn, & Wu, 2018). The mag-
nitude of these correlations raises legitimate ques-
tions about the discriminant validity between moral
leadership scales and employees’ relational percep-
tions. Although our comparative review provides an
opportune example to raise the potentially perni-
cious effects of variance in item depth within the
moral leadership literature, most other leadership
measures similarly include at least some attribu-
tional or global-level questions. They also exhibit
similarly high correlations among leadership con-
structs and relational perceptions. This problem
raises the question: “What are employees really
assessing when measuring ‘leadership’?”
Efforts are needed to ascertain the degree to which
items in a leadership scale assess general attributions
as opposed to the specific phenomenon the item is
intended to measure. This effort may seem daunting
for areas as subjective as moral leadership behaviors,
but it is necessary to gain confidence in the validity
of our measures and distinguish them empirically
from other leadership constructs. Toward this end,
a question to consider is whether respondents are
being asked to judge the degree to which they per-
ceive a leader as moral, versus the degree to which
observable behaviors are enacted in a moral way. For
instance, “makes fair and balanced decisions” (from
the ethical leadership scale) may tap general justice
perceptions; “my manager is always honest” (from
the servant leadership scale) could measure a trust-
worthiness attribution; and “makes difficult de-
cisions based on high standards of ethical content”
(from the authentic leadership scale) involves an
attribution of ethics rather than an evaluation of
specific behaviors. This issue could be resolved by
editing items to the less abstract component level or
by further revising them to reflect the unique moral
content of each leadership approach. It is also plau-
sible that the scales’ discriminant validity could be
enhanced by reducing more generally moral items
2019 Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy
and increasing items specific to each approach’s
moral content.
To be clear, many items in the three scales do not
exhibit these potential issues. Exemplar items within
each scale are written at the component level and
include behavioral descriptions, such as “discusses
business ethics or values with employees” (ethical),
“tells the hard truth” (authentic), and “I am encour-
aged by my manager to volunteer in the community”
(servant). These items incorporate distinct elements
of each leadership approach’s moral frameworks,
and they reference specific and observable behav-
iors. These items may be chiefly responsible for the
promising results shown in our exemplar tables, in-
dicating that the measurement scales meaningfully
tap distinctive components of their respective lead-
ership frameworks.
In summary, items within ethical, authentic, and
servant leadership scales should be carefully exam-
ined to assess a consistent level of depth (i.e., ob-
servable behaviors) in an effort to gain confidence
about what is being measured. Given the potential
threats to validity, items should be written at the
component level so that respondents are able to re-
port specific and unambiguous observations of
leader behaviors. Although somewhat restrictive,
this approach may be the most effective at mitigating
respondents’ propensity to rate global assessments
of leader liking or leader effectiveness. Otherwise,
measurement scales within the moral leadership
domain may be “hoping for A, while measuring B”
(Kerr, 1975).
Item breadth. An additional advantage to focusing
on component-level items is that narrower item
breadth further increases construct validity because
it reduces the risk of measuring a phenomenon by its
antecedents or outcomes, a practice that creates an
additional threat to validity that is germane to the
moral leadership and the broader leadership litera-
ture alike (van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013). Lead-
ership constructs are notorious for including items
that confound its content with antecedents and out-
comes. This problem stems from ambiguous defini-
tions of leadership itself as well as broad theoretical
expositions of leadership’s omnibus influence pro-
cess (often incorporating traits, behaviors, processes,
relational elements, and/or outcomes) that relegate
“leadership” to a catchall term with imprecise
meaning. Attempts to capture a commensurately
broad variety of elements in a single scale creates
significant methodological challenges for leadership
constructs, including confounds among causally re-
lated components of the influence process such as
173
leader characteristics (i.e., who a leader is), leader
behaviors (i.e., what a leader does), and leader effects
(i.e., what a leader produces).
