Designing an Ethical Leadership Model for Managers of Educational Organizations (Case Study: Educational Organizations in Tehran Province)

Authors

    Firouz Kazemi Loyeh Ph.D. student, Department of Educational Sciences, Zanjan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Zanjan, Iran
    Naghi Kamali * Associate Professor, Department of Educational Sciences, Zanjan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Zanjan, Iran Kamali_naghi@iau.ac.ir
    Mohammad Mojtaba Zadeh Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Management, Farhangian University, Tehran, Iran

Keywords:

Environmental Ethics, Leadership, Ethical Leadership, Managers of Educational Organizations

Abstract

Today, ethical leadership in organizations has received considerable attention and is rapidly expanding because the moral failures of managers across organizations, environments, and sectors have drawn attention to the importance of ethical leadership. Ethical leadership can be considered a point of convergence between spiritual leadership and transformational leadership. What is significant in ethical leadership is that ethical leaders think about the outcomes, consequences, shortcomings, and benefits of the decisions they make in the long term. In every organization, ethical leaders are the center and pivot of high moral standards and act in alignment with these standards to guide their conduct. Ethical leaders also make the behavioral boundaries within the organization clear and explicit to employees. The main objective of the present research was to design a desirable ethical leadership model for managers of educational organizations in Iran. Accordingly, this study employed a qualitative approach based on the grounded theory method. Within this method, the systematic approach (Straussian approach) was used to derive the paradigm model. In the quantitative phase, the current state of ethical leadership was examined. This research was applied in purpose and used an exploratory mixed-method design (combining qualitative and quantitative approaches). In the quantitative phase, because the current situation was assessed, a descriptive survey method was used, while in the qualitative phase, the study explored and examined concepts and categories related to the dimensions of the desirable ethical leadership model for managers of Iranian educational organizations using MAXQDA software. The statistical population consisted of managers of educational organizations in Tehran. Using Cochran’s formula, a sample of 252 managers was selected through purposive and snowball sampling methods. The results of the model fit analysis using AMOS and PLS software indicated that the proposed structural model had a good fit. Furthermore, it was found that among the conditional factors, only contextual and intervening factors had a significant direct effect on interactive factors, while causal factors did not have a significant effect on interactive factors. Additionally, the indirect effect of causal factors on consequential factors was not significant, but the indirect effect of intervening and contextual factors on consequential factors was significant.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

[1] I. Ahmad, Y. Gao, and S. M. Hali, "A review of ethical leadership and other ethics-related leadership theories," European Scientific Journal, vol. 13, no. 29, pp. 10-23, 2017, doi: 10.19044/esj.2017.v13n29p10.

[2] P. Neves, P. Almeida, and M. J. Velez, "Reducing intentions to resist future change: Combined effects of commitment‐based HR practices and ethical leadership," Human Resource Management, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 249-261, 2018, doi: 10.1002/hrm.21830.

[3] T. W. Shiundu, "Ethical leadership and its implication on decision-making in organizations: a literature review," Journal of Human Resource & Leadership, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 59-67, 2024, doi: 10.53819/81018102t30131.

[4] U. Y. Sun, H. Park, and S. Yun, "Ethically treated yet closely monitored: Ethical leadership, leaders' close monitoring, employees' uncertainty, and employees' organizational citizenship behavior," Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2024, doi: 10.1002/job.2760.

[5] S. Mehrparsa, "The Relationship of Ethical Leadership with the Performance of School Principals in Tehran," Quarterly Journal of Educational Leadership and Management, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 247-261, 2019.

[6] M. Majdzadeh, Hoveyda, and P. Rajaei, "The Structural Model of the Relationships between Academic Managers' Ethical Leadership and the Educational Performance of Faculty Members with the Mediating Role of Their Professional Ethics in the Comprehensive Branches of Islamic Azad University," Scientific-Research Bi-monthly Journal of Educational Strategies in Medical Sciences, vol. 11, no. 6, pp. 65-67, 2019.

[7] M. Shamsi, A. Naami, and M. Montakhab Yeganeh, "Designing and Testing a Model of the Organizational Consequences of Ethical Leadership," Organizational Resource Management Research, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 157-175, 2016.

[8] A. R. A. Arokiasamy, G. Maheshwari, and K. L. Nguyen, "The Influence of Ethical and Transformational Leadership on Employee Creativity in Malaysia's Private Higher Education Institutions: The Mediating Role of Organizational Citizenship Behaviour," Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management, vol. 17, pp. 1-33, 2022, doi: 10.28945/4896.

[9] G. Yousef-pour Ondari, Malekzadeh, and K. Erfanian, "The Mediating Role of Organizational Spirituality in the Relationship between Ethical Leadership and Employee Self-Efficacy (Case Study: Employees of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad)," Ferdowsi University of Mashhad Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 221-261, 2017.

[10] N. Koshtegar, Nastizaei, and Naser, "The Impact of Ethical Leadership on Purposeful Organizational Forgetting with the Mediating Role of Organizational Learning," Quarterly Journal of Organizational Knowledge Management, vol. 3, no. 11, pp. 171-211, 2021.

