1

Ethical Leadership

Author

Affiliation

Supervisor

Due Date
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Table of Contents
Ethical Leadership...........................................................................................................................1

Abstract............................................................................................................................................4

Introduction......................................................................................................................................5

Ethical Leadership Strategy.............................................................................................................9

Social Learning Theory.............................................................................................................10

Social Exchange Theory............................................................................................................10

Scales of Ethical Leadership......................................................................................................12

Ethical Competence Scale.......................................................................................................13

Results and Analysis......................................................................................................................17

Research Findings......................................................................................................................17

Conclusion and Recommendations................................................................................................20

References......................................................................................................................................23

Appendices....................................................................................................................................26

Appendix 1.................................................................................................................................26

Ethical Competence Scale.......................................................................................................26

Appendix 2.................................................................................................................................28
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Figure 1. Self-assessment questionnaire for assessing ethical leadership qualities.......................16

Figure 2. Filled questionnaire for self-assessment of ethical leadership.......................................28

Figure 3. Integrity and Honesty Ratings By Levels of Organisations (Zenger & Folkman 2022)28
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Abstract

Looking into the literature on ethical leadership and the effects of a pandemic and global

crisis on the organisational culture, this study aims to develop critical ethical management skills

to address uncertainty during a pandemic. Ethical leadership can be characterised by the presence

of trust, honesty, moral values, integrity, respect and fairness in the relation between leaders and

followers. By applying theories of social learning and social exchange, it can be said that the

followers of ethical leaders learn from them and imitate them while also reciprocating the

leader’s ethical behaviour, and thus creating a healthy organisational environment built on trust,

which encourages innovation and creativity. Pandemics hamper the ethical relationship between

the leaders and the followers by introducing economic problems, anxiety, loss of communication

and many other factors. Studying the effects of pandemics on ethical leadership, this paper has

found out the necessary skills to acquire for a leader to address uncertainty in times of global

crises. Taking help from a self-assessment tool to assess ethical leadership qualities, the author

assessed her own qualities and addressed her lacunae in empathetic skills and anxiety

management. Finally, these lacunae are addressed and the ways to improve these skills are

explained in this paper.       

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Introduction

Ethical leadership is the process, where individuals work within a set boundary of

standards that are accepted as the basis of the greater good. These standards may include

honesty, integrity, fairness, respect, transparency and trust, which should always be maintained

by the leader. This is especially true when organisations are faced with unprecedented challenges

of working in times of crises like pandemics. During worldwide pandemics, the leaders come up

against the challenge of maintaining their bonds of trust and ethics with their employees, while

facing economic challenges. The leaders must respond to their employees in thoughtful manners,

showing that they are empathetic towards them. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has resurfaced some of the major issues of leadership in

organisations including integration of social and cultural ethics in leadership strategies. This

article is going to address the issue of maintaining a relation of trust, respect and fairness

between the leaders and employees in the situation of worldwide pandemics by reflecting on the

learning outcomes of this module. 

According to Allal-Chérif et al. (2021), a multidimensional pandemic like COVID-19

affects different aspects of human lives including health, social, economic and political spheres.

Businesses and organisations struggle to survive with limited financial and human resources. The

leaders had to steer their organisations to sustain them in the hostile market during the pandemic.

The leaders as well as the employees gained experience in dealing with these adversities, which

helped them to be more resilient. Vullinghs et al. (2018), states that safeguarding and looking

after the employees are some of the major ethical obligations of leaders as well as organisations.

In the time of the pandemic, this was hampered to some extent. Organisations had to lay off their
 6

employees, cut their salaries and force some of them to unpaid leaves. All these steps taken by

the leaders harmed the trust, integrity and ethics of these organisations, which resulted in

increased psychological stress, anxiety and other health, social and economic issues in the

employees (Mimoun, Ben Ari & Margalit 2020). In this time of uncertainty, the employees

needed the reassuring hands of their leaders, which is an important part of ethical leadership.

Instead of turning their backs to the employees, if the leaders in said organisations supported

their employees and weathered the storm together, their bonds would have strengthened, which

could have helped them survive the pandemic. 