As an example of the confound between a con-
struct and its effects within the moral leadership
domain, ethical leadership is often related to em-
ployee trust in a leader (e.g., Chughtai et al., 2015;
Newman et al., 2014; Xu et al., 2016), but the ethical
leadership scale includes as one of its items, “can be
trusted.” There are excellent theoretical reasons to
believe that ethical leadership and trust should cor-
relate, but the inclusion of this item within the ethical
leadership scale renders any empirical conclusions
regarding this outcome suspect. Behaviorally focused
items that focus on the distinctive elements of ethical,
authentic, and servant leadership (i.e., compliance,
self-concordance, and concern for multiple stake-
holders, respectively) will minimize confounds,
clarify causal relationships within each construct’s
nomological network, and increase empirical dif-
ferentiation among the three approaches to moral
leadership.
Attention to the distinction of leader characteristics
from leader behaviors may be especially important for
servant leadership theory, which has consistently
been conceptualized as a blend of leader characteris-
tics (i.e., a servant leader is “servant first”) and be-
haviors (i.e., a servant who aspires to lead) (Greenleaf,
1977; Liden et al., 2008; van Dierendonck, 2011). In
this respect, servant leadership items measuring both
behaviors and characteristics are in conceptual align-
ment, but this broader theoretical categorization may
create problems disentangling who a leader is and
what a leader does. Hence, it may be useful to con-
struct separate scales to assess servant leader charac-
teristics and servant leader behaviors, which would
enable empirical tests of whether the relationship be-
tween them is consistent with theory.
In sum, given the diversity of the elements with
leadership’s broader influence process and the
causal implications associated with leader charac-
teristics, leader behavior, and leader effects, it is
imperative to adopt more refined nomenclature and
measure each definitional feature under leadership’s
theoretical umbrella separately to increase the “def-
initeness of the components” (Cronbach & Meehl,
1955) within ethical, authentic, and servant leader-
ship as well as their respective nomological net-
works. Sustained efforts to the contrary confound
characteristics with behaviors and behaviors with
their effects, creating dangerous threats to validity
that undermine the utility of leadership research
(van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013).
174 Academy of Management Annals
Capitalizing on Moral Foundations in
Future Research
Beyond addressing and resolving issues in the em-
pirical literature, the moral foundations underlying
ethical, authentic, and servant leadership provide
a foundation to examine many promising new re-
search questions. The theoretical differences among
deontology, virtue ethics, and consequentialism in-
troduce opportunities to examine the fit among moral
approaches to leadership, develop a more refined
understanding of their joint impact on organizational
and follower effectiveness, and advance philosophi-
cal theory through observing leader behaviors in
organizations.
Fit among moral forms of leadership. Refining
distinctions among ethical, authentic, and servant
leadership based on their respective moral philoso-
phies open theoretical avenues to debate whether
leaders can hold multiple moral philosophies si-
multaneously and develop propositions about the
potential effects of interactions between moral forms
of leadership. The essence of these research ques-
tions is defining the nature of the relationships, in
practice, among deontology, virtue ethics, and con-
sequentialism. Are moral philosophies underlying
the three moral approaches to leadership congru-
ent such that they complement one another in
building a grander, more holistic morality, or are
they fundamentally opposed? Perhaps, the answer
is not dichotomous and, instead, requires more nu-
anced questions such as the following: Where are
the points of moral consonance (i.e., complemen-
tarity and consistency) among moral philosophies?
Where are the points of moral dissonance (i.e., con-
tradictions resulting in moral dilemmas)? Such
questions are central to understanding three re-
lational contexts associated with moral congruence:
within-leader (with connections to leaders’ moral
identity), leader–environment, and leader–follower
moral congruence.
Within-leader moral congruence. Moral philoso-
phies are not just abstract ethical theories because
similar to how religions or political parties are ideals
about how societies could and should function,
leaders can attach significant emotional value onto
moral philosophies, integrating them into their core
identities. Existing leadership research contributes
to research on moral philosophy by highlighting the
identity work that occurs when people internalize
these philosophies into who they are and the emo-
tional valence that is attached to it as a result.
