AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP AND FOLLOWER MORAL DECISION INTENTION: ROLE

OF FOLLOWER MORAL IDENTITY

by

Weichun Zhu

A DISSERTATION

Presented to the Faculty of

The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska

In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements

For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Major: Interdepartmental Area of Business (Management)

Under the Supervision of Professor Bruce J. Avolio

Lincoln, Nebraska

July, 2006

UMI Number: 3216345

32163452006

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AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP AND FOLLOWER MORAL DECISION INTENTION: ROLE

OF FOLLOWER MORAL IDENTITY

Weichun Zhu, Ph.D.

University of Nebraska, 2006

Advisor: Bruce J. Avolio

The author intended to examine the effects of authentic leadership, transformational

leadership, and transactional leadership on follower moral identity and follower moral decision

intention, and the influence processes through which authentic leadership, transformational

leadership, and transactional leadership impacts follower moral decision intention. More

specifically, the author tested whether follower moral identity mediates the effect of authentic

and transformational leadership on follower moral decision intention and whether moral intensity

moderates the effect of authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and transactional

leadership on follower moral decision intention.

Based on three pilot tests with undergraduate samples and one experimental study with a

real field sample (i.e., teachers in public settings), it was found that authentic and

transformational leadership has a positive effect on follower moral identity and follower moral

decision intention. Moreover, it was also found that follower moral identity mediates the effects

of both authentic leadership and transformational leadership on follower moral decision

intention. Contrary to the expectation, transactional leadership had a negative effect on follower

moral decision intention. Furthermore, moral intensity moderated the effect of authentic

leadership and transformational leadership on follower moral decision intention in that the

effects of authentic leadership and transformational leadership on follower moral decision

intention are stronger when moral intensity is low.

This study has a number of theoretical contributions and practical implications. This

study made a significant theoretical contribution to both the leadership area and the ethical

decision making field in that it has introduced a testable theoretical model to explain how

authentic and transformational leadership affects follower moral identity and moral decision

intention. This study also made a significant theoretical contribution to the moral development

field in that it took the leadership factor into account and generalized to working adults in

organizations. One unique practical implication is that, in order to promote follower moral

decision intention, it is necessary to promote follower moral identity. Another important practical

implication is that organizations need to develop authentic and transformational leadership

across different organizational levels in order to develop follower moral identity and follower

moral decision intention, which could help pave the way for an organization’s sustainable

development.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I should thank my advisor, Dr. Bruce Avolio, for his valuable advice,

guidance, encouragement, support, and patience in the past few years. It is next to impossible to

express my appreciation for what he has done for me. My first meeting with Dr. Avolio at the

National University of Singapore in 1999 has been a positive trigger event in my life and Dr.

Avolio has been an excellent mentor in my academic career. Because of his inspirational

motivation, I was able to determine to come to USA to pursue my Ph.D. degree in the field of

leadership/organizational behavior. Influenced by his strong intellectual stimulation, I have been

continuing to make academic progress, in both the theoretical perspectives and methodological

areas. More importantly, I appreciate his constant encouragement to develop my potential, which

helps enhance both my confidence and persistence in my academic development and pursuit.

I also wish to thank my advisory committee members and other professors in the

Department of Management. Dr. Fred Luthans has impressed me greatly in his optimistic life

attitude and non-stopping academic pursuit. I admire his persistence in academic excellence

regardless of his prior glorious academic records in the past few decades. Furthermore, I also

want to express my great appreciation to Dr. Sang Lee, the Department Chair, for his kind

support and generous sharing of his experience in excellent academic achievement, which has

been beneficial to my academic growth. I also wish to thank Dr. Fred Walumbwa for his

constant advice, help, and friendship in the past few years.

Next, I would like to thank my colleagues and staff with Gallup Leadership Institute and

the Department of Management at the University of Nebraska. I appreciate their kind friendship,

support, and collegiality to me during my time in Lincoln. In particular, I want to express my

gratitude to Linda for her kind friendship. I also want to thank Nate, Jaime, and Tara for their

kind help in the process of collecting data for my dissertation project. Without their help, I would

not be able to accomplish my dissertation goals so smoothly. In this regard, I also want to thank

those principals who were in NELI (Nebraskan Educational Leadership Institute) program for

their support and those teachers who participated in the research project.

Furthermore, I would like to thank my late parents, especially my mother. It is a great

pity that neither of them was able to see my success in earning a Ph.D. degree. Since my

childhood, I realized how eager they were to see my success in my future. My mother fully

supported my education after my father passed away when I was in high school. She was so

diligent, hard-working, resilient, and persistent in her life, and devoted all of her efforts to me,

and her other children. My parents had influenced, and will continue to influence my life, and

they will live in my deepest heart for ever.

Finally, I thank my family members, including my wife, Yan Chen, and my two

daughters, Joy and Victoria. I thank my wife for her ever-lasting emotional support,

encouragement and patience that helped me to deal with the ups and downs of this long journey.

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION................................................................................................... 1 1.1 An Overview......................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Motivation of the Study ........................................................................................................ 2 1.3 Objectives of the Study......................................................................................................... 3 1.4 Organization of the Study ..................................................................................................... 4 1.5 Main Hypotheses .................................................................................................................. 5

1.5.1 Authentic leadership and follower moral decision intentions........................................ 5 1.5.2 Mediating role of follower moral identity ..................................................................... 7 1.5.3 Moderating role of moral intensity ................................................................................ 9

1.6 General Results ................................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT .................. 12

2.1 Authentic Leadership........................................................................................................ 12 2.1.1 Authenticity.................................................................................................................. 12 2.1.2 Authentic leadership .................................................................................................... 12 2.1.3 Transformational and transactional leadership ............................................................ 13 2.1.4 Relationship between authentic leadership and transformational leadership .............. 17 2.1.5 Antecedents to authentic leadership............................................................................. 18 2.1.6 Characteristics of authentic leadership ........................................................................ 19 2.1.7 Positive moral perspectives of authentic leadership .................................................... 23

2.2 Ethical Decision Making and Moral Identity ..................................................................... 24 2.2.1 Ethical decision making............................................................................................... 24 2.2.2 Social identity theory ................................................................................................... 27 2.2.3 Moral identity.............................................................................................................. 28 2.2.4 Characteristics of moral identity................................................................................. 30 2.2.5 Social cognitive model of follower moral decision-making....................................... 32

2.3 Authentic Leadership, Follower Moral Identity, and Moral Decision Intention ................ 34 2.3.1 Direct effect of authentic leadership on follower moral identity and moral decision intention ................................................................................................................................ 34 2.3.2 The direct effect of transformational and transactional leadership on follower moral decision intention and moral identity.................................................................................... 40

2.4 Mediating role of moral identity........................................................................................ 43 2.5 Moderating Role of Moral Intensity .................................................................................. 47

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .......................................................................... 51 3.1 Research Setting, Sample Size and Research Design......................................................... 51 3.2 Experimental Interventions................................................................................................. 53

3.2.2 Experimental Task ....................................................................................................... 54 3.2.2 Leadership treatment (authentic transformational vs. transformational vs. authentic transactional vs. transactional).............................................................................................. 56 3.2.3 Manipulation of high and low moral intensity............................................................. 58 3.2. 4 Measures .................................................................................................................... 58

3.3 Pilot Tests ........................................................................................................................... 60 3.3.1 Pilot Test 1 ................................................................................................................... 61

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3.3.2 Pilot Test 2 ................................................................................................................... 64 3.3.3 Pilot Test 3 ................................................................................................................... 67

3.4 The Reliability and Validity of Moral Identity Measure .................................................... 68 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS.............................................................................................................. 70

4.1 Data Collection Procedure .................................................................................................. 70 4.2 Data Screening.................................................................................................................... 71 4.3 Manipulation Check............................................................................................................ 73

4.3.1 Manipulation check of leadership interventions .......................................................... 73 4.3.2 Manipulation check of moral intensity intervention.................................................... 74

4.4. Hypotheses Testing............................................................................................................ 75 4.4.1 Descriptive and Inter-correlations................................................................................ 75 4.4.2 Main effects of leadership and Moral Intensity ........................................................... 77

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION....................................................................................................... 84 5.1 Overview............................................................................................................................. 84 5.2 Theoretical Contributions ................................................................................................... 86 5.3 Practical Implications ......................................................................................................... 91

5.3.1 Developing follower moral identity............................................................................. 91 5.3.2 Developing authentic leadership in organizations ....................................................... 95

5.4. Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research................................................... 96 5.4.1 Theoretical limitations and recommendations ............................................................. 96 5.4.2 Methodological limitations and recommendations...................................................... 99

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 103

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

FIGURE 1: Authentic Leadership and Follower Moral Decision Intention: Role of Follower Moral Identity ......................................................................................................................... 118 TABLE 3-1: Sample Characteristics in Pilot Tests .............................................................. 119 TABLE 3-2: Descriptive of Leadership Intervention Scores (Pilot Test 1) .......................... 119 TABLE 3-3: Post-Hoc Tests of Leadership Conditions (Pilot Test 1) .................................. 120 TABLE 3-4: Manipulation Check of Moral Intensity (Pilot Test 1) ..................................... 121 TABLE 3-5: Descriptive of Manipulation Scores of Leadership Interventions .................... 121 (Pilot Test 2) ........................................................................................................................... 121 TABLE 3-6: Post-Hoc Tests of Leadership Conditions (Pilot Test 2) ................................... 122 TABLE 3-7: Manipulation Check of Moral Intensity (Pilot Test 2) ..................................... 123

TABLE 3-8: Descriptive of Manipulation Scores of Leadership Interventions (Pilot Test 3)................................................................................................................................................ 123 TABLE 3-9: Post-Hoc Analysis of Leadership Interventions (Pilot Test 3) .......................... 124 TABLE 3-10: Manipulation Check of Moral Intensity (Pilot Test 3) ................................... 125 TABLE 3-11: EFA of the Scale of Moral Identity ................................................................ 125 TABLE 3-12: Correlations of Moral Identity with Other variables ...................................... 126 TABLE 4-1a: Sample Characteristics in the Field Study ....................................................... 127 TABLE 4-1b: ANOVA of Control Variables across Intervention Conditions...................... 128

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TABLE 4-2: Descriptive of Leadership Intervention Scores ................................................ 129 TABLE 4-3: Post-Hoc Tests of Leadership Intervention Conditions.................................... 130 TABLE 4-4: Manipulation Check of Moral Intensity ............................................................ 131 TABLE 4-5a: Descriptive Statistics for the Leadership Manipulation Check Scores............ 131 TABLE 4-5b: Correlations of All Variables........................................................................... 132 TABLE 4-5c: Correlations of All Variables (ATF & TF)...................................................... 133 TABLE 4-5d: Correlations of All Variables (ATS & TS)...................................................... 134