[11] A. Setiawan, "Ethical Decision-Making in Educational Leadership: Insights From Islamic Scholars," Edu Spectrum, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 15-27, 2024, doi: 10.70063/eduspectrum.v1i1.29.

[12] S. H. Ali, "The Moderating Effect of Ethical Leadership between Psychological Ownership of Knowledge and Knowledge Hiding: An Empirical Study on the Public Universities in Northern Iraq," Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica, vol. 30, no. 2, p. 178, 2021.

[13] R. N. Nwafor and F. O. Okoye, "Relationship between principals' ethical leadership behavior and school organizational climate in public secondary schools in Anambra State," UNIZIK Journal of Educational Research and Policy Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 58-67, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://unijerps.org/index.php/unijerps/article/view/599.

[14] J. Yang and S. H. Seyed Alitabar, "The Effects of School Size on Student Participation and Sense of Community," (in eng), Iranian Journal of Educational Sociology, Research Article vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 205-211, 2024, doi: 10.61838/kman.ijes.7.1.20.

[15] A. D. Savitri and E. V. Khairunnisa, "The Effect of Ethical Leadership on Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Turnover Intention with Intrinsic Motivation as a Mediating Variable A Study of Companies in the Trade and Services Sector," Valley International Journal Digital Library, pp. 5352-5364, 2023, doi: 10.18535/ijsrm/v11i11.em08.

[16] C. Jaworskia, S. Ravichandranb, A. C. Karpinskic, and S. Shweta, "The effects of training satisfaction, employee benefits, and incentives on part-time employees' commitment," International Journal of Hospitality Management, vol. 74, no. 2, pp. 1-12, 2018, doi: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.02.011.

[17] P. Lau, J. Tang, H. Lien, Y. Hsu, and C. Chang, "Ethical work climate, employee commitment and proactive customer service performance Test of the mediating effects of organizational politics," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 20-26, 2017, doi: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2016.11.004.

[18] C. Santiago-Torner, J. A. C. Marfil, and E. Tarrats-Pons, "Relationship Between E-Ethical Leadership and Emotional Exhaustion: A Moderated Mediation Model," 2024, doi: 10.20944/preprints202408.0722.v1.

[19] D. Zhang et al., "Unlocking Academic Achievement of Nursing Master’s Students: Ethical Leadership, Teacher-Student Relationship and Growth Mindset – A Cross-Sectional Survey Study," BMC Medical Education, vol. 24, no. 1, 2024, doi: 10.1186/s12909-024-06436-5.

[20] B. Tan, Z. Wang, S. Zhao, and J. Liao, "A Dual-Path Model of Ethical Leadership's Influence on Civil Servants' Discretionary Work Behavior: Probing the Social Learning and Social Exchange Processes," Public Personnel Management, p. 00910260231196225, 2023, doi: 10.1177/00910260231196225.

[21] A. I. Zahari, J. Said, N. Muhamad, and S. M. Ramly, "Ethical culture and leadership for sustainability and governance in public sector organisations within the ESG framework," Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1-11, 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.joitmc.2024.100219.

[22] M. Zarghami Fard, H. Danaei Fard, and H. Zare'i Matin, "A Qualitative Study of the Antecedent Model of Managers' Righteousness in Public Organizations," Journal of Public Administration, University of Tehran, pp. 277-298, 2016.

[23] Q. Yang and H. Wei, "Ethical leadership and employee task performance: examining moderated mediation process," Management Decision, 2017, doi: 10.1108/MD-09-2016-0627.

[24] X. Chen and J. Ryoo, "Improving Ethical Leadership in Sustainable Public Health Through Fractal AI," Ejaset, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 43-61, 2025, doi: 10.59324/ejaset.2025.3(1).04.

[25] X. Su, "The Cross-Level Influence of Ethical Leadership on Employee’s OCBE: A Two-Wave Study Based on the Social Identity Approach," Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 14, 2023, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1270359.

[26] E. Teimourzadeh, M. K. Bahadori, P. Mahdizadeh, and M. Yaqubi, "The Impact of Ethical Leadership and Leadership Styles on Organizational Commitment: A Case Study in a Military Health Care Organization," Journal of Military Medicine, pp. 451-459, 2017.

[27] M. Abbasi and F. Akrami, "Ethical Leadership and Organizational Excellence," Journal of Bioethics, vol. 9, no. 31, pp. 7-8, 2019.

Downloads

Published

2025-03-20

Submitted

2024-09-28

Revised

2024-11-28

Accepted

2024-12-04

How to Cite

Kazemi Loyeh, F. ., Kamali, N., & Mojtaba Zadeh, M. . (2025). Designing an Ethical Leadership Model for Managers of Educational Organizations (Case Study: Educational Organizations in Tehran Province). Future of Work and Digital Management Journal, 3(1), 1-14. https://www.journalfwdmj.com/index.php/fwdmj/article/view/133

Similar Articles

1-10 of 96

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.