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What Ethical Leaders Do for Organisations?

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The Psychology of Ethical Leadership in Organisations

Abstract

Numerous factors such as recent scandals (e.g. Volkswagen, FIFA) and the strong pressure of a competitive environment for organisations to embrace corporate social responsibility have influenced the growing focus given to ethics in organisational contexts. Thus, leaders are under pressure to behave ethically and make ethical decisions. This chapter discusses the two major concepts of ethical leadership: one more focused on the individual and the other on the context aspects that make the leader ethical/unethical. Moreover, we also differentiate it from other common studied leadership styles: transformational and transactional leadership. In the second part of the chapter, we address the issue of the impact of ethical leaders in organisations, explaining why and how organisations profit from having ethical leaders.

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Correspondence to Catarina Morais .

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Morais, C., Randsley de Moura, G. (2018). What Ethical Leaders Do for Organisations?. In: The Psychology of Ethical Leadership in Organisations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02324-9_2

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