Leaders’ emotional attachments to specific moral
January
identities highlight why there might be tension be-
tween moral philosophies. Buying into one per-
spective often means not choosing, or even explicitly
rejecting, other perspectives. Within the moral phi-
losophy literature, these situations have been termed
“moral dilemmas,” where individuals are forced to
choose between two sets of actions derived from
different moral philosophies (e.g., the trolley car di-
lemma). For anyone who has wrestled through or
worked with these dilemmas, this is not just a cog-
nitive or intellectual exercise. These questions reach
the core of one’s moral identity and can lead to
strongly emotional debates with others (or even
within oneself). If, as proponents of ambidextrous
leadership (Rosing, Frese, & Bausch, 2011), para-
doxical leadership (Zhang, Waldman, Han, & Li,
2015), and enabling leadership (Uhl-Bien & Arena,
2018) suggest, leaders juxtapose paradoxical per-
spectives, to what degree are multiple moral phi-
losophies tightly coupled or loosely coupled? The
leadership domain is fertile ground to investigate
and theoretically refine why there might be tensions
between alternative moral approaches and the
identity processes that hinder constructive debate
around the value of each moral philosophy. Despite
the theoretical richness in examining the interplay of
and inherent tensions among multiple moral phi-
losophies, our review of the ethical, authentic, and
servant leadership literatures indicate that this op-
portunity has been squandered in favor of the tenu-
ous assumption that moral forms of leadership are
mostly interchangeable.
Moral dilemmas raise a question that is rarely ex-
amined throughout the leadership literature: “Can
leaders employ more than one moral philosophy si-
multaneously?” It is logical to assume that a highly
moral individual might prioritize compliance with
standards, self-awareness and self-concordance, and
stakeholders, but adhering to all three moral moor-
ings is not necessarily assured. Some leaders might
believe in following rules even if they do not believe
in them; others might advocate for bending or
breaking organizational norms in the service of
stakeholder good; still others could lack strong feel-
ings for compliance or compassion for stakeholders
and, instead, be guided solely by their own instincts
or deeply held philosophies or religious convictions.
It is not difficult to imagine scenarios in which the
three moral interests would align. For instance, in-
dividuals follow norms and standards in part be-
cause they honestly believe that they positively
impact the people affected by them (Coleman, 1989).
Other cases may be less straightforward, and might
2019 Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy
involve conflicts among the leadership styles. Con-
sider a case where an organization had an opportu-
nity to move into the highly lucrative business of
selling tobacco products in developing countries.
The company and countries would likely have no
norms or laws prohibiting this business venture, but
the health outcomes for customers would be clear.
The organization’s decisions might rely on which
type of moral leadership is dominant. On a more
microscale, imagine an employee who needed time
off for a family emergency but lacked vacation or
leave days. What that employee’s manager might
believe is the right thing to do might differ with what
would have the most positive impact on the em-
ployee, which in turn may not match the organiza-
tion’s norms and policies. What does a moral leader
do if telling the truth and representing him- or herself
authentically would have negative implications for
stakeholders, or result in his or her speaking against
company norms and culture? In all of these cases, the
type of morality evidenced by the moral leader be-
comes essential.
Although it may be possible for leaders to switch
between moral philosophies over time and situa-
tions (e.g., using deontology in one situation and
consequentialism in another), moral dilemmas may
impede on their overall sense of moral coherence,
consistency, and integrity (Simons, 2002). Leaders
who use different moral principles in different
situations—ethical in one situation and servant or
authentic in the next—may adversely affect fol-
lowers who seek behavioral consistency and pre-
dictability from their leaders. Moral dilemmas may
create weak situations in which followers become
confused by attempting to interpret the leader’s in-
consistent ethical principles. Exploring interactions
among different moral philosophies introduces in-
teresting questions about followers’ interpretation
and response to ethical behavior.
It has been assumed that moral leadership styles
identify leaders who make moral decisions, but ex-
actly what is moral is often subjective. For instance,
in a case of declining profits, are layoffs more moral
when they affect the smallest number of employees,
or is an organization-wide pay decline more moral
because no one is laid off? If the three approaches to
morality are not orthogonal, then such situations
raise questions as to moral trade-offs. If leaders are
equally high in compliance-focused ethical leader-
ship and community-focused stakeholder leader-
ship, but they are forced to make a choice against one
approach and in favor of the other, what ramifica-
tions would their choice have for their well-being
175
and future behavior? Would followers perceive
leaders as inconsistent and weak who are sometimes
self-concordant but, in other cases, comply with
company policies without personally believing in
them? Would leaders be more likely to find com-
promises that retain elements of both moral per-
spectives? Beyond mere philosophical musings,
such questions are of paramount importance in
contexts such as organizational change, workforce
reductions and layoffs, or corporate social responsibility
(CSR) allocations, among others. A more nuanced in-
vestigation of how these three leadership approaches
work together, or against each other, is needed to truly
understand how moral leadership might affect such
essential organizational outcomes.