TABLE 4-6: The Descriptive of DV (i.e., Moral Intention) by Leadership x Moral Intensity................................................................................................................................................ 135 TABLE 4-7: ANCOVA of DV (i.e., Moral Intention) by Leadership x Moral Intensity...... 136 TABLE 4-8: Descriptive of DV (i.e., Moral Intention) Across Leadership Conditions ....... 136 TABLE 4-9: Post-Hoc Analysis of DV (i.e., Moral Intention) Across Leadership Conditions................................................................................................................................................ 137 TABLE 4-10: Descriptive of DV (i.e., Moral Intention) Across Moral Intensity Conditions

................................................................................................................................................ 137 TABLE 4-11: Post-Hoc Analysis of DV (i.e., Moral Intention) Across Moral Intensity

Conditions............................................................................................................................... 138 TABLE 4-12: Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Follower Moral Decision

Intention .................................................................................................................................. 139 TABLE 4-13: Hierarchical Regressions for Mediation Tests ................................................ 140

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A: ATF-High...................................................................................................... 141 APPENDIX B: ATF-LOW..................................................................................................... 148 APPENDIX C: TF-High......................................................................................................... 152 APPENDIX D: TF-Low ......................................................................................................... 156 APPENDIX E: ATS-High ...................................................................................................... 160 APPENDIX F: ATS-Low ....................................................................................................... 164 APPENDIX G: TS-High......................................................................................................... 168 APPENDIX H: TS-Low ......................................................................................................... 172

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 An Overview The topic of authentic leadership is receiving increased attention from practitioners and

scholars alike (Avolio, Gardner, Walumbwa, Luthans, & May, 2004; George, 2003; Gardner &

Schemerhorn, 2004; Gardner, Avolio, & Walumbwa, 2005b; Luthans & Avolio, 2003; May,

Chan, Hodges, & Avolio, 2003; see also The Leadership Quarterly, Volume 16, Number 3,

2005). As pointed out by George (2003), authentic leaders exert influence well beyond bottom-

line success to influence solving public policies and to address social and organizational

problems and issues.

The newly proposed authentic leadership theory has drawn literature from the fields of

leadership, ethics, positive organizational behavior and scholarship. Avolio, Gardner, Luthans,

May and Walumbwa (2004) defined authentic leaders as “those who are deeply aware of how

they think and behave and are perceived by others as being aware of their own and others’

values/moral perspectives, knowledge, and strengths; aware of the context in which they operate;

and who are confident, hopeful, optimistic, resilient, and of high moral character” (p. 4).

Authentic leaders know who they are, what they believe and value, and they act consistent with

those values and beliefs, and interact with their followers transparently and openly (Avolio et al.,

2004; Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Brown, Trevino, & Harrison, 2005; Gardner et al., 2005a; Ilies,

Morgeson, & Nahrgang, 2005; Luthans & Avolio, 2003).

It is argued that authentic leadership is a root construct of positive forms of leadership,

including ethical leadership and transformational leadership (Avolio et al., 2004; Avolio &

Gardner, 2005). The central characteristics of authentic leadership include that authentic leaders

have high levels of self-awareness regarding one’s values, identity, emotions, and motives, and

possess self-regulatory processes, such as balanced information processing, transparent relations,

2

and authentic behavior. By personal modeling confidence, optimism, hope and resilience and a

positive moral perspective among their followers, authentic leaders would produce elevated

levels of follower trust, engagement, and well-being, and facilitate their followers’ moral and

emotional development, which is a key mechanism this study tries to test.

However, up to now, the mechanisms and processes through which authentic and

transformational leaders exert influence on their followers’ moral development (e.g., moral

identity, moral perspectives, and moral decision making) have not been directly examined in

prior empirical studies. Clearly, there is a need for greater attention toward understanding the

mechanisms and processes through which authentic leadership influences follower moral

perspectives such as moral identity and moral decision making intention in order to develop a

more complete understanding of the inner workings and influence process of authentic

leadership. The understanding of the complex influence process of authentic leadership and

transformational leadership on followers will not only help scholars and researchers to cast a

light on the influence dynamics associated with authentic leadership, but also help leaders and

managers in organizations to propose strategies to positively impact employee moral

development.

1.2 Motivation of the Study

Compared with a large number of empirical studies conducted in the area of

transformational/charismatic leadership in examining the effects of leadership on follower work

attitudes and performance, there are relatively few studies that have focused on how ethical or

authentic leadership influences followers’ moral development and sustained performance. It

seems especially important to study the processes through which authentic leadership influences

followers’ moral development, including follower moral decision making. In this study, I

3

focused on the impact of authentic leadership on followers’ levels of moral identity and moral

decision making. To my knowledge, there has been no empirical research conducted examining

the influence of authentic leadership on follower moral perspectives, which is the main focus of

the current research investigation. More specifically, this study aspires to fill the research gap

concerning the effect of leadership on follower ethical decision making, and as a result, to make

a significant contribution to the research in the area of ethical decision making, social cognitive

theory, and leadership.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The three primary research goals for this study are as follows. First, I set out to examine

whether authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and transactional leadership behavior

influences follower moral perspectives, including moral identity and moral decision intention.

Second, I tested the underlying process through which authentic leaders, transformational

leaders, and transactional leaders influence followers’ moral decision making by focusing on

moral identity as a mediating variable between authentic leadership, transformational leadership

and follower moral decision intention. Third, I have examined the moderating roles of moral

intensity with regards to the effect of authentic leadership, transformational leadership on

follower moral decision intention. More specifically, I examined the moderating role of moral

intensity by examining whether authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and

transactional leadership will have a more significant positive effect on follower moral decision

intention when confronting a moral dilemma of low magnitude of consequence versus high

moral intensity. The theoretical framework that guides the current study is presented in Figure 1.

4

----------------------------------------- Insert Figure 1 about here

-----------------------------------------

1.4 Organization of the Study In order to set the stage for this study, I provided an integrated theoretical background

focusing on authentic leadership and follower moral decision making intention, while using

Jones’ (1991) ethical decision making model as the basis for my arguments. In Chapter 2, a

comprehensive theoretical model examining the relationships between authentic leadership,

moral identity, and moral decision making and the mediating effect of moral identity in the

relationship between authentic leadership and follower moral decision making is presented. This

theoretical model draws literature from authentic leadership, transformational and transactional

leadership, ethical decision making, moral development, and social cognitive theory. Using

these varied perspectives, I generated specific hypotheses about how authentic leadership

influences follower’s moral identity, and how moral identity influences follower’s moral

decision making and mediated the effect of authentic leadership on follower moral decision

intention.

In Chapter 3, the research methodology of the study, including sampling framework, three

phases of pilot testing, and analysis technique, is explained in detail.

Chapter 4 presents the principal findings regarding hypotheses and relevant detailed

analyses.

Finally, Chapter 5 presents the theoretical implications for the research in leadership,

ethical decision making, and moral development, and practical implications for practitioners and

organizations stemming from this study.

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1.5 Main Hypotheses 1.5.1 Authentic leadership and follower moral decision intentions

It is argued that leaders’ values influence their own and followers’ motivation, goals,

values, affect, and cognition, which are expected to influence the process through which

followers understand and interpret their own self and whether followers perceive their leaders to

be authentic or not.

There are several proposed antecedents to authentic leadership, including leader’s

personal history, self awareness, and high internal self regulation. Authentic leaders have a keen

understanding of their self values, beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, and moral perspectives.

Authentic leaders who exhibit high levels of self-regulation are able to: a) set up internal

standards, b) evaluate the distinction between the current standards and actual or possible

outcomes, and c) identify potential actions which can address any inconsistencies (Gardner,

Avolio, Luthans, May, & Walumbwa, 2005; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). Authenticity includes

four components, namely balanced information processing, behavioral authenticity, and

functional flexibility, and relational transparency (Kernis, 2002)

One of the main themes of this dissertation is to propose that authentic leadership will

have a positive effect on follower moral decision making intention. Rest (1986) proposed a four-

component model of ethical decision-making. In his theoretical model, it is argued that an

individual, as a moral agent, should be able to, a) realize the moral issue, b) make a moral

judgment, c) establish a moral intention, and, d) take a moral action. It is generally hypothesized

6

and expanded on below, that authentic leadership will have a positive effect on follower moral

perspectives through social learning and role modeling.

It is argued here that authentic leaders, through authentic words and deeds, self-awareness,

positive psychological capital, moral and authentic behavior, and positive moral perspectives and

positive modeling, will significantly motivate their followers to be moral and authentic in their

decision-making intent (Avolio, 2005). It is argued that leaders’ positive modeling and

followers’ own personal history as well as trigger events will have a positive effect on followers’

moral identity and moral decision intentions. Furthermore, it is also expected that followers will

have a higher trust in the leader when followers have the opportunity to observe the leader’s high

commitment to transparent decision-making, the leader’s expression of core values and openness

(Avolio et al., 2004). Basically, it is expected that authentic leaders will positively impact

followers’ moral identity, moral awareness, moral efficacy, and moral courage, which will

enable them to confront potential moral dilemmas and ethical challenges and solve these

challenges in an ethical way, placing the interests of the organization above self-interests. It is

therefore posited, that positive modeling (e.g., “leading by example”) is a key factor that nurtures

the authentic relationship and connection between leaders and followers in that authentic leaders

influence followers’ moral, emotional, affective and cognitive development through the

modeling of positive values, psychological states, moral behaviors and self-development (Avolio

et al., 2004; Luthans & Avolio, 2003).

I expect that the moral value congruence between authentic leaders and their followers will

also determine the degree of followers’ identification with the leaders. Followers of authentic

leaders are more likely to exhibit higher moral values, beliefs, emotions, motives and goals to the

degree that they come to identify with their leader (Gardner & Avolio, 1998; Kark & Shamir,

7

2002; Lord & Brown, 2002; Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993; Weierter, 1997). Thus, it is

expected that authentic leadership will have a positive effect on follower moral decision

intention.

1.5.2 Mediating role of follower moral identity

One of the most important potential theoretical contributions of this study is to examine

follower moral identity as a mediator between authentic leadership and follower moral decision

making. More specifically, it is argued that authentic leadership will have a positive effect on

follower moral identity, and moral identity will have a positive effect on follower moral decision

intention. Moral identity is defined as representing the convergence of moral ideals with one’s

personal identity or the extent to which commitment to moral values is infused into a person’s

self concept (Colby & Damon, 1993; Nasir & Kirkshner, 2003). Otherwise, Hart, Atkins, and

Ford (1998) defined moral identity as “a commitment to one’s sense of self to lines of actions

that promote or protect the welfare of others” (p. 515).

Erickson (1964) argued that being authentic to self represents the consistency in how one

behaves with respect to his/her own identity. This argument implies that an individual with a

strong moral identity will strive to maintain a consistency and balance between his/her self

identity and his/her decision making /behavior (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Blasi, 1983; Hart et al.,

1998; Younis & Yates, 1999).

