A Categorical Framework of Ethical Leadership for Public Organizations: Testing a Multi-Dimensional Model of Local Government Managers

• Published date: 01 January 2025
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00953997241291833
• Author: Christopher G. Reddick,Tansu Demir,Bruce J. Perlman
• Date: 01 January 2025

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997241291833

Administration & Society

2025, Vol. 57(1) 3 –33

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/00953997241291833

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Article

A Categorical

Framework of Ethical

Leadership for Public

Organizations: Testing a

Multi-Dimensional

Model of Local

Government Managers

Christopher G. Reddick1, Tansu Demir1,

and Bruce J. Perlman2

Abstract

Organizational managers serve as ethical role models in their capacity as

leaders. Mainstream research on ethics leadership is multidisciplinary,

although empirical research is dominated by business administration and

psychology scholars with less empirical work in public administration. This

article develops and tests a categorical framework for ethical leadership

behavior by applying it to data from a national survey of Chief Administrative

Officers (CAO) of local governments in the United States. A Structural

Equation Model (SEM) is used to test six dimensions of ethical leadership

behavior and support is found for the model. This research is novel, since

it extends the ethical leadership research in business administration and

psychology to local government managers and by extension to public

managers in general.

1University of Texas at San Antonio, USA

2University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA

Corresponding Author:

Tansu Demir, University of Texas at San Antonio, 501 W. Cesar Chavez Boulevard, San

Antonio, TX 78207, USA.

Email: tansu.demir@utsa.edu

1291833AAS0010.1177/00953997241291833Administration & SocietyReddick et al.

research-article2024

4 Administration & Society 57(1)

Keywords

ethical leadership, local government, chief administrative officers, survey

research, structural equation modeling

Introduction

This article uses ethical leadership behavior as reported by top managers in

United States local governments to test a categorical framework derived

from the literature on ethical leadership in public and business administra-

tion. In doing this it aims to resolve four issues in that literature. The first is

the divergence between the dominant concepts of ethical leadership for

organizational management in the business and public administration liter-

ature. Second is the difference between ethical organizational leaders

regarded as moral persons and moral managers. Third, in public manage-

ment the empirical basis for ethical organizational leadership is largely

missing. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, is the lack of an apprecia-

tion in public administration of top local government managers’ role as

ethical leaders in their organizations: the categorical framework we develop

from the scholarship on ethical organizational leadership applies proposi-

tions about leadership behaviors to data from local government administra-

tors and by extension, to public managers in general.

The difference between ethical and moral considerations can be defined as

follows for this research. In general, morals are internalized, personal, fixed

principles that guide an individual’s judgment of the rightness or wrongness

of conduct, irrespective of the context of the action being judged (Saban,

2011). Conversely, ethics are external, impartial, group, changeable rules that

guide an individual’s judgment about the rightness or wrongness of conduct

depending on the context of the action being judged (Lewis, 2008). Morals

are religious, social, and cultural beliefs, whereas ethics are disciplinary,

occupational, and organizational norms. They are similar in that they both

lead to judgments of right or wrong conduct, but ethical rules may change

depending on the professional context, while moral principles do not

(Maesschalck, 2004). Because morals are grounded on beliefs, they may

appear irrational, while ethics are attached to practical values in a context and

may seem wrong but not irrational.

This introduction presents key background for our study of ethical lead-

ership: the importance of looking at local government for the study of ethi-

cal leadership in public administration; the necessity of a multidisciplinary

basis for any examination of ethical leadership in organizations; and the

purposes of this study. Then, we summarize relevant literature review and