Ethical leadership and public accountability: Problematiques of South Africa’s State-Owned Enterprises

This paper aims to explore the potency of ethical frameworks in the advent of a democratic dispensation in State-Owned Enterprises in an attempt to address conundrums of unethical leadership and devastating public accountability. This paper argues that South Africa is grappling with fitting in the notion of ethos and accountability. On the same line, the contestation about the impasse of the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) befits germane in the topical and constant political transformation in South Africa. SOEs endure eccentric to those serving it and those who benefit from it, leading to a lack of orthodoxy by public officials to ethical framework prescribed and contemplated in legislation for good conduct in public services. Ethical leadership and public accountability are two sides of the same coin; however, they serve as a nut and bolt of a well-functioning public administration. The two are inseparable. The paper is theoretical as such, and it is epistemologically juxtaposed and grounded or underpinned by agency theory and its ideals. Be that as it may, it further depends on literature base review for its premise, argument, crux, and purpose and drawing up results and conclusion. Thus, the paper gathers information regarding the various scholars’ notions on ethical leadership and public accountability from related articles, journals, and books. The paper reveals that the South African State-Owned Enterprises are antagonized and branded by unethical leaders and public accountability challenges. At this juncture, the SOEs are faced with poor fiscal coordination and management. The paper further reveals that the SOEs are swimming in the pool of debts. The conclusion that can be deduced from this paper is that it calls for strengthening and reforming all legislative prescripts that govern the State-Owned Enterprises. Public administrators must avoid incubating politicians as it creates the ground for corruption and various types of ethical dilemmas.

Explaining the relationship between ethical leadership and burnout facets in the academic context: the mediating role of illegitimate tasks

PurposeAlthough the literature shows that ethical leadership reduces the risk of burnout, research still lacks a comprehensive understanding of the mediating effects between ethical leadership and burnout. As media reports on working conditions in the academic context often tie the problem of unethical leadership practices to illegitimate tasks, this study focuses on illegitimate tasks as a mediator between ethical leadership and burnout.Design/methodology/approachThe research model is tested using structural equation modeling and data from 1,053 doctoral and postdoctoral students in randomly selected German state universities.FindingsThe results significantly support all hypothesized effects, showing direct correlations between (1) ethical leadership and illegitimate tasks, (2) ethical leadership and burnout facets and (3) illegitimate tasks and burnout facets. The relationship between ethical leadership and burnout is thus partially mediated by illegitimate tasks.Practical implicationsThe authors recommend three major fields of action for practice. These fields comprise (1) the leadership situation, (2) the leader and (3) the follower.Originality/valueThe presented model is the first that connects the relationship between ethical leadership and burnout with illegitimate tasks and looks at ethical leadership from a stress-as-offense-to-self (SOS) perspective.

Unethical Leadership and Employee Extra-Role Behavior in Information Technology Sector: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

During the COVID-19 pandemic, enterprises were obliged to employ social media and digital tools to complete ordinary work. The pandemic has created a series of complexities and challenges, which have hampered harmonic contact between leaders and followers. The indirect relationship between unethical leadership and extra-role behavior (EXB) via psychological empowerment (PYE) is investigated in this study. We also look into the role of perceived organizational support (POS) as a moderator in the link between unethical leadership and PYE, as well as the indirect link between unethical leadership and EXB. Data were obtained from 258 supervisor–employee dyads from various small- and mid-sized information technology (IT) enterprises using time lag data. Unethical leadership has an impact on employee psychological empowerment as well as EXB. The findings of this study indicated that POS also mitigated the negative consequences of unethical leadership on employee psychological empowerment. Similarly, the role of psychological empowerment as a mediator in the link between unethical leadership and employee EXB is influenced by POS. This study will also benefit researchers and practitioners interested in human resource practices in the IT industry.

Harmful Leader Behaviors: Toward an Increased Understanding of How Different Forms of Unethical Leader Behavior Can Harm Subordinates

Research on unethical leadership has predominantly focused on interpersonal and high-intensity forms of harmful leader behavior such as abusive supervision. Other forms of harmful leader behavior such as excessively pressuring subordinates or acting in self-centered ways have received less attention, despite being harmful and potentially occurring more frequently. We propose a model of four types of harmful leader behavior (HLB) varying in intensity (high vs low) and orientation (people/relationships or tasks/goals): Intimidation, Lack of Care, Self-Centeredness, and Excessive Pressure for Results. We map out how these relate to other constructs in the unethical leader behavior field in order to integrate the existing work on how leaders can cause harm to followers. Next, in five studies (N = 35, N = 218, N = 352, N = 160, N = 1921 in 196 teams), we develop and test a new survey instrument measuring the four proposed types of perceived HLB. We provide initial validity evidence for this new measure, establish its psychometric properties, and examine its nomological network by linking the four types of HLB to related leadership constructs and soft and hard outcome correlates at the individual and team level. We find that HLB is negatively related to constructive forms of leadership (e.g., ethical and transformational) and positively to unethical ones (e.g., abusive supervision). HLB is also related in the expected direction to job satisfaction, engagement, psychological safety, knowledge sharing, knowledge hiding, deviance, and objectively recorded team-level stress-related absenteeism.

Transformational Leadership

Ethics is an essential ingredient of leadership qualifications, and for every first-time leader in an organization to be successful, ethical leadership cannot be overemphasized. An organization can be seen as two or more people coming together with a common goal to embark on a venture that will certainly yield a positive result to benefit each one of them. There is a need for such organizations to exhibit transparency and accountability by all involved in the organization so that any resources invested in do not go to waste. Since ethical leadership remains important in every organization, no matter the high standards of the moral lives of members within an organization, there are first-time leaders who, in one way or the other, exhibit misconduct, mistrust, frustration, discrimination, racism, and absenteeism, which are characteristics of unethical leadership and contrary to the nature of ethical leadership. Therefore, achieving transformational leadership becomes a challenge for a first-time leader.

What Is Pseudo-Transformational Leadership?

The notion of pseudo transformational leadership first appeared back in 1999. The lack of a clear definition of the term has led to confusion because of certain similarities with transformational leadership. Few publications on the subject and the developing theory have been presented. However, numerous studies have included the concept as a reference for unethical leadership, and as an opposing term to genuine or authentic transformational leadership, which is common in times of change and visible in corporate scandals. Transformational leadership is described to provide a baseline to compare it with what this leadership style is not. The chapter focuses on a managerial problem that needs to be studied because of its implications in organizational performance. The objective of this study is to present the main characteristics of the pseudo transformational leadership style by analyzing leaders' behaviors and their impact on followers and the organizational culture.