Leader–environment moral congruence. Distin-
guishing moral leadership approaches by the content
of their morality also introduces the importance of
investigating fit, or contingency perspectives, to
morality. Existing approaches to moral leadership
are quite normative and morally absolutist in that
they suggest one optimal moral behavioral pattern.
However, a degree of relativity may exist such that
certain approaches fit better within certain contexts.
Different contexts differ in their emphasis on differ-
ent moral content, including national cultures, po-
litical or religious climate, and industry or corporate
cultures—all of which suggest a contingency per-
spective to moral leadership that is not as pre-
dominant in current research. Ethical leaders would
be most sensitive to these contextual issues because of
their awareness and prioritization of cultural and or-
ganizational norms (Brown et al., 2005; Brown &
Mitchell, 2010). Authentic and servant leaders,
though, would be expected to be far less concerned
with such norms. Servant leaders would focus on
stakeholder good regardless of expectations. This
perspective is congruent with stakeholder theory
(Freeman, 1984) in which organizational goals tran-
scend mere profitability, a viewpoint that may or may
not align with a company’s internal norms. Authentic
leaders might be most strongly opposed to prevailing
norms, given their high moral courage and belief in
moral freedom; indeed, to more deontological cultures
and environments, the authentic leader may well be
viewed as an unpredictable “loose cannon.” Could
ethical leaders, then, be the most effective at navigating
differences among national and organizational cul-
tures, whereas authentic leaders would struggle the
most? If ethical leaders are open to different contextual
demands and willing to switch to the current moral
standards, then the answer is yes. It is plausible, how-
ever, that an ethical leader might be more absolutist
176 Academy of Management Annals
and even rigid in his or her adherence to one system of
norms and expectations over another. The factors that
make ethical leaders more or less likely to adapt their
adopted norms, rules, and standards are worthy of
study, especially in a cross-cultural context.
Leader–follower moral congruence. Followers
themselves may form a similar contingency for the
individual effects of each moral leadership ap-
proach. Although explicated at one or more points in
time by great thinkers, the three moral philosophies
have existed in various forms across different socie-
ties throughout history. Their prevalence, explicitly
in culture and both consciously and subconsciously
in cognition (Shafer-Landau, 2015), suggests that
beyond their explicit formulation, these philoso-
phies have and will continue to exist also on a more
implicit level: fundamental assumptions about how
societies should function that are not always ques-
tioned or well-thought out. Recognizing both the
implicit and explicit nature of moral philosophies is
important to understand their impact on leadership
effectiveness. For instance, a leader may explicitly
buy into a philosophy in thought or theory only to
find him- or herself challenged in those beliefs by
followers because they contradict more implicit as-
sumptions (e.g., religious or political beliefs). Fur-
thermore, a certain moral leadership approach may
have little to no effect because specific followers (or
larger groups) have implicit beliefs or schemas
around what is right and wrong that are not easily
challenged or changed. Opposing moral philoso-
phies may even lead to counterproductive effects
(e.g., conflicts, views that the other party is un-
ethical), which might suggest that a moral leadership
approach is undesirable.