Blasi (1984) proposed that moral identity is a central concept that helps explain

individual moral decision intention, moral judgment, and moral functioning. It is further argued

that moral identity is the final, decisive, and constant source of moral judgment and moral

decision intention. Indeed, for an individual without moral identity, even if he/she has moral

intention and the cognitive capacity to make the ‘right’ and ‘ethical’ choice, the individual will

8

most likely not be able to maintain his/her moral intention and behaviors across different time

periods or external contexts. In other words, without moral identity, moral decision intention and

moral behaviors are just temporary and would not be expected to be consistent with individual

values or sense of one self. Bergman (2002) pointed out “the best answer to the question, why be

moral? may thus be, Because that it is who I am, or Because I can do no other and remain (or

become) the person I am committed to being” (p. 123). So, it appears that moral identity is of

fundamental significance to moral decision intention and ultimately moral action.

Colby and Damon (1993) pointed out that, when an individual has a high moral identity,

he/she is more likely to have morally-based cognitions, judgments, and behaviors. Similar to

earlier arguments, individuals with high moral identity would be expected to behave morally

since they intend to maintain consistency between their self identity, which is centered in moral

intention, and their moral behaviors (Bergman, 2002).

As to the influence process of authentic leadership on follower moral identity, social

learning and positive modeling are deemed to be very important factors to each. More

specifically, Bandura (1991) has proposed familial and social transmission models for morality

and moral identity. It is proposed that authentic leaders could transmit moral values, standards

and attributes to followers in a more convincing way since their followers would observe the

consistency between their words and their true actions/behaviors. Viewing the internalization of

the leader’s moral values and standards based on social learning theory, authentic leaders could

influence followers in selecting information that has moral relevance from the configuration of

information available in a given situation. Authentic leaders could also influence followers to

select elements that are weighted and integrated on the basis of their own moral rules. In

combination, these procedures will enable followers to provide supporting justification for

9

weighing various options in making moral decisions and will facilitate the establishment of

moral identity. All these learning experiences will help followers to develop or strengthen their

moral identity contributing to greater self awareness that they are moral people.

Furthermore, by focusing on followers’ self development, authentic leaders encourage

those followers who currently lack moral self-awareness and moral identity to look inward to

achieve greater moral self-knowledge through leaders’ moral modeling processes. Ultimately,

followers may be more likely to establish or strengthen their own moral identity since authentic

leaders encourage them to identify with the core values and interests of the collective (work

group, organization, profession, and nation), and to place the collective interests over the

individual interests.

1.5.3 Moderating role of moral intensity

Furthermore, this study examined the moderating effect of moral intensity over the

relationship between authentic leadership and follower moral decision intention. Jones’ (1991)

stated that prior ethical decision models failed to regard the explicit characteristics of a moral

issue and proposed the concept of moral intensity, to better explain its influence on moral

evaluation, moral awareness, moral intention, and moral actions. Moral intensity is a multi-

dimensional construct that captures the extent of issue-rated moral imperative in a particular

ethical situation. Characteristics of the moral issue include magnitude of consequences, social

consensus, and probability of effect, temporal immediacy, proximity, and concentration of effect.

It is pointed out that moral intensity focuses on the nature of the moral issue itself, not on the

moral agent or the organizational context. Moral intensity is conceptualized as a characteristic of

the issue. Magnitude of consequence concerning the moral issue concerns the amount of harm to

a victim that could be caused by a particular moral decision or action. It is possible that with

10

moral dilemmas of low moral intensity, authentic leadership will have a more positive effect on

follower moral intention in that followers of authentic leaders may be better able to recognize

these moral issues and have higher moral decision making intention for these moral dilemmas,

which may have gone by unnoticed.

1.6 General Results

Based on the three pilot tests with undergraduate samples and one experimental study

with a field sample (i.e., teachers in public school settings), it was found that authentic leadership

had a positive effect on follower moral identity and follower moral decision intention. Moreover,

it was also found that follower moral identity mediated the effects of authentic leadership and

transformational leadership on follower moral decision intention. The results showed that, when

leaders demonstrated more authentic behavior, such as balanced information processing and

relational transparency, they were more likely to influence follower moral identity and

consequently moral decision intention.

It was also found that transformational leadership had a positive effect on follower moral

identity and follower moral decision intention. Moreover, follower moral identity mediated the

effect of transformational leadership on follower moral decision intention. By exhibiting

transformational leadership behaviors, the leaders had a positive impact on follower moral

identity and consequently moral decision intention. However, contrary to the initial expectation,

transactional leadership was found to have a negative effect on follower moral decision intention

while not having a significant effect on follower moral identity.

As to the role of moral intensity in moral decision making, it was found that moral intensity

had a positive effect on follower moral decision intention. Results indicated that in moral

dilemmas characterized by high moral intensity, followers were more likely to have a higher

11

moral decision intention, confirming prior research findings in ethical decision making areas

(e.g., Jones, 1991; Kelly & Elm, 2003; Leitsch, 2004). It was also found that moral intensity has

a negative moderating role over the effect of authentic leadership and transformational leadership

on follower moral decision intention, and has a negative moderating effect over the negative

effect of transactional leadership on follower moral decision making. More specifically,

authentic and transformational leadership had a stronger effect on follower moral decision

intention when moral intensity was low. Transactional leadership had a more negative effect on

follower moral decision intention when moral intensity was low.

In summary, it was found that authentic leadership and transformational leadership has a

positive effect on follower moral identity and follower moral decision making intention.

Transactional leadership has a negative effect on follower moral decision intention. Furthermore,

moral identity was found to play a mediating role between authentic and transformational

leadership and follower moral decision intention. Moral intensity has a negative moderating

effect over the effects of authentic leadership and transformational leadership on follower moral

decision intention.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT

2.1 Authentic Leadership

2.1.1 Authenticity

Before authentic leadership is defined, it is necessary to define authenticity. Drawing

from the recent positive psychology movement (Seligman, 2002), authenticity can be defined as

“owning one’s personal experiences, be they thoughts, emotions, needs, wants, preferences, or

beliefs, processes captured by the injunction to know oneself” and behaving in accordance with

the true self (Harter, 2002: 382).

It is argued that being authentic means being true to one’s self values, thoughts,

emotions and beliefs and acting consistent with the true self values and thoughts, and mindsets. It

is also proposed that authenticity is continuous, which means that people are judged to be more

to less authentic rather than authentic versus inauthentic. Kernis (2002) proposed that being

authentic could lead to one’s optimal self-esteem, such as being genuine, true, and stable,

consistent and congruent, and being high in self awareness. These above discussions provided

the basis for launching into our operational definition of what constitutes authentic leadership

and its development and influence process.

2.1.2 Authentic leadership

Avolio and colleagues (Avolio et al., 2004; Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Gardner et al.,

2005a; Luthans & Avolio, 2003; Ilies et al., 2005) defined authentic leaders as “those who are

deeply aware of how they think and behave and are perceived by others as being aware of their

own and others’ values/moral perspectives, knowledge, and strengths; aware of the context in

which they operate; and who are confident, hopeful, optimistic, resilient, and of high moral

13

character.” Their base definition portrayed the complexity of what constitutes authentic

leadership in that it is by their definition multi-level and comprised of multiple constructs. They

also argued that authentic leadership is at the root of positive forms of charismatic,

transformational, and/or ethical leadership.

Leaders’ and followers’ self-awareness includes their values/moral perspective and

attributions, and involves the psychological contract between leaders and followers. Leaders’

values influence their own and followers’ motivation, affect, and cognition, which are expected

to influence the process through which followers understand and interpret their own self and how

followers perceive their leaders. It has been argued that authentic leadership will positively

influence follower’s self awareness as well as the follower’s levels of self efficacy, self-control,

self regulation and trust in the leader (Avolio et al., 2004; Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Brown,

Trevino, & Harrison, 2005; Gardner et al., 2005a; Ilies et al., 2005; Luthans & Avolio, 2003).

2.1.3 Transformational and transactional leadership

Over the past two decades, a lot of attention has been invested in the study of

transformational/charismatic leadership. In contrast to rational or “transactional” approaches to

leadership, transformational and charismatic theories have been framed to explain the affective

and emotional needs and responses of followers. Transformational leadership was proposed by

Burns (1978) and further expanded upon by Bass and his colleagues (Avolio, 1999, 2005; Bass,

1985). Transformational leadership contains four components: charisma or idealized influence

(attributed or behavioral), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized

consideration (Avolio, 1999; Bass, 1985, 1998). Transactional leadership is characterized with

contingent reward, management by exception (active and passive), and non-leadership.

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The first component of transformational leadership is labeled idealized influence.

Idealized Influence, or charisma, represents leaders who set high standards for moral and ethical

conduct, are confident about the future, and set high standards for emulation. Bass (1985: 182-

185) emphasized the importance of leaders’ values in determining their behavior and actions. It

is also stated that a leader is not considered transformational until he/she has moral values

(Burns, 1978).

Transformational leaders can motivate their followers to do more than they originally

intend to and to perform extra roles than their normal routine. Idealized influence means that

followers intend to identify with their leaders. When the leadership is idealized, followers would

admire, respect and trust in, and identify with their leaders, collectively identify with the mission,

cause, and goals of their organization. It has been pointed out that the followers of

transformational leaders are more likely to attribute their extra efforts to self-related causes, or

intrinsic motivation than to extrinsic motivation (Avolio, 1999, 2005). Demonstrating idealized

influence, transformational leaders place the collective and follower interests over their personal

interests and ego strength, and are willing to sacrifice for the organization. Transformational

leaders also consider the moral and ethical consequences and demonstrate high standards of

moral conduct/behavior.

The second component of transformational leadership is inspirational motivation.

Transformational leaders invoke inspirational motivation by providing followers with challenges

and meaning for engaging in shared goals and undertakings (Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999).

Transformational leaders tend to focus on harmony, charity and good works, the best part of

people. For transformational leaders, empowerment of followers not only broadens followers’

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participation in the decision making process, but also motivates and transforms followers into

potential leaders. It is also proposed that transformational leaders motivate and inspire followers

by providing challenge and meaning in terms of future work and opportunities. They will also

demonstrate high confidence (i.e., self efficacy), hope, and optimism with followers, engaging

followers to also be hopeful, confident, and optimistic (Avolio, 1999).

The third component of transformational leadership is intellectual stimulation. With

intellectual stimulation, transformational leaders dynamically incorporate the processes of

evaluating the situation, challenging assumptions, and questioning the status quo.

Transformational leaders intellectually stimulate their followers to be creative and innovative, to

question long-term assumptions, to reframe questions, and to use new methods and mindsets to

solve traditional problems and questions. Transformational leaders encourage followers to try

new methods and to not criticize different approaches to addressing problems and challenges,

which will stimulate followers to broaden their creativity and innovativeness (Avolio, 1999).

The fourth component of transformational leadership is individualized consideration.

Transformational leaders pay special attention to specific followers needs for personal growth

and achievement and try to meet their needs and satisfy their expectations for future

development. Transformational leaders treat each follower as an individual and provide

coaching, mentoring and growth opportunities (Bass, 1985), while focusing on developing

followers to a higher level of potential.