Ethical leadership is the style of leadership that builds trust and integrity between the

leaders and the followers by morally right approaches from the leader, which are then followed

by the followers. Den Hartog (2015) added that leadership behaviours showing integrity,

honesty, community orientation, encouragement, empowerment, fairness and ethics, promotion

of ethical conduct and concern for employees among others pave the way for ethical leadership.

There are some similarities between ethical leadership and other styles of leadership

including transformational leadership, transactional leadership, authentic leadership and spiritual

leadership. For example, like ethical leaders, a transformational leader cares for his employees

and acts according to his morals and principles. On the contrary, transformational leaders can be

authentic or pseudo (self-centred), whereas ethical leaders are always moral and altruistic.

Othman & Rahman (2014) conveyed that transformational leadership expresses higher ethical

values than other leadership styles like laissez-faire and transactional leadership.
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A study found that acting with integrity resonates the highest with ethical leadership

attributes. Ethical leaders should also acquire other leadership capabilities including reflexive

abilities, which are combinations of systematic thinking, managing skills, embracing diversity

and balancing control. These abilities are a must for supporting the sustainable development of

the organisations. They also found that leadership styles showing characters of leaders

resembling that of servants are successful in managing ethical leadership. Ethical leadership does

not necessarily need technical excellence to be successful, instead, the degree of ethics in the

competency of the leader depends on the overall practice of leadership (Lawton & Páez 2015).

The effects of ethical leadership are generally associated with the increased ethical

behaviour of the employees, better voice behaviour of the employees, increased creativity and

innovation, better customer orientation, reduced confusion and psychological pressures on the

employees. Keeping in mind the positive effects of ethical leadership, the following aim and

objectives will be set to achieve the goal of addressing the issue of lack of trust, respect and

fairness between the leaders and the employees during worldwide crises like the COVID-19

pandemic. The aims and objectives set in this article are mentioned below.

Aim

To develop ethical leadership skills in supervisor levels for maintaining a healthy

relationship built by trust, integrity, respect and fairness, between the employees and the leaders

during times of crisis.

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Objectives

1. To address the lack of trust, respect and fairness between leaders and employees during a

pandemic.

2. To find out the role of Ethical Leadership in maintaining trust, respect and fairness

between the leaders and employees.

   
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Ethical Leadership Strategy

In order to achieve the aim of developing ethical leadership skills during pandemics and

global crises, the objectives will have to be fulfilled. Objectives of addressing the lack of trust,

integrity, respect and fairness between the leaders and followers during a pandemic will be

fulfilled by reviewing previous literature on the topic. Theories of ethical leadership and its

effects will also be discussed. In the end, a questionnaire will be prepared for the assessment of

ethical leadership capabilities. The participant will have to answer the questions. The results will

be discussed and ways to develop ethical leadership skills will be explained. 

During the early onset of COVID-19, almost all the human activities for business and

other aspects were stopped. This resulted in huge revenue loss for most organisations. As the

organisations’ offices were closed and “Work from Home” started, the employees and the

leaders had to constantly keep their communication online. A constant influx of COVID-19 news

and economic instability gave rise to anxiety, tension and confusion in the employees, as they

were unsure of their future (Singh, Kumar & Ahmad 2020). In some organisations, employees

were treated unethically, mass numbers of employees were laid-off over online conversations

without showing any resemblance of sympathy and empathy. The leaders were also unsure of

what to do, as they also were not getting any clear instructions from their superiors or senior

management teams. This scenario gave rise to chaos and broke the relation of trust and ethics

between the leaders and employees. As the main driving power behind an ethical relationship is

trust, the absence of it blocked ethical leadership and communication. The perception of

organisational justice in the employees during COVID-19 mostly decreased due to the absence

of fairness.
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There are several theories that explain the theory of ethical leadership, which are Social

Learning Theory and Social Exchange Theory. The contributions of these theories are discussed

below.