In sum, depending on the belief system and moral
philosophy of individual followers, the leader’s at-
tempt to use one leadership style over another may
fail. Our understanding of the role of followers in
cocreating leadership is underdeveloped in general
(Shamir, 2007; Uhl-Bien, Riggio, Lowe, & Carsten,
2014), but should be especially important in the area
of moral leadership. Opposing moral views might
diminish the effects of certain forms of leadership
influence. Although more homogenous approaches
to moral leadership research might suggest that
a compliance-focused leader and a community-
focused follower would find alignment in their
equally strong moral identities, inconsistent moral
content may instead precipitate conflict. Research
from social psychology suggests that when in-
dividuals encounter others who use fundamentally
different moral philosophies to guide behavior, we
January
tend to judge those others as immoral, rather than
simply using a different moral perspective (Haidt,
2001, 2012). Consider, for instance, an individual
listening to a speech given by a member of an op-
posing political party. Such an individual is unlikely
to consider the differing moral natures of individuals
and give the speaker the benefit of the doubt in
a moral assessment; instead, they are most likely to
react intuitively to conclude that the speaker is im-
moral. In this manner, how would an authentic,
virtue ethics-oriented follower react to an ethical or
servant leader? Questions such as these demonstrate
that moral leadership may serve as a double-edged
sword.
Trade-offs and negative effects associated with
each moral approach to leadership. New direc-
tions for research are also suggested by scholarship
on the three approaches to normative morality.
Consequentialism theorists, for example, ask what
exactly is the most optimistic path to well-being—
that is, whose outcomes should be prioritized, and by
how much (Scheffler, 1988; Shafer-Landau, 2015)?
Similarly, studies of servant leadership should
examine how and whether it is possible for ser-
vant leaders to effectively balance organizational
concerns with the goods of stakeholders such as
customers, employees, and communities. Is such
a balance among multiple stakeholders’ concerns
plausible? If so, is there an optimal stakeholder bal-
ance that can be achieved for the overall good, such
as the controversial concept “effective altruism”
which has been proposed (but not empirically
verified) as the most impactful form of utilitarian
consequentialism (Gabriel, 2017; Singer, 2015)?
Proponents of consequentialism and deontology
are sometimes faced with the criticisms that their
forms of morality suggest unjust actions and un-
intended outcomes, respectively (Baron et al.,
1997; Shafer-Landau, 2015). Do these criticisms
apply to servant and ethical leadership? Does the
relative unpredictability of the virtue ethics ap-
proach, in that moral decision-makers are guided
by self-concordance and authentic reflection rather
than by consistent and predictable decision rules,
have implications for the authentic leader? Might
authentic leaders be viewed by followers or man-
agement as inconsistent, unpredictable, or unreli-
able? Virtue ethics scholars currently debate between
Aristotelian and non-Aristotelian approaches, with
the former advocating a single concordant and ful-
filling set of virtues without conflict, and the
latter arguing that there is no one best virtuous set
of characteristics (Oakley, 1996). Are authentic
2019 Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy
leaders, then, aligned in their virtues, or is there
variation? If there is, what are the ramifications of
these differences?
Leaders as a context to descriptively evaluate
normative philosophical concepts. New directions
for research within the moral leadership literature
are plentiful, but additional opportunities arise in
consideration of a cross-disciplinary approach.
Whereas the leadership literature is often criticized
for its overreliance on empiricism and absence of
strong theory (e.g., van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013),
the philosophy and ethics literatures are conversely
in need of rigorous empiricism to test their many
theories (Widdershoven & van der Scheer, 2008). In
this manner, each of the two disciplines is well po-
sitioned to capitalize on the strengths of the other. A
comprehensive listing of these opportunities is be-
yond the scope of this article, but we provide some
examples to foreshadow the potential. For instance,
many experts in the study of ethical philosophy feel
that there is one objectively correct normative moral
approach. In other words, they maintain that one
theory best explains how individuals consider moral
behavior (e.g., Baron et al., 1997). The organizational
context provides an applied ethical environment
from which to descriptively examine such normative
questions. Do most managers make decisions based
on norms and standards, based on outcomes and
stakeholders, or based on their own self-concordant
judgments? Of these three approaches, which is the
most effective in terms of organizational success,
team development, or more morally oriented out-
comes? Our review suggests that the organizational
context is an environment where different moral
approaches can be present, even simultaneously,
with distinct outcomes for each approach to moral
leadership.