In contrast to transformational leadership, transactional leadership involves contingent

reinforcement and establishing an exchange relationship between leaders and followers. Using

contingent rewards and constructive transactions have been found to have a reasonably effective

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effect on followers and organizations (Avolio, 1999). Transactional leaders motivate followers

with their promises, praise, and rewards and correct followers with negative feedback, reproof,

threats, or disciplinary actions. Transactional leaders give their followers praise or contingent

reward when followers carry out leaders’ orders and accomplish their expectations. In other

words, transactional leaders clearly tell followers about what is to be done in exchange for

implicit or explicit rewards and the desired allocation of resources.

The management by exception form of transactional leadership has been found to be less

effective than contingent reward and transformational leadership in terms of impact on

motivation and performance (Avolio, 1999, 2005; Lowe, Kroeck, & Sivasubramaniam, 1996).

Transactional leaders can also monitor follower performance and correct followers’ mistakes and

errors. When transactional leaders engage in active management-by-exception, they monitor

deviations from standards, mistakes, and errors of followers, and take actions when necessary.

When leaders engage in taking corrective action with negative feedback or reprimands using

passive management-by-exception, they wait for followers’ mistakes to be called to their

attention before taking any corrective action, whereas laissez-faire leaders avoid taking any

action or decisions at all.

Burns (1978) proposed that, to be transformational, leaders need to be morally uplifting

or ethically oriented. For Bass, transformational leaders could be virtuous or villainous

depending on their values, although in later writings Bass (1998) came to agree with Burns that

high moral values was an important base and necessary conditional for transformational

leadership. Howell and Avolio (1992) argued that truly transformational leaders are socialized

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rather than personalized charisma and should show concern for the common good and place

collective interests above self interest—in other words, are highly ethical leaders.

2.1.4 Relationship between authentic leadership and transformational leadership According to Avolio et al. (2004), authentic leadership is viewed as a general or root

construct of positive forms of leadership that incorporates socialized charismatic,

transformational, visionary, ethical, transactional, directive and participative leadership. This

means that authentic leaders may not necessarily be transformational, inspirational, or visionary

and that they may simply display the genuine ethical qualities of leadership associated with

authentic leadership as they engage with followers in a participative or a directive manner. Thus,

authentic leadership represents positive leadership in the sense of high ethics, moral and positive

orientation on the part of the leader, independent of the leader’s specific leadership style.

Transformational leaders have been described as being confident, optimistic, hopeful,

cognitively flexible, and of high moral character (Bass, 1985, 1998). These are characteristics of

authentic leaders too, but as noted above, authentic leaders are not necessarily transformational.

In other words, truly transformational leaders must be authentic, while authentic leaders do not

necessarily need to be transformational. Though it is expected that there is empirical

convergence between transformational and authentic leadership, it is argued that there is

theoretical and discriminant validity between these two leadership constructs. Indeed, Bass and

Steidlmeir (1999) made an implicit distinction that is in line with our view of authentic

leadership being the root or base construct of transformational, when they labeled certain leaders

as pseudo transformational. In doing so, they were highlighting the importance of authentic

leadership being at the base of what constitutes “true” or “genuine” transformational leadership.

Authentic transformational leadership must rest on a moral foundation of legitimate values and

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inauthentic transformational leaders consciously or unconsciously act in bad faith (Bass &

Steidlmeier, 1999; Burns, 1978; Sartre, 1992).

Walumbwa (2006) also argued that, although authentic leadership could be highly related

to the four dimensions of transformational leadership, these two leadership concepts are distinct.

For example, the focus of authentic leaders may not be necessarily in developing followers into

becoming leaders. The key distinction is that authentic leaders are characterized with their high

self awareness; they know their own values and beliefs and are transparent with their followers,

colleagues, and others. Authentic leaders demonstrate their values and beliefs more through their

action than through their words (Ilies et al., 2005). Moreover, authentic leaders lead with purpose

and values, and are not necessarily charismatic or inspirational (Avolio & Gardner, 2005;

George, 2003). On the other hand, transformational leaders may also have this deep sense of self,

and are able to transform others and organizations. However, as Bass and Steidlmeier (1999:

186) note, “authentic transformational leaders may have to be manipulative at times for what

they judge to be the common good.”

2.1.5 Antecedents to authentic leadership Avolio and his colleagues (2004) proposed that there are two important antecedents to the

emergence of authentic leadership. The first factor is an individual’s authentic personal history

could be one important contributor to the development of authentic leadership (Avolio et al.,

2004; Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Gardner et al., 2005a; Ilies et al., 2005; Luthans & Avolio,

2003;). Personal history includes one’s family, childhood, culture, education, occupation, work

experience, role models, and prior leadership experiences, which could serve as self-knowledge

memory and helps establish one’s identity and selfhood (Hoyle, Kernis, Leary, & Baldwin,

1999). With respect to personal experience, one’s positive role models, namely a parent, teacher,

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coach, colleague, or even friend, who have demonstrated high levels of integrity, moral decision

making, transparency, trustworthiness, confidence, optimism, hope and/or resiliency, can have a

positive effect on an individual’s personal growth, moral development, and authentic personality

development.

Additionally, the second factor that serves as an impetus for stimulating positive growth

and development of authentic leadership is a leader’s positive trigger events, such as a major

promotion, a voluntary decision to change careers, pursuing an advanced degree, an international

expatriate assignment, and establishing a coalition with a significant and influential person

(Avolio, 2005; Luthans et al., 2003).

2.1.6 Characteristics of authentic leadership First of all, authentic leaders are characterized as possessing high self awareness and by

knowing their unique strengths and weaknesses well. Kernis (2002, p. 13) defines self-awareness

as “having awareness of, and trust in, one’s motives, feelings, desires, and self-relevant

cognitions.” It is argued that, being highly self-aware, authentic leaders understand their

strengths, weaknesses, and the nature of the self. Individuals’ self-awareness helps people to

fully and authentically realize their unique values, identity, emotions, goals, knowledge, talents

and/or capabilities. Avolio and his colleagues (Avolio et al., 2004; Gardner et al., 2005;

Walumbwa, Avolio, Gadner, Wernsing, & Peterson, 2006) propose that being self-aware means

that authentic leaders will have a higher self certainty and self clarity. Being self-aware also

means that authentic leaders will know their own values well. Values are defined as “conceptions

of the desirable that guide the way social actors (e.g., organizational leaders, policy-makers,

individuals) select actions, evaluate people and events, and explain their actions and evaluations”

(Schwartz, 1999, p. 24-25). Authentic leaders are true to their own values since they understand

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their values well and have deep insight and knowledge of the true meaning of these values.

Therefore, it is stated that being aware of one’s values is an antecedent of authentic leadership

behavior (Bennis, 2003; George, 2003).

Authentic leaders also know their self identities and goals and motives, including their

emotional self awareness well. People with high emotional intelligence are characterized as

being aware of both their emotions and the causes, as well as effects on others (George, 2000;

Salovey & Mayer, 1990; Salovey, Mayer, & Caruso, 2002). Emotional self-awareness, or having

high level of emotional intelligence, is likely to be a key determinant of authentic leadership

(Avolio, 2005).

Some scholars (e.g., Ashkanasy & Daus, 2002; Ashkanasy & Tse, 2000) indicate that

transformational leaders have high levels of emotional intelligence that enable them to be aware

of their own and others’ emotions, which promote their individualized consideration with

followers. Individuals with high emotional intelligence not only understand their own and others’

emotions, but they also understand the causes and effects of emotions on how one processes

information and makes decisions. Understanding self and others’ emotions can enable authentic

transformational leaders to understand their follower needs and feelings and demonstrate

individualized consideration to satisfy follower needs for growth and achievement.

Another important component of authentic leadership lies in authentic leaders’ high

internal self regulation. Authentic leaders with a high level of self-regulation are able to: a) set

up internal standards, b) evaluate the distinction between the current standards and actual or

possible outcomes, and c) identify potential actions which can resolve these inconsistencies

(Gardner et al., 2005; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998b). With high self regulation, authentic leaders

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would be able to manage their behavior so that they can behave consistent with their true values

and beliefs.

A basic assumption of self-determination theory is that the integrative processes of self-

development are motivated by fundamental needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness

(Ryan et al., 2003). The authentic self evolves as “one acts volitionally (i.e., autonomously),

experiences an inner sense of efficacy (i.e., competence), and is loved (i.e., feels related to) for

who one is rather than for matching an external standard” (Deci & Ryan, 1995: 33). Hence,

individuals who identify themselves as a person who identifies himself or herself as a leader

would find satisfaction in that identity to the extent that it: 1) helps him or her feel connected to

other members of a collective; 2) elicits feelings of efficacy; and 3) provides a means for

expressing his or her true self (Ryan & Deci, 2003).

Components of authenticity

Kernis (2002) has discussed the components of “authenticity.” The first component is

balanced information processing, which refers to processing information without distortions,

exaggerations, or ignorance of internal experiences, private knowledge, and external evaluations

of the self. It means that, in order to be authentic, people need to objectively evaluate and accept

their strengths and weaknesses, and positive and negative qualities, as well as feedback from

others.

The second component of authenticity is called behavioral authenticity, which is defined

as “acting in accord with one’s values, preferences, and needs as opposed to acting merely to

please others or to attain rewards or avoid punishments through acting ‘falsely’.”(Kernis, 2002,

p.14). In order to be internally consistent and act authentically, authentic leaders sometimes may

have to act inconsistent with the requirements and constraints of environmental and external

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contingencies, while not compromising their true beliefs and values, which is an inseparable part

of high self regulation, which is an important characteristic of authentic leadership.

The third component of authenticity is “functional flexibility” (Paulhus & Martin, 1988),

which is defined as individuals’ confidence in their ability to deal with potentially contradictory

life situations. People with high functional flexibility would be less likely to experience anxiety

since they have well defined self-views in terms of what kind of person they would like to be.

Functional ability has an impact on self-monitoring ability, the degree to which individuals are

able to make necessary adjustments in self-presentations and expressive behaviors to create and

sustain desired impressions with other people (Snyder, 2002). It is also argued that authentic

leaders with high self-monitoring capability are effective at presenting a multi-faceted but

internally consistent and genuine self-system to followers and other associates (Avolio et al.,

2004).

The final component of authenticity is referred to as relational transparency, which is

defined as “relational in nature, inasmuch as it involves valuing and achieving openness and

truthfulness in one’s close relationships” (Kernis, 2002, p.15). Relational transparency involves

leaders’ engagement and commitment to demonstrate one’s both positive and negative aspects to

their followers. Some scholars (e.g., Luthans et al., 2003; May et al., 2003) argued that relational

transparency and free share of information is key to the development of authentic leadership.

Avolio et al. (2004) also stated that authentic leaders are more likely to transparently express

their authentic and true feelings and emotions to their followers as compared to less authentic

leaders. Furthermore, authentic leaders also try to manage their regular emotions and avoid

inappropriate or extreme emotions toward other people, while also maintaining peace within

their own hearts.

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2.1.7 Positive moral perspectives of authentic leadership It is proposed that authentic leaders have three key elements of their moral perspectives:

moral capacity, moral efficacy, and moral courage, to deal with potential moral dilemmas and

challenges (Avolio et al., 2004; May et al., 2003). The first component of moral perspectives is

authentic leaders’ moral capacity, which is defined as leaders’ ability to recognize issues of

varying moral intensity, to view such issues from multiple perspectives, and to assess the moral

implications of alternative courses of action (May et al., 2003). It is argued that authentic leaders

have high levels of moral capacity (Luthans et al., 2003; May et al., 2003) and have reached an

advanced level of moral development, such as Kohlberg’s (1969) stage 6 (universal ethical

principles).

Authentic leaders rely on a more balanced and sophisticated understanding of moral

intricacies and tradeoffs to evaluate moral issues from a wide variety of angles and perspectives

(Kuhnert & Lewis, 1987). First, it is argued that authentic leaders possess well developed meta-

cognitive abilities (Avolio et al., 2004; Metcalfe & Shimamura, 1994) that enable them to decide

not only whether they should consider moral issues, but also to reflect on how they think about

and evaluate such moral issues (Hannah & Chan, 2004). Therefore, authentic leaders are able to

look at various moral issues using a wide variety of lenses and perspectives (Kuhnert & Lewis,

1987), which provide such leaders a basis for understanding the intricacies and tradeoffs

involved in complicated moral decision issues. Such leaders are better prepared to realize the

potential biases that may distort their moral judgments. Finally, deeply involved in moral issues,

authentic leaders can reflect on the appropriateness of their own and other stakeholders’ moral

goals and values, and recognize the subtle moral paradoxes that can exist with complex ethical

issues (May et al., 2003).

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Secondly, authentic leaders have the second moral perspective, moral efficacy, which is

referred to as people’s belief that they possess the abilities, skills, resources, and ultimately the

motivation to accomplish a particular moral action (Bandura, 1991). Luthans and Youssef

(2004) argued that moral efficacy can predict ethical performance and that moral magnitude (the

level of moral task difficulty at which individuals expect to be able to perform) and moral

strength (the degree of certainty that individuals possess about their capacity to perform at a

designated level of moral task difficulty) each have an impact on ethical decision making.

Accordingly, it is also expected that authentic leaders’ moral efficacy can enable them to make

difficult ethical choices and to accomplish the moral tasks confronting them (May et al., 2003).

Thirdly, authentic leaders have moral courage, which is defined as “the leader’s fortitude

to convert moral intentions into actions despite pressures from either inside or outside of the

organization to do otherwise” (May et al., 2003, p.255). Individuals with moral courage are able

to adopt a set of moral beliefs when dealing with ethical dilemmas related to business contexts

(Furnham, 2002). Therefore, authentic leaders’ moral courage enables them to confront moral

dilemmas, challenges and tests, though they may suffer or even sacrifice personally at their own

expense to be consistent with the underlying values they possess. Furthermore, moral courage

can strengthen people’s belief that they are able to handle potential moral ethical dilemmas and

challenges ahead.

2.2 Ethical Decision Making and Moral Identity 2.2.1 Ethical decision making Rest (1986) proposed a four-component model of ethical decision judgment and decision

making. In this model, individuals, as moral agents, are able to, a) realize the moral issue, b)

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make a moral judgment, c) establish moral intention, and, d) take moral action. It is also pointed

out that being successful in one moral stage does not necessarily escalate into the higher stage.

Trevino (1986) provided another person-situation interaction model, which is implicitly

based on Rest’s (1986) model. According to this model, moral cognition leads to moral behavior

and four types of important contextual factors (e.g., individual characteristics, situational factors,

organizational culture, and characteristics of the work) moderate the relationship between moral

intention and moral behavior. Individual factors include ego strength, field dependence, and

locus of control. Situational factors include the immediate job context (e.g., reinforcement and

other pressures), organizational culture (normative structure, preferred others, obedience to

authority, and responsibility for consequences), and characteristics of the work (i.e., role taking,

and resolution of moral conflict).

Ferrell and Gresham (1985) proposed another contingent person-situation interaction

model of ethical decision making in the field of marketing. They argued that an ethical dilemma

emerges from the social and cultural environment. The contingencies they discussed included

both individual (including personal knowledge, values, attitudes, and intentions), and

organizational (i.e., significant others and opportunity) variables. The moral decision emerges

from the moral evaluation and from the next behavior, and finally to the evaluation of moral

behavior, which, in turn, serves as another cycle to be used as feedback to the individual and

organization for the next moral challenge. Hunt and Vitell (1986) proposed another model of

marketing ethical decision making, which stated that both situational variables, in terms of

cultural, industrial, and organizational factors, and personal experiences, affect intensity of moral

issues, moral judgment and moral evaluations, and ultimately moral decision making and

behavior.

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Furthermore, Ferrell, Gresham, and Fraedrich (1989) proposed a five-stage synthesis,

including moral awareness, moral cognition, moral evaluation, moral determination, and moral

actions. It is argued that behavioral evaluation of consequences would also lead to moral

awareness, moral cognition, moral evaluations, moral intention, and moral behavior.

What differentiates Jones’ (1991) issue-contingency model from previous ethical

decision-making models is that prior models failed to regard the explicit characteristics of a

moral issue. According to these prior models, if the moral issue itself does not have an impact,

an individual’s process of making an ethical decision will not differ for all different types of

moral issues and challenges. Jones (1991) pointed out that, though these models contribute to the

comprehensive and unique understanding of the dynamics of ethical decision making process,

these ethical decision models fail to consider the characteristics of moral issues which might

influence the dynamics and complexity of ethical decision making processes. He proposed one

concept, moral intensity, to explain its influence on moral evaluation, moral awareness, moral

intention, and moral actions.

Moral intensity is considered to be a multi-dimensional construct that captures the extent

of issue-rated moral imperative in a particular ethical situation. Characteristics of the moral issue

include magnitude of consequences, social consensus, and probability of effect, temporal

immediacy, proximity, and concentration of effect. It is pointed out that moral intensity focuses

on the nature of the moral issue itself, neither on the moral agent nor on the organizational

context. Moral intensity is conceptualized as a characteristic of the issue and not of the moral

agent confronting the ethical dilemma or challenge. Magnitude of consequences of the moral

issue concerns the amount of harm to a victim that could be caused by a particular moral

decision or action. Social consensus is concerned about “the degree of social agreement that a

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proposed act is evil or good” (Jones, 1991: 375), and proximity is defined as “the feeling of

nearness … that the moral agent has of victims” (Jones, 1991: p.376). Jones also proposed that

issues characterized by high moral intensity would be more likely to be recognized by moral

agents since these issues are more vivid, and in turn more likely to gain attention from decision

makers confronting this moral dilemma. In addition, issues of higher moral intensity also elicit

greater attributions of responsibility to the self (Butterfield, Trevino & Weaver, 2000).

2.2.2 Social identity theory Tajfel (1972, p.272) defined social identity as “the individual’s knowledge that he

belongs to certain social groups together with some emotional and value significance to home of

his group membership.” Tajfel (1972, 1978) argued that social identity is the knowledge of

being a group member and thus of what attributes define membership in the group, and also

includes an emotional attachment to the group. Personal identity refers to the self as being a

person different from other individuals. Social identity is a theory of the self. Tajfel and Turner

(1979) proposed that there is a fundamental distinction between social identity, which is related

to group membership, and personal identity, which is related to one’s belief about his/her unique

attribute or characteristic.

Brewer and Gardner (1996) distinguished between three types of the self: the individual

self (defined by personal traits that differentiate one from others), the relational self (defined by

dyadic relationships that assimilate self to significant others), and the collective self (an

individual attachment to a specific group). It is argued that authentic leaders encourage followers

to look inward to achieve greater self-knowledge and identify with their leaders less and more

with the collective goals, vision, and values (Gardner et al., 2005a; Howell & Shamir, 2005;

Walumbwa et al., 2006). Collective identity includes the importance of sharing values, attributes,

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group activities and links individual missions, goals and behaviors to be consistent with

collective identity (Gardner et al., 2005a).

Lord and Brown (2004) state that individual level identity emphasizes dimensions and

attributes that are personally important and that can help differentiate a person from others.

Brewer and Gardner (1996) argued that with self identity, self-views generally gain meaning by

comparing one’s self with others. Banaji and Prentice (1994) defined a person’s individual

identity, the uniqueness as a person, as self-categorization based on the perceived similarity and

distinction from other individuals. Individuals’ relational identity is their perception through

which they define themselves in terms of relations to others. Brewer and Gardner (1996) noted

that self-concepts at the interpersonal or relational level are defined in terms of roles that specify

one’s relationship with others. It is argued that the criteria used to regulate and monitor personal

attitudes and behaviors may serve to represent self in the presence of important others. Moral

identity is more of a construct at the individual level and it is concerned with the belief that they

believe they are moral agents, and intend to maintain this identity and belief.

2.2.3 Moral identity Thomas (1997) pointed out that there are various aspects of one’s overall self concept. The

physical aspect involves such things as the feeling about how good-looking a person is and how

strong a person is. However, the moral perspective of self is about the basic answer to this

question: Am I a good and moral person or am I a bad or immoral person? What kind of moral

principle and values do I hold, and how resolutely will I stand up for these moral principles and

values? Therefore, moral identity is the degree to which a person identifies him/herself as a

moral person. Moral identity determines when and why individuals behave in an ethical way and

serve in the best interest of the collective, such as organization, community, or society. Moral

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identity is known as the convergence of moral ideals with one’s personal identity or the extent to

which commitment to moral values is infused into a person’s self concept (Colby & Damon,

1993; Nasir & Kirkshner, 2003).

Hart, Atkins, and Ford (1998) defined moral identity as “a commitment to one’s sense of

self to lines of actions that promote or protect the welfare of others” (p. 515). Erikson (1964)

viewed identity as being true to oneself in action and is associated with one’s understanding of

‘reality.’ Aquino and Reed (2002) argued that moral identity is a parameter of social identity and

represents one’s self-conception organized around a set of moral traits. Therefore, moral identity

is linked to specific moral traits and may also be a distinct mental image of how a moral person

is likely to think, feel, and behave (Kihlstrom & Klein, 1994).

Erickson (1964) argued that being authentic to self represents the consistency in how one

behaves with respect to his/her own identity. This argument implies that an individual with a

strong moral identity will strive to maintain a consistency and balance between his/her self

identity and his/her decision making/behavior (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Blasi, 1984; Hart et al.,

1998; Younis & Yates, 1999). This suggests that moral identity influences a person’s moral

decision making since moral identity is deeply rooted in one’s self image, model and general

self.

There are two core assumptions underlying Blasi’s (1984) view of moral identity. The first

assumption is that moral identity can be different in content, which means that some people may

see being fair, righteous, and just as central to one’s moral identity, while other people may think

that being compassionate and helpful are critical. The second assumption is that being a moral

person may or may not be an integral part of a person’s overall self definition or self concept. It

is also argued that the centrality of self importance of moral identity will change over time,

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which means that moral identity could change at different points in a person’s life cycle and also

implies that a person’s moral identity can be developed across time.

Using a cognitive-developmental perspective (Piaget, 1932, Kohlberg, 1971, Rest, 1979), I

intend to help explain the sophistication and complexity underlying moral decision making

intention and moral identity. In Kohlberg’s (1971) model, moral decision making intention is

central to explaining moral behavior. More recently, adopting a social cognitive perspective,

Bandura (1991) argues that moral standards and self-sanctions are important predictors of moral

behavior. One of the most important differences between Kohlberg’s cognitive developmental

and Bandura’s social-cognitive perspective of moral decision making is that the first model

stresses moral decision making intention, whereas the latter emphasizes one’s self-regulatory

mechanisms in moral decision making (Aquino & Reed, 2002). Both of these two theoretical

models are needed to fully explain how authentic leaders make moral decisions when confronted

with moral/ethical dilemmas.

2.2.4 Characteristics of moral identity

Blasi (1984) proposed that moral identity has three basic characteristics. The first

characteristic is that moral identity is experienced as rooted in the very core of one’s being or

selfhood. Secondly, moral identity means being true to oneself in terms of moral decision

making. The third characteristic is that moral identity is associated with truthfulness (i.e., with

respect to one’s own understanding of reality). McDougall (1936) pointed out that moral ideas

are not strong if decision making intention or moral ideas are not rooted in a moral self. In other

words, a person’s moral decision intention may not be consistent or stable across different time

periods or environments if he/she does not have a strong moral identity. Therefore, Blasi (1984)

indicated that “morality is more a characteristic of the agent than of either action or thinking; the

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ultimate source of goodness lies in good will, and good will is at the core of what a person is” (p.

130).

The self is not just a collection of characteristics, traits, and percepts but an organization

of self-related information brought together according to principles of moral consistency. The

core or essential moral self includes those aspects so central that one could not even imagine

being deprived of them. The individual who does not have a moral identity may still use and

understand moral language and might be able to make moral decision making, and might even

behave morally sometimes. However, moral perspective will not play a role in his/her moral

functioning nor does it influence whether he/she will not have a passion or enthusiasm for being

ethical. The second aspect of moral identity is that individuals with moral identity have the

compassion and care for being ethical, where others see fairness and justice being essential to

their moral identity. For example, according to Jaffee and Hyde (2000), females are more likely

to emphasize the dimension of care, while males are more likely to favor the role of fairness and

justice in determining being ethical or not. So, it is argued that moral identity may not be present

even if people possess moral intention and moral cognition.

According to Thomas (1997), the moral self serves as a unifying construct which

provides an individual with a sense of inner consistency and moral compass over a long period of

time. A secure, mature sense of moral self identity is characterized by four dimensions: unity,

conviction, continuity, and self recognition. The first characteristic is moral unity, which is

concerned with “how well a person’s sense of self integrates the many aspects of that

individual’s morality into a harmonious whole (p. 160).” This dimension addresses the

following question, “to what extent do my moral values and my expectations about how I will

act in moral situations form a well-integrated, internally consistent unit rather than an

32

aggregation of separate and oft-times conflicting views of moral matters? (p.160)” The second

characteristic is moral conviction, which means that a person’s self-assurance that his/her moral

values and his/her expectations for moral behavior are correct. This is also a characteristic that is

reflected in what constitutes moral self confidence or moral self efficacy (Thomas, 1997). The

third characteristic is moral continuity, which is defined as one’s feeling that his/her sense of

moral identity is developmental over time. It means, over the long term, a person’s moral identity

is influenced by his/her environment, significant others, laws, etc. There are two types of

conditions regarding moral continuity. Under the first condition, it means that an individual with

high moral continuity will perceive him/herself as subscribing to the same moral convictions

over time. Under the second condition, even if the individual changes his/her convictions he/she

is still able to explain these changes in a way that suggests growth of insight and maturity. The

fourth characteristic is moral self recognition, which means the degree to which a person can

consciously describe the values and expectations of behavior that characterize his/her moral self.

In summary, these four characteristics mean that the maturing of moral identity

advances (a) from separateness among moral values to greater consistency and unity, (b) from

lack of awareness to more sense and awareness of moral values, (c) from less to more confident

in the correctness of one’s moral values, (d) from less to more ability to explain one’s values and

expected behaviors.

2.2.5 Social cognitive model of follower moral decision-making

Going beyond the philosophically-based ethics models and based on social cognitive

theory (Bandura, 1986; Wood & Bandura, 1989), Stajkovic and Luthans (1997) proposed an

ethical decision making model in an international context. In Bandura’s social cognitive theory,

it is argued that human behavior is influenced by the triadic interaction among the specific

33

environment, person and human behavior itself. According to social cognitive theory, the basic

human capabilities through which people exercise self-influence in regulating their behaviors

would include symbolizing, forethought, vicarious learning, and self-reflection.

The first component of human ability is symbolizing forethought capability, which

enables humans to process and transform visual experiences into internal cognitive models that

in turn serve as guides for future actions. As to ethical decision making, with symbolizing ability,

people first ascribe meaning to their experiences and behavior in ethical decision making

(Stajkovic & Luthans, 1997).

The second component of human ability is forethought capability, which enables

individuals to anticipate the possible outcomes and consequence of moral decision making. The

forethought ability is the underlying assumption for the moderating role of moral intensity over

the relationship between authentic leadership and follower moral decision intention. Since

followers are able to perceive possible consequences based on their forethought ability, they are

likely to behave differently according to their own moral judgment and moral decision intention.

The third component of human ability is vicarious learning capability, the ability to

vicariously observe and learn from the behavior of others and the subsequent consequences of

those behaviors. Through vicarious learning, followers could learn from authentic leaders and

apply what they have learned into their own practices. This is one of the most important

influence mechanisms through which authentic leadership impacts follower moral identity and

moral decision intention. Observing that their leaders are authentic and ethical, followers aspire

to learn from their leaders, elevate their confidence in confronting ethical dilemmas, and make

moral decisions, and commit moral actions.

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The fourth component of human ability lies in one’s self-regulatory capability. Human

behaviors are initiated and regulated by internal self-set standards and by self-evaluative reaction

mechanism. When a person sets up specific and rational goals and criteria, any perceived

incongruity between a behavior and the standard activates self-evaluative reactions. Furthermore,

self evaluative reactions will influence the regulation and change in human behaviors and

intention. This is also the underlying assumption for the effect of moral identity on follower

moral intention. With a strong belief of being moral, followers intend to make a moral decision

and commit ethically in order to keep consistent with their own moral criteria. .

The fifth component of human ability is self-reflective capability. By reflecting on their

different moral personal experiences, followers can generate specific knowledge about their

ethical environment and about their own moral perspectives. Follower moral knowledge can

derive from their self-reflection, which is central to human functioning of judging their

capabilities to deal effectively with different moral dilemmas in the future. This self-reflective

mechanism is also considered a possible mechanism through which followers establish their

moral identity.

2.3 Authentic Leadership, Follower Moral Identity, and Moral Decision Intention 2.3.1 Direct effect of authentic leadership on follower moral identity and moral decision intention

It is argued that authentic leaders, through authentic words and deeds, self-awareness,

positive psychological capital, moral and authentic behavior, and the leader’s positive moral

perspectives, and positive modeling, significantly and continuously motivate and transform their

followers into being more authentic (Avolio et al., 2004). As to the influence process of authentic

leadership on followers, it is argued that leaders’ positive modeling and followers’ personal

35

history as well as trigger events will have a positive effect on followers’ moral identity and moral

decision intention. Furthermore, it is also expected that followers will have a higher trust in the

leader when followers have the opportunity to observe the leader’s high commitment to

transparent decision processes, core values and honesty (Avolio et al., 2004). Basically, in the

context of the current dissertation I expect that leaders perceived as more authentic will

positively impact followers’ moral identity, moral awareness, moral efficacy, moral resiliency,

and moral courage which will enable followers to confront potential moral dilemmas and ethical

challenges in an ethical way which places the interest of the group over their individual interests.

Avolio et al. (2004) argued that authentic leaders influence followers’ moral, emotional,

affective and cognitive development through the modeling (e.g., “leading by example”) of

positive values, psychological states, behaviors and self-development. Luthans and Avolio

(2003) posited that positive modeling is a key factor that nurtures the authentic relationship and

connection between leaders and followers.

Authentic leaders communicate their moral values, psychological states, and behaviors to

followers with positive modeling. It is posited that authentic leaders could serve as the “moral

standard bearer” for followers with their expressed moral values and actions (May et al., 2003).

Followers of authentic leaders could learn how to think about, and how to define their own roles,

how to make their own decisions, and how to behave in line with their moral identity by

observing leaders’ morally communicating, modeling, rewarding actions and moral behaviors.

In sum, followers are likely to be motivated by their authentic leaders’ candor, integrity,

confidence, optimism, hope, moral development, moral courage, and moral efficacy, moral

resilience and strength-orientation to be a moral self. In other words, followers’ exposure to

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authentic leaders can serve as a trigger event itself that will promote followers’ moral identity,

moral awareness and can initiate a path towards moral self-development.

Based on the work of Kernis (2002), self knowledge and acceptance in ethics is critical to

achieving leader authenticity. I argue here that follower’s self knowledge and acceptance with

respect to ethical standards and principles will also be critical to their moral development and

their resulting moral identity. It is argued that authentic leaders’ modeling of authentic values

and behaviors will proactively influence their followers’ moral self-development by fostering

followers’ self-discovery, including self awareness and self knowledge. This means that

followers will have greater self knowledge about their moral values, identity, emotions, motives

and goals as key aspects of their levels of self-awareness.

It is expected that the moral value congruence between authentic leaders and their

followers will determine the degree of followers’ identification with the leader, and that leader’s

moral perspective. Followers of authentic leaders are more likely to exhibit higher moral values,

beliefs, emotions, motives and goals. For those followers who do not have core moral values,

identities, emotions, motives and/or goals, they may find that authentic leaders offer a fresh

alternative to their thinking and this could provide opportunities to develop their own moral

identity. Ultimately, followers may come to personally identify with the leader and internalize

the leader’s moral values and moral objectives as their own (Gardner et al., 1998, 2005; Kark et

al., 2002; Lord et al., 2001; Shamir et al., 1993; Walumbwa et al., 2006; Weierter, 1997). Thus,

it is expected that authentic leadership will have a positive effect on follower moral identity.

By focusing on followers’ self development, authentic leaders encourage such individuals

who currently lack moral self-awareness and moral identity to look inward to achieve greater

moral self-knowledge through the leader’s moral modeling processes. Ultimately, followers may

37

be more likely to establish their own moral identity since authentic leaders encourage them to

identify with the core values and interests of the collective (work group, organization, profession,

and society). It is argued that “leading by example” component of role modeling is an extremely

important influence process of leadership on followers and organizations (Gardner et al., 2005).

It is argued that leaders’ confidence, high moral standards, innovative problem solving,

commitment, and self-sacrifice will cascade down organization levels when followers emulate

these behaviors (Bass, Waldman, & Avolio, 1987).

As to the influence of authentic leadership on follower moral perspective, followers’

internalization of core organizational values and authentic leaders’ moral perspective will lead

followers to achieve higher levels of moral self-clarity and autonomy. It is also argued that the

shared common values and attributes of an organization or group is related to the collective

identity (Kark et al., 2002; Shamir et al., 1993). In the long-term, these followers may be more

capable of establishing their moral identity, and ultimately will have a higher level of moral

intention and ultimately moral behavior/actions.

It is suggested that authentic leaders demonstrate through their words and actions, the

importance of integrity, trust, transparency, openness, respect for others, and fairness – values

that are more closely aligned with self-transcendence than self-enhancement. It is also argued

(Luthans et al., 2003) that authentic leaders’ future-orientation and concern for associate building

will lead them to focus followers’ attention on thinking of what kind of people they want to be.

That is, while we expect authentic leaders will encourage followers to make an accurate

assessment of their current self, authentic leaders’ developmental focus will help followers to see

who they can become.

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Lord, Brown, & Feiberg (1999) postulate that when goals are linked to followers’ self-

views, self-enhancement motivations become salient; in contrast, linking goals to followers’

possible selves promotes self-verification motives. Hence, to the extent followers follow their

authentic leaders’ example by striving for personal growth and development, self-transference

values and self-verification motives will cause them to seek out accurate and self-diagnostic

moral feedback from others.

According to Brewer and Gardner (1996) , followers are more likely to respect their

significant others and to develop a moral relationship with their authentic leader. In other words,

authentic leaders are more likely to have the ability to influence followers’ moral perspectives,

including moral identity and moral decision intention. For example, authentic leaders will be

able to influence followers’ moral efficacy by demonstrating their moral knowledge of and moral

commitment to certain actions, while encouraging followers to further think through

ethical/moral dilemmas in a deeper and broader way (Luthans & Avolio, 2003). When authentic

leaders and their followers address a moral and/or ethical challenge characterized by high moral

intensity, they will be more likely to work through it, to learn from it, and resolve it because they

believe it is their moral responsibility to do so. It is expected that moral responsibility is

originating from moral identity. It is also argued that authentic leaders’ positive psychological

capital and transparent and open communication of high ethical standards strengthen followers’

moral efficacy since authentic leaders increase follower’s confidence in doing what’s right (May

et al., 2003).

In addition, authentic leaders could also elevate follower moral analytical abilities which

will enable followers to establish the belief that they are moral people. Authentic leaders help

followers to draw morally convincing inferences and implications from moral episodes, to judge

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the soundness of their moral evidence in support of their views, to identify moral assumptions

underlying their arguments, and to distinguish sound versus faulty moral logic and the like.

The underlying mechanisms through which authentic leadership affects follower moral

identity and action can be further explained by using Bandura’s (1986, 1997) social cognitive

theory. According to this theory, symbolic modeling could influence followers’ moral judgments

by portraying what is acceptable and suitable moral action. Bandura (1991) has proposed familial

and social transmission models for morality, which means that the values, standards and

behavioral patterns are transmitted via family and social networks, among which leadership

influence could be an important social influence process and source.

Bandura (1991) assumes that personal values and standards of conduct arise from diverse

sources of influence. One source of influence is as mentioned above role modeling. Another is

where authentic leaders influence one follower versus another by selecting information that has

moral relevance to each follower from the range of information available in a given situation

given their focus on individualized consideration. These socialization procedures enable

followers to provide supporting justification for weighing various options in making moral

decisions and facilitate the establishment or strengthening of follower moral identity.

Finally, authentic leaders’ transparent expression of moral convictions in terms of their

own actions and behaviors when confronting moral dilemmas would provide ethical guidelines

for their followers to learn and behave ethically as their leaders do. These combined social

learning experiences and processes should help followers develop or strengthen their moral

identity, contributing to greater self awareness regarding their internal moral standards.

Ultimately, moral self awareness and moral self standards would enable followers to build their

moral identity, and to behave ethically.

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Reiss (1965) and Bandura (1991) assume that values and standards of conduct arise from

diverse sources of influence. Because authentic leaders have referent and expert power,

collectively enforced sanctions can produce rapid and widespread societal changes. Viewing the

internalization of the leader’s moral values and standards based on social learning theory,

authentic leaders could influence followers by selecting information that has moral relevance

from the configuration of information available in a given situation. Authentic leaders could also

influence followers to select elements that are weighted and integrated on the basis of their moral

rules. In combination, these procedures will enable followers to provide supporting justification

for weighing various options in making moral decisions and will facilitate the establishment of

moral identity. Finally, the leader’s authentic expression of moral convictions in terms of their

own actions and behaviors would provide social sanctions to followers that they should behave

ethically as their leader does. Combined, these learning experiences will help followers develop

or strengthen their moral identity, contributing to greater self awareness regarding their high

moral standards, and consequently contribute to their moral decision making.

2.3.2 The direct effect of transformational and transactional leadership on follower moral decision intention and moral identity

Transformational leaders set high standards for moral and ethical conduct, and for moral

emulation (Avolio, 2005). Transformational leaders have strong moral values and goals, which

lead to behaviors and decisions to promote ethical policies, procedures, and processes within

their organization. Transformational leaders demonstrate idealized influence (i.e., as high ethical

role models or moral exemplars) to encourage followers to establish their own internal set of

moral principles and ideals, which helps establish a basis for follower moral identity, and

ultimately moral action (Avolio, 2005). Turner and Barling (2002) found that managers’ moral

reasoning was associated with transformational leadership. Specifically, leaders who exhibited

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higher levels of moral reasoning also exhibited more transformational leadership behaviors than

leaders scoring in the lowest moral reasoning group. But, no studies have examined the effect of

transformational leadership and transactional leadership on follower moral reasoning.

Transformational leaders use intellectual stimulation, which motivates their followers to

challenge long-term assumptions and the dominant logic of the leader when it is time to change

direction (Avolio, 1999), to challenge their followers’ moral thoughts and to recognize their

moral values, beliefs, and mindset, and subsequently to re-examine their current levels of moral

cognition, moral thought, and moral action.

Through individualized consideration, transformational leaders also focus on coaching and

mentoring followers to be prepared to assume greater moral responsibility, and ultimately

develop followers into moral exemplars through moral socialization (Avolio & Gibbons, 1988;

Avolio, 2005; Hoffman, 1988). Thus, followers are more likely to maintain higher moral

principles and believe they are moral people (formation of their moral identity).

Transformational leaders also show concern for followers’ needs, feelings, and development of

morality. By offering constructive and positive moral feedback to their followers,

transformational leaders help improve followers’ sense of understanding their own and others’

moral perspective, contributing to developing a higher level of moral perspective taking and

interpersonal ability (Eisenberg, 2000; Hoffman, 1988). Under the influence of transformational

leaders, followers are more likely to be able to transcend their own self interests and needs, as

they are guided by a self-determined moral identity, and to act according to their own moral

values and system.

Transactional leadership is aimed at monitoring and controlling employees through

rational or economic means. There are four dimension of transactional leadership. The first

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component is contingent reward, which refers to leadership behaviors focusing on exchange of

resources. That is, leaders provide tangible or intangible support and resources to followers in

exchange for their efforts and performance and punish them in case followers do not accomplish

the goals. Transactional leaders also involve management by exception–active, which refers to

monitoring performance and taking corrective action as necessary, and management by

exception–passive, which refers to the less active version of management by exception when

leaders intervene only when problems become serious. The main focus of management by

exception is on setting standards and monitoring deviations from these standards. As to the effect

of transactional leadership on follower moral decision making, since transactional leaders accept

the goals, structure and culture of the existing organization, it is expected that transactional

leadership has a positive effect on follower moral decision making intention.

The management by exception form of transactional leadership has been found to be less

effective than contingent reward and transformational leadership (Avolio, 1999, 2005; Lowe et

al., 1996). Transactional leaders can also monitor follower performance and correct followers’

mistakes and errors. When transactional leaders engage in active management-by-exception, they

monitor deviations from standards, mistakes, and errors of followers, and take actions when

necessary. When leaders engage in taking corrective action with negative feedback or

reprimands using passive management-by-exception, they wait for followers’ mistakes to be

called to their attention before anything taking any corrective action, whereas laissez-faire

leaders avoid taking any action or decisions at all.

Basin on the above arguments, the researcher proposed the following hypotheses.

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Hypothesis 1: More vs. less authentic leadership has a more positive effect on follower’s

moral decision intention.

Hypothesis 2: More vs. less transformational leadership has a more positive effect on

follower’s moral decision intention.

Hypothesis 3: More vs. less transactional leadership has a positive effect on follower’s moral

decision intention.

2.4 Mediating role of moral identity Erickson (1964) argued that being authentic to oneself in how one thinks and behaves is

another aspect of identity and means that a person will try to target moral intention and will think

and make his or her moral action consistent with his/her moral identity. This argument implies

that an individual with a strong moral identity will strive to maintain a consistency and balance

between his/her moral self identity and his/her moral intention /behavior (Aquino & Reed, 2002;

Blasi, 1980, 1983, 1993; Hart et al., 1998; Younis & Yates, 1999). Taking this position means

that since moral identity is deeply rooted in one’s self, it is relatively stable and influences a

person’s moral decision intention and moral behavior.

As to the importance of moral identity in moral decision intention, Kohlberg (1969,

1970) and Piaget (1997) both proposed a moral developmental theory to explain moral intention

and moral behavior, each suggesting that moral intention was highly related to the environment

in which the individual was embedded. As people become older, more educated, and have more

life experiences, their moral principles are influenced by the organizations and communities in

which they work and live.

Kohlberg (1969) divided moral intention into three stages, “pre-conventional”,

“conventional” and “post-conventional”. If an individual is at the stage of pre-conventional,

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he/she is more likely to emphasize being obedient, escaping from punishment, and being largely

focused on self-interests. In the “conventional” stage, a person prefers to use the laws and rules

to guide his/her behavior and regards interactions with others in an instrumental and

opportunistic way. People in the “post-conventional” stage will use more universal principles

and guidelines for their intention in making moral decisions.

Blasi (1984) also discussed the central role of moral identity in moral decision intention

by arguing that moral identity is the source of moral intention and moral action. Indeed, for an

individual without moral identity, even if he/she has the cognitive capacity to make the ‘right’

and ‘ethical’ choice, he/she may not have moral decision intention, and may be more difficult to

behave ethically.

Blasi (1984) has outlined several steps for constructing moral identity. With respect to

general moral identity, such identity is constructed through social interactions and would reflect

an original understanding of the social reality. Consistent with Bandura’s (1991) viewpoint, I

argue that authentic leaders will help followers to select information available in given moral

predicaments. Secondly, moral roles would influence individuals’ construction of more concrete

moral ideals and moral thinking. Followers will weigh and integrate selected elements on the

basis for judging moral conduct and sing out those immoral elements. In addition, authentic

leaders’ expressions of moral convictions serve as social sanctions on followers so that followers

share similar moral opinions and moral values. Third, one’s concrete moral ideas will lead to the

construction of an ideal moral self, and finally, to moral behavior. Finally, the moral self will

become a resource and origination of moral decision intention and ultimately moral behavior.

Colby and Damon (1993) pointed out that, when an individual has high moral identity,

his/her moral cognition, moral judgment, and moral behavior/actions will be highly integrated

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with each other and thus consistent. Individuals with high moral identity will be characterized by

behaving morally since their behavior is guided by their moral and ethical concerns, which

results in a higher level of internal and external consistency (Bergman, 2002).

It is argued that (Bergman, 2002; Colby & Damon, 1992) individuals with high moral

identity will: 1) commit to moral ideals or principles, 2) determine to behave consistent with

one’s moral ideals or principles, 3) be willing to take risk for being loyal to one’s moral values,

4) tend to inspire others to think and behave ethically, and 5) place the collective interests above

one’s personal ego and interests.

Colby and Damon (1992) argue that the moral exemplars (i.e., individuals with consistent

moral behaviors) most deeply rooted are those that hold an exceptionally high degree of the

uniting of self and morality, or moral identity. These scholars argued that all of these moral

exemplars have vigorously pursued their individual and moral goals simultaneously and that

viewing these two are not separate. These individuals with strong moral identity make moral

decisions out of great certainty, with little fear, doubt, or agonized reflection.

When moral beliefs are deeply and personally institutionalized, moral authority becomes

autonomous and the moral will is strengthened. Also, the gap between moral intention and moral

action is reduced or even eliminated by the wholeness of moral personality or moral identity.

Under this situation, the self has moral orientation and all underlying desires are guided by moral

goals and moral commitments. Ultimately, moral decision intention is elevated from

conventional to post-conventional. Blasi (1989) also pointed out that moral identity is serving as

moral motivation toward moral decision intention and ultimately moral behavior. Blasi (1984)

further argued that moral judgment reflected an individual’s general understanding of

him/herself, other people, social relations, and situations, and that this understanding can and

46

does change when a person develops his/her intelligence and has a richer and more complex

experience with the social world.

According to Blasi (1984), moral identity is directly related to moral action since it is one

of the most important motives for moral actions and that the intention to be authentic and true to

oneself is extremely important. Both the writings on what constitutes authenticity and integrity

emphasize the idea of moral self consistency of intactness and wholeness. Bergman (2002)

pointed out “the best answer to the question, why be moral? may thus be, Because that it is who I

am, or Because I can do no other and remain (or become) the person I am committed to being”

(p. 123). So, it appears that moral identity is of fundamental significance to moral decision

intention.

Aquino and Reed (2002) have discussed that moral development is the primary identity’s

progressive acquisition of facility in centering, opening up to, and eventually becoming explicitly

aware of, the autonomous identity. They argued that, when moral rules are no longer externally-

based and become internalized, moral identity is formed.

According to Blasi (1984), authenticity and integrity emphasize the idea of moral self

consistency, intactness and wholeness, all of which I would argue could contribute to leaders

who become trusted over time and who would be successful in sustaining growth and

performance. Colby and Damon (1993) pointed out that, when an individual has a high moral

identity, he/she is more likely to have morally-based cognitions, judgments, and behaviors.

Similar to earlier arguments, individuals with high moral identity would be expected to behave

morally since they intend to maintain consistency between their identity, which is centered in

their moral action and their behaviors (Bergman, 2002).

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In above, I have hypothesized that authentic leadership will have a positive effect on

follower moral identity and moral decision intention. Furthermore, it is argued that moral

identity mediates the effect of authentic leadership on follower moral decision intention. In other

words, moral identity is a central concept in the process of authentic leadership on follower

moral decision making intention. Ultimately, it is expected that, in order to promote follower

consistency and long term moral decision intention, leaders would have to help elevate follower

moral identity.

Based on the above arguments, I propose testing the following hypotheses.

Hypothesis 4a: Moral identity will mediate the relationship between authentic leadership

and follower moral decision intention.

Hypothesis 4b: Moral identity will mediate the relationship between transformational

leadership and follower moral decision intention.

Hypothesis 4c: Moral identity will mediate the relationship between transactional

leadership and follower moral decision intention.

2.5 Moderating Role of Moral Intensity

Since all leadership occurs in a dynamic and emerging context (Avolio, 2005; Day,

2000), it is important that researchers integrate the context into explaining what constitutes

authentic leadership and followership. In this study, the next important component to be tested is

to examine the moderating effect of moral intensity on the influence process of authentic

leadership on follower moral decision intention. According to research on ethical decision

making (e.g., Collins, 1989; Jones, 1991), the nature of the moral issue is an important

contingent variable that influences the moral decision making process. Jones (1991) proposed the

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construct of moral intensity includes six components (See the above for detailed definition).

Moral issues differ in moral nature and intensity and therefore are expected to have different

consequences to potential victims or beneficiaries. Consequently, individuals’ responses to moral

issues also differ on the basis of the characteristics and intensity of these moral issues, which we

expect to impact how leadership influences followers. Past research (e.g., Morris & DcDonald,

1995) shows that two dimensions of Jones’ (1991) moral intensity construct, namely magnitude

of consequences and social consensus, are the most important predictors of moral decision

intention. In addition, issues characterized by higher moral intensity or serious consequences of

effect have been shown in prior research to have a stronger impact on promoting individuals

moral decision intention (Frizsche, 1988; Frizsche & Becker, 1983; Trevino, L. K., Butterfield,

D., & McCabe, D. L. 1998; Weber, 1996).

As noted above, the magnitude of consequences is an important component in

determining the level of moral decision intention associated with a particular issue (Flannery &

May, 2000; Jones, 1991; Morris & McDonald, 1995). Flannery and May (2000), merging Jones’

magnitude of consequence with Collins’ (1989) distinction between harms to persons and harms

to environment, proposed that the intensity of the consequences for persons and their

environment would moderate the relationship between planned behaviors and the moral decision

making process.

Drawing from Mischel (1968), Flannery and May also proposed that the level of serious

harm to either persons or the environment can represent either a “strong” versus a “weak”

situation. Consistent with the prior work (Flannery & May, 2000; Mischel, 1968), we propose

that the high versus low intensity of consequences described above can influence the relationship

between authentic leadership and follower moral intention. More specifically, most people

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should be able to recognize moral issues with high moral intensity since these moral issues may

involve serious human or other types of loss. Moreover, moral issues or situations with high

moral intensity are more salient and vivid and are more likely to lead to individual responsibility

and ultimately to moral decision intention (Jones, 1991).

However, when the moral consequence of effect is low, we expect that authentic

leadership, transformational leadership, and transactional leadership will play a larger role in

followers’ moral decision intentions. Specifically, followers of more authentic leaders, more

transformational leaders, and more transactional leaders are more likely to have a higher level of

moral awareness, and moral decision intention based on observing these leaders dealing with

different types of ethical issues with high moral behavior and character. I hypothesize that more

(less) authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and transactional leadership has a more

(less) positive effect on follower moral intention when the consequence is low in terms of harm

to people or other types of victims. So, I suggest the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 5a: The magnitude of moral consequence moderates the relationship

between authentic leadership and follower moral decision intention. More

specifically, the positive relationship between authentic leadership and follower

moral decision making intention is stronger when moral intensity is low.

Hypothesis 5b: The magnitude of moral consequence moderates the relationship

between transformational leadership and follower moral decision intention. More

specifically, the positive relationship between transformational leadership and

follower moral decision intention is stronger when moral intensity is low.

Hypothesis 5c: The magnitude of moral consequence moderates the relationship

between transactional leadership and follower moral decision intention. More

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specifically, the positive relationship between transactional leadership and

follower moral decision intention is stronger when moral intensity is low.

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CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Setting, Sample Size and Research Design

Research setting

Data for this study came from the Nebraskan Public School Systems as part of a larger

project between the Gallup Leadership Institute at the University of Nebraska Lincoln and the

Nebraska State Department of Education called Nebraska Educational Leadership Institute

(NELI). One of the most important goals of the NELI program is to improve the educational

leader’s self-awareness, ethical behavior, and authenticity. In addition, the program aims at

enhancing the individual leadership capabilities as well as the collective leadership of educators

in the Nebraska public education system. .This experimental study was designed to help better

understand the authentic leadership and ethical decision making processes of the Nebraska

educators.

Experimental conditions

There are eight experimental conditions in this study: Authentic transformational

leadership (ATF) x High moral intensity, Authentic transformational leadership (ATF) x Low

moral intensity, Transformational leadership (TF) x High moral intensity, Transformational

leadership (TF) x Low moral intensity, Authentic transactional leadership (ATS) x High moral

intensity, Authentic transactional leadership (ATS) x Low moral intensity, Transactional

leadership (TS) x High moral intensity, and Transactional leadership (TS) x Low moral intensity.

The field experiment conducted here was considered legitimate for at least two reasons.

First, although it is possible that leaders can exhibit authentic, transformational and transactional

leadership behaviors (Bass, 1998) at the same time, given the complexity of the work

environment in a field setting, it would not be possible to observe all these leadership

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experimental conditions in a relatively short time period. Secondly, some previous studies (e.g.,

Awamleh & Gardner, 1999) have shown that it is possible to manipulate leadership in a field

experimental condition to examine the effects proposed in the aforementioned hypotheses.

Statistical power analysis and effect size

The factorial experimental design are 4 (e.g., authentic transformational leadership,

transformational leadership, authentic transactional leadership, transactional leadership) x 2

(high moral intensity, low moral intensity) between subjects design, resulting in a total of eight

experimental conditions. This requires a sample size of 180 (around 23 per cell) according to the

results of the power analysis (see below) (Lenth, 2001). Therefore, in order to have sufficient

power and to deal with the possibility that some participants may drop out, I estimated the total

sample size to be 200.

Following Cohen (1992), I conducted a power analysis to estimate the appropriate sample

size for the experimental study. The common recommended level for significance level for

“alpha” and “power” is conventionally set at .05 and .80 (Cohen, 1992; Lenth, 2001). Therefore,

I set the “alpha” and “power” at .05 and .90 respectively, which are standard cut-offs for work of

this nature. A larger effect size means that the probability of finding the hypotheses supported is

higher. Based on preliminary research on authentic leadership, I estimated the effect size and

correlation coefficients (see Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing & Peterson, 2006). Recent

theoretical and empirical