Leaders set the tone for how others behave, but how and to what extent?
Professor John Schaubroeck from Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business came to Ivey on November 20 to present his research to PhD students, faculty members, and researchers. His article “Embedding Ethical Leadership Within and Across Organization Levels,” coauthored with seven others, including Ivey Assistant Professor Ann Peng, was this year’s winner of the Best Paper Award from Ivey's Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership.
The article examines how leadership and culture at higher levels relate to the ethical behaviours and transgressions of lower-level followers. The research was conducted among 2,572 U.S. Army soldiers during their combat deployment in Iraq in May 2009. Reports were collected from three organizational levels: companies, platoons, and squads.
The authors found that ethical behaviour didn’t simply trickle down from top-level leaders to lower-level followers. It’s more than a role modeling effect. Higher-level leaders also influence followers indirectly through building an ethical culture among the units at various levels of the organization.
This research suggests the pervasive impact of top leadership on front-line employees’ behaviour that is carried through both direct imitation process and indirect processes in which leaders shape unit culture down and across organizations.
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