رهبری اخلاقی و موفقیت کارکنان: بررسی نقش توانمندی روانشناختی و خستگی عاطفی Ethical leadership and employee success: Examining the roles of psychological empowerment and emotional exhaustion

Introduction For decades, management researchers have argued that organizational leaders promote a competitive advantage for their organizations by not only managing financial performance, but also by instilling ethical principles into the workplace (Barnard, 1938; Baumhart, 1961; Hitt & Ireland, 1999; Mautz & Sharaf, 1961). However, in an era demanding immediate financial returns (Knights & O’Leary, 2006), there are a remarkable number of high profile cases that demonstrate a “profit at any cost” mentality whereby leading ethically is of secondary concern to leading profitably (Greenbaum, Mawritz, & Eissa, 2012; Wolfe, 1988). In contrast to this mentality, Brown and colleagues proposed that ethical leadership, defined as “the demonstration 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, Treviño, & Harrison, 2005; p. 120), is an integrity-based, transactional approach to leadership that not only promotes ethical accountability, but also motivates employees to engage in behaviors that drive long-term organizational success (Brown et al., 2005; Brown & Treviño, 2006). Despite the notion that ethical leaders model behaviors that are valued in the organization and champion the interests of their employees, extant research on the linkages with employee success has primarily focused on current in-role performance (i.e., completing assigned duties: Williams & Anderson, 1991) (e.g., Piccolo, Greenbaum, Hartog, & Folger, 2010; Walumbwa et al., 2011), ignoring the employee’s potential to achieve future success. This oversight is important as ethical leaders are thought to take a genuine interest in the potential of their employees (Kalshoven, Den Hartog, & De Hoogh, 2011). Likewise, their integrity-based, transactional approach to leadership encourages employees to be responsible stewards of the organization who consider the longer-term implications of how they conduct business, not just the bottom-line results of their efforts (Brown & Treviño, 2006; Den Hartog, 2015; Thomas, Schermerhorn, & Dienhart, 2004). Therefore, in the current study we examine employee success not only through the lens of current in-role performance but also future success potential. Prior studies have illustrated that employee motivation in the form of perceived meaning and task significance, self-efficacy, identification, effort, and initiative play a role in understanding the performance-related effects of ethical leaders (Den Hartog, 2015; Den Hartog & Belschak, 2012a; Piccolo et al., 2010; Walumbwa et al., 2011). However, these mechanisms provide a narrow perspective on the motivational effects of ethical leaders by focusing on specific cognitions targeted at the employee’s current role. In contrast, by encompassing cognitions regarding personal competence, determination, and the meaning and impact of work (Spreitzer, 1995; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990), psychological empowerment is an integrative, active-oriented form of motivation that is a key driver of employees’ immediate success and longer-term impact (Maynard, Gilson, & Mathieu, 2012; Seibert, Wang, & Courtright, 2011; Zhang & Bartol, 2010). As explained by Spreitzer (1995), psychological empowerment entails “an active, rather than a passive, orientation to a work role…an orientation in which an individual wishes and feels able to shape his or her work role and context” (p. 1444). Therefore, the first aim of the current study is to examine the role of psychological empowerment as a comprehensive motivational mechanism linking ethical leadership with employee inrole performance and future success.