Social Learning Theory

The theory of social learning proposes that people learn new behaviours from their

observations from others and imitate them in social settings. This theory also suggests that

vicarious reinforcement or experiences of punishments and rewards are also responsible for

social learning. In scenarios where a leader practices ethical leadership, the employees are seen

to be imitating the leaders and they show ethical behaviours with each other as well as their

customers (Lu & Lin 2014). By showing integrity and high standards of ethics, ethical leaders

become role models for their followers. These leaders encourage ethical behaviour in their

employees. They also guide their employees in deciding which behaviours are acceptable and

which are not. Ethical leaders emphasise morality to set the key performance indicators (KPIs),

which are attainable and realistic. This prevents unfair competitiveness between the employees

and increases morale. Ethical leaders are expected to be supportive to their employees during

normal times as well as during times of crisis. They should empathize and be level headed while

dealing with all the stakeholders. This behaviour will lead to the reduction of mental pressure in

the employees and thus, maintaining a moral atmosphere in the organisation (Ozavize Ayodele,

Binti Haron & Ismail 2019). 

Social Exchange Theory

According to the Social Exchange Theory, a social relationship is always based upon

standards of reciprocity between the two parties. This theory suggests that if the followers
 11

recognise their leaders as caring, ethical and concerned for them, they also start to reciprocate

their leaders’ behaviours. Research studies and theories suggest that ethical leaders provoke

senses of ethics, trust and integrity in their followers and create a reciprocal relationship with

their followers, where the followers reciprocate their ethical and caring behaviour. 

HANsen (2011) suggested that this type of relationship between the leaders and

employees develop based on their mutual benefits derived from them. In past times, most leader-

follower relationships were based on their lack of trust for each other and tight control from the

leaders on the subordinates. These relationships resulted in high tension between both parties and

led to an organisational environment of mistrust. Over time both the parties understood the

requirements of social exchange via mutual risk-taking, which benefited them. This way, social

exchange relationships were established between the leaders and the followers. Social exchange

relationships require trust between the leaders and the followers, which ethical leaders can

acquire over time.

Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory focuses on the relationship of trust and support.

It conveys that trust is the main factor that indicates social exchange. Relational leadership

theory suggests that social exchange relations occur when both parties recognise others as

worthy of their trust. Therefore, it can be said that ethical leaders will be perceived as

trustworthy by their subordinates, which will lead to social exchange relationships between

them. 

By integrating both these theories in practice, a leader can establish ethical relations

based on trust with his employees that will lead to a morally upright environment in the

organisation, which gives rise to innovation and better performance. 

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Scales of Ethical Leadership

The Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS) was created by Brown et al. (2005), which was

constituted of 10 measurements of ethical behaviours of leaders practising Ethical leadership.

These measurements included fair procedures of decision making, 2-way communication,

addressing unethical behaviour within the organisation and ethical role modelling. Each of these

factors is measured on 5-point Likert Scales, where 1 represents “Strongly Disagree” and 5

represents “Strongly Agree”. The overall score of a leader implied the leaders’ effectiveness,

employee satisfaction, reporting problems and the willingness of the employees to put extra

effort. This scale did not include some important aspects of ethical leadership such as fairness in

job allocation and rewards and honest communication. Yukl, Mahsud, Hassan and Prussia (2013)

concluded that the ELS of Brown et al. (2005) was flawed as the honesty test was measured

based on negatively worded items. They suggested that measurements based on positive

wordings give better results.  

A scale to measure ethical leadership was created integrating the ELS, the scale to

measure perceived leader integrity (Craig & Gustafson 1998), questionnaire for ethical

leadership (De Hoogh & Den Hartog 2008), authentic leadership questionnaire (Walumbwa et al.

2008) and Servant Leadership Questionnaire (Barbuto and Wheeler 2006), which will be used to

measure the ethical leadership qualities of the leaders and supervisors of the organisation. The

scale is given below.