CONCLUSION
Although morality’s usefulness in the leadership
domain has often been questioned (e.g., Mumford &
Fried, 2014), our comparative review of the three
dominant moral approaches (i.e., ethical, authentic,
and servant leadership) clearly indicates that moral
leadership behaviors positively impact a host of de-
sirable organizationally relevant outcomes. This
conclusion counters old critiques that issues of mo-
rality in leadership are unimportant (e.g., England &
Lee, 1974; Rost, 1991; Thompson, 1956). To the
contrary, moral forms of leadership have much
potential to explain leadership’s influence in a
manner substantially distinct from classical forms
177
of leadership such as task-oriented, relationship-
oriented, and change-oriented leadership (DeRue,
Nahrgang, Wellman, & Humphrey, 2011; Yukl,
Gordon, & Taber, 2002).
At the same time, our review indicates a need to
further develop and refine our understanding of how
morality influences leadership. In an attempt to es-
tablish criterion validity, the study of similar effects
among different moral approaches has led to con-
ceptual vagueness regarding their unique content.
Most of the articles reviewed here exhibited high
degrees of redundancy, adding little to our overall
understanding of how and why the alignment of
morality with leadership might be important. The
continued study of similar outcomes and generic
mechanisms, combined with inattention to core
theory, suggests that moral leadership is falling prey
to the same issues that have historically plagued
leadership research (Nohria & Khurana, 2010; Rost,
1991; van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013). However,
our review of the theoretical foundations underlying
different approaches to moral leadership, and a
supporting body of empirical research aligned with
distinct moral philosophies, offers signs of promise.
A leader’s morality can influence their leadership
effectiveness in distinct ways. If leadership repre-
sents a relational process of influencing followers
toward achieving collective goals, then moral forms
of leadership suggest what those collective goals are
and how they might best be reached. Followers can
be inspired by a leader who advocates the highest
common good for all and is motivated to contribute
to that common good from an expectation of reci-
procity (servant leadership; consequentialism). Fol-
lowers can also be inspired by a leader who advocates
the adherence to a set of standards or rules and is
motivated to contribute to the clarity and safety this
structure imposes for an orderly society (ethical
leadership; deontology). Followers can also be in-
spired by a leader who advocates for moral freedom
and corresponding responsibility and is motivated to
contribute to this system in the knowledge that others
will afford them their own moral autonomy (authentic
leadership; virtue ethics).
These distinct leadership approaches to morality
are all bounded by followers’ perceptions of, and
implicit agreement with, what values and standards
constitute moral behavior. Followers’ internal moral
standards and implicit comparisons with those of
their leaders introduce a significant challenge for
moral approaches to leadership. What is seen as
moral to one set of followers may be seen as immoral
by another set of followers. This conflict suggests
178 Academy of Management Annals
that leaders who invoke morality to influence
their followers should take care in doing so—
specifically with awareness of alternative ap-
proaches to morality. The tensions between the
multiple approaches to morality may mean that
some benefits are reaped but others are lost, and
that some followers are convinced (those adher-
ing to the same moral philosophy) but others
distance themselves. Do these moral leadership
tensions suggest leaders should avoid the conflict
altogether and be agnostic concerning issues of
morality? Decidedly not! Morality in organiza-
tions matters for leaders and those being led, and
many important and practically useful research
questions remain to be addressed. But based on
our review, a more nuanced and more careful
approach to moral leadership is warranted.
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2019 Lemoine, Hartnell, and Leroy 187

G. James Lemoine (jlemoine@buffalo.edu) is an Assistant the intervening mechanisms through which they influence
Professor at the School of Management at the University at organization, group, and individual effectiveness.
Buffalo (State University of New York), and a researcher
Hannes Leroy (leroy@rsm.nl) is an Associate Professor at
with the UB Center for Leadership and Organizational Ef-
the Rotterdam School of Management and Academic Di-
fectiveness. He primarily studies issues related to leader-
rector of the Erasmus Center for Leadership. He is in-
ship, ethics, creativity, research methods, and how they do
terested in authenticity – the extent to which one remains
and don’t play nicely together.
true to oneself – at work: whether individuals feel au-
Chad Hartnell (chartnell@gsu.edu) is an Assistant Pro- thentic, are perceived as authentic, and encouraged to be
fessor at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business at authentic, particularly in a role of leadership.
Georgia State University. He is interested in leadership and
the organization’s social context. His research examines
how leadership and organizational culture interrelate and