Chapter 11: Tango in the Dark: The Interplay of Leader’s and Follower’s Level of Self-Construal and its Impact on Ethical Behavior in Organizations

Recent business scandals have confronted the general public with examples of leaders who displayed highly self-enriching behaviors while their companies were at the verge of bankruptcy. The media attention devoted to these scandals, which ranged from manager’s acceptance of outrageous bonuses, or private use of company jets, to redecorations of private apartments at company costs, has generally focused on the contrast between the leader’s selfish behavior in these cases and the collective-serving behavior that is generally expected.

Based on these examples we define ethical leadership as leadership behaviors that serve the collective. As this definition allows for the possibility that the leader profits from his or her own collective-serving behavior, it is less strict than some other definitions in the field of organizational science, where ethical leadership typically is defined as altruism vis-à-vis egoism (e.g., Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999; Price, 2005; Turner, Barling, Epitropaki, Butcher, & Milner, 2002). In line with similar definitions of ethical leadership, defining ethical leadership as behavior that serves the collective suggests that whether the behavior is ethical or not depends on the culture and norms of the relevant collective (Brown, Treviño, & Harrison, 2005). Consequently, behavior that is considered group-serving in one collective might not be perceived in the same way by another collective (critical exceptions will be discussed briefly at the end of this chapter).