Ethical Competence Scale

Personal Ethical Competence

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Foundational Thoughts and Always Usuall Sometimes Rarely Never Value

Characteristics Actions in y in in Place in in Input
Place Place Place Place
10-9 8-7 6-5 4-3 2-1

Trustworthiness Reliable and

dependable.
True to word.
Confidence-
worthy.
Keeps promises.
Social Ethical Competence

Empathy Recognises
others’ feelings
Shows Concern
for others
Gives attention to
emotions
Active listening
Can see from
others’
perspectives

Social Skills Clear and

transparent
communication.
Has intention of
being clearly
understandable.
Straightforward in
communications.
Shares detailed
information.
Participates in 2-
way
conversations.

Global Ethical Competence

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Interdependenc Continuous
searches for
e connections.
Sees the big
picture.
Understands the
importance of
connections with
others.
Future Can forecast the
implications of
Orientation present strategies
in the future.
Always have a
vision and work
towards it.
Can work in teams
to achieve the
shared vision.
Has a positive
attitude towards
the future.

Integrity Fulfils
commitments and
promises.
Always maintains
loyalty to
subordinates.
Honest in nature.
Takes
responsibility for
mistakes. 
Compassionate Sympathetic to
others’ needs.
Always helps
others.
Shows genuine
affection to
people.
Caring and
empathetic.
Anxiety and Ready to accept
contradiction contradictions.
tolerance Can tolerate high
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anxiety and
mental pressure.
Accepts the
presence of
anxiety and
contradiction in
growth.
Ethical Organisation Scale

Economic Has positive

Considerations effects of products
and services on
the economy
Regularly pays
taxes
Provides High-
quality products
and services.

Workforce Presence of safe

environment and healthy work
environments.
Treats the
employees with
respect and
dignity.
Fair and equal
opportunity to
every member of
the workforce,
regardless of their
demographics.
Encourages
innovation and
self-development.

Dealing with Pays suppliers and

Suppliers and contractors on
contractors time.
Conducts
transparent
bidding for new
contracts.
Figure 1. Self-assessment questionnaire for assessing ethical leadership qualities.
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  These values are measured and calculated to find out Ethical Quotient, Ethical

Leadership Quotient and Ethical Organisation Quotient. With the help of statistics, the ethical

leadership qualities of the leaders, as well as the employees, can be measured and steps to

increase ethical leadership practices can be implemented in the organisation.

    
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Results and Analysis

Research Findings

It has been found in research studies that during worldwide crises including natural

disasters, wars and pandemics, employees and followers depend on their leaders for sustenance

and guidance (Everett et al. 2021). During a pandemic, when people are burdened with

uncertainty about their health and economy and are misguided by the media, they want to have

stability in their life as well as in their work organisation. The main factor that establishes a

stable connection with their organisational leaders is trust. As people are confined within their

households and cannot physically communicate with the leaders, confusion arises in the

workplace, which can give rise to reduced performance.  

LMX theory establishes the connection of trust with ethical leadership in organisations

(Erdogan & Bauer 2014). The problems of miscommunication and trust during a pandemic can

arise because of many factors, which are, the leaders often have to break the employees’ trust to

maintain their superiors’ orders. Many organisations during the pandemic had to lay off their

employees and cut their salaries. This resulted in mistrust between the employees and the

leaders. An ethical leader should always be clear, transparent and honest while communicating

with his employees. He or she should be able to wear the shoes of the employees and try to look

at the situation from their perspective. The ethical leader should take the responsibility of being a

role model for the employees, who will follow their leaders and imitate their ethical behaviour as

per Social Learning Theory. 

By reflecting on the experiences from group activities and team activities, it can be said

that the environment of ethics is critically important in an organisation, which is especially true
 18

during crises. The leader should be humble and demonstrate servant-leadership to his employees

to gain their trust. They should be creative while making decisions that include either or choices

between the employees and the organisation’s economy. The economy cannot be greater than

human life. The ethical leader should always have morally upright principles, which he or she

should never lose. They should always be prepared for incidents of anxiety and threats. Being

empathetic towards the subordinates and taking some mental pressures off them can be

beneficial for both the employees and the organisation.   

By completing the questionnaire for measuring personal and social ethical competence,

the results depict the trustworthiness, empathy and social skills of the participant. 

The trustworthiness score of the participant is 9, which shows that the person is

trustworthy. This is the most crucial quality for an ethical leader. Trustworthiness is responsible

for building integrity in an organisation. Some research studies suggest that the closer the leader

and the employees are, the greater the trustworthiness of the leader. A trustworthy leader

influences his or her followers to be more invested in their works and perform better (Crews

2015). Relationships based on social exchange theory depend upon trust. Trusting the leader, the

employees can go beyond their work responsibilities and perform better in organisations.

The score of the participant for empathy is 6, which shows that she does not have proper

empathetic skills for leadership. Empathy is the ability to recognise others’ emotions and look at

a scenario from other perspectives. It is a crucial part of Emotional Intelligence, which is

required for ethical leaders. Emotional intelligence is defined as the skill to perceive others’

emotions, manage them and respond to others’ emotions while regulating one’s own. This is

twice as important for ethical leaders to acquire as having technical skills and just intelligence
 19

(Lumpkin & Achen 2018). Leaders who are emotionally intelligent can address workplace

conflicts and issues with a neutral approach and are able to solve them quickly without hurting

anybody emotionally. An emotionally intelligent person is self-aware. He or she can recognise

his or her own emotions. Before responding to others’ emotions, the participant should recognise

her own. In order to develop one’s emotional intelligence, the person should practice self-

regulation of her emotions. The person should always pause, think and respond instead of

reacting to any situation. Increased empathetic skills require active listening from the leader.

The participant scored 8 in social skills indicating she has good levels of social skills,

which can be improved. Social skills that a leader should have include communication skills,

collaborative skills, active listening skills, humility, inspiring ability, authenticity and

approachability (Westcott 2014). The leader should be proficient in both verbal and non-verbal

communication. Choosing proper ways of verbal communication according to the type of the

message is as important as the message itself. For example, while criticizing an employee, the

leader should always do it personally through oral communication, whereas, official letters and

news should be written and sent to the appropriate person. 

The results of global ethical competence showed that the person scored 8, 8, 9, 8 and 6 in

the areas of Interdependence, future orientation, integrity, compassion and anxiety and

contradiction tolerance respectively. Other than the last criterion, the person has decent skills.

She needs to gain skills for managing anxiety and accepting contradictions from others. Anxiety

management can be done by group therapies, meditations, exercises, exposure therapy and

support groups. The person can seek help from psychology experts for better management of his

anxieties.   
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Conclusion and Recommendations

Reflecting on the learning outcomes of the module, it can be said that ethical leadership is

the strategy of leadership, which is based on a relationship of trust between the leader and the

followers. An ethical leader should always emphasize honesty, integrity, fairness, respect,

transparency and trust. Ethical leadership can be compared with other forms of leadership such

as transformational leadership, transactional leadership and spiritual leadership.

Transformational leadership has most similarities with ethical leadership style in its ways of

caring and being fair with the employees, but it contradicts with ethical leadership style in its

nature. Transformational leadership does not need to be altruistic and moral all the time like

ethical leadership. It can be pseudo-natured also. Ethical leaders always successfully act with

integrity, practice reflexive abilities like thinking systematically, embracing diversity and

balancing control. 

Looking at the previous literature, it can be affirmed that during crises and pandemics,

ethical leadership in organisations is always challenged. As the employees face a surge of

confusion, anxiety among other psychological pressures, the relationship between the leaders and

them is strained. During these times, high standards of ethical leadership are required to re-

establish the relationship. The leaders have to be transparent, supportive and fair to their

employees to show that they are with the employees in every situation. This reassurance has the

ability to sustain an organisation during crises. 

Looking into the findings, it can be said that the objective of this paper, which is to

develop ethical leadership skills for dealing with uncertainty during a pandemic can be achieved

by firstly looking into previous literature on the topics of ethical leadership and the effect of
 21

pandemics on ethical leadership. Secondly, one needs to assess his or her ethical leadership

qualities. A self-assessment tool had been provided in the paper, which the participant used to

find out that her ethical leadership capabilities lack in showing empathy and managing anxiety. 

The recommendations for the participant to develop the weak abilities (showing empathy

and managing anxiety) are as follows. The participant should start to actively listen to the

speaker to find out their feelings and emotions to recognise them. Active listening should be

given priority while improving empathy. The person should focus on developing her non-verbal

communication skills including eye contact, hand gestures, facial expressions, body language

and posture. An ethical leader should possess the skills to read the room and recognise others’

attitudes by analysing their body language. This can help the leader think and respond

accordingly. The person should start engaging in conversations, which she may not be

comfortable with. This will develop the skills to recognise others' emotions, manage her own and

tactfully respond to them, while not hurting anybody (Vachon & Lynam 2016). Practising these

skills will make the person more empathetic and will help her to build relationships based on

trust, which is the most important base of ethical relationships.

In order to manage her anxiety, the person can look into existing literature and learn

about anxiety disorders and their management, which can help her better manage anxiety. As an

ethical leader, the person should have the ability to handle huge stress and anxiety, especially

during times of crisis. However, the person should not focus on anxiety-provoking thoughts,

instead, she should shift her focus into the present moment, which can bring her away from those

thoughts. The person can try different relaxation techniques including abdominal breathing,

meditation, and progressive muscle relaxation. If all these techniques do not work, the person
 22

can seek psychiatric help from professionals and or join group therapies such as cognitive

behavioural therapy (Villaggi et al. 2015). 

Reflecting on the findings of the paper and the learning outcomes of the module, it can be

concluded that this paper has been successful in addressing the issues of trust, respect and

fairness towards the employees from the leaders during a pandemic. It has also successfully

delved into the ways to develop one’s ethical leadership abilities by finding out the lacunae using

questionnaire tools and addressing them. This paper considered only one participant’s reflection

of her ethical leadership skills in order to devise a plan for developing them; it would have been

better if more inputs were considered. However, as the main objective was to find out ways to

develop only this person’s ethical leadership skills, it can be concluded that this paper has been

successful in doing so. 

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Appendices

Appendix 1

Ethical Competence Scale

Personal Ethical Competence

Foundational Thoughts and Always Usuall Sometimes Rarely Never Value

Characteristics Actions in y in in Place in in Input
Place Place Place Place
10-9 8-7 6-5 4-3 2-1

Trustworthiness Reliable and 9

dependable.
True to word.
Confidence-
worthy.
Keeps promises.
Social Ethical Competence

Empathy Recognises 6
others’ feelings.
Shows Concern
for others.
Gives attention to
emotions.
Active listening
Can see from
others’
perspectives.

Social Skills Clear and 8

transparent
communication.
Has intention of
being clearly
understandable.
Straightforward in
communications.
Shares detailed
information.
 28

Participates in 2-
way
conversations.

Global Ethical Competence

Interdependenc Continuous 8
searches for
e connections.
Sees the big
picture.
Understands the
importance of
connections with
others.
Future Can forecast the 8
implications of
Orientation present strategies
in the future.
Always have a
vision and work
towards it.
Can work in teams
to achieve the
shared vision.
Has a positive
attitude towards
the future.

Integrity Fulfils 9
commitments and
promises.
Always maintains
loyalty to
subordinates.
Honest in nature.
Takes responsibility
for mistakes. 
Compassionate Sympathetic to 8
others’ needs.
Always helps
others.
Shows genuine
affection to
people.
 29

Caring and
empathetic.
Anxiety and Ready to accept 6
contradiction contradictions.
tolerance Can tolerate high
anxiety and
mental pressure.
Accepts the
presence of
anxiety and
contradiction in
growth.
Figure 2. Filled questionnaire for self-assessment of ethical leadership.

Appendix 2

Integrity and Honesty Ratings by Level

120%

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%
Top Middle Lower

Average Rted Organisations Highest Rated Organisations Lowest Rated Organisations

Figure 3. Integrity and Honesty Ratings By Levels of Organisations (Zenger & Folkman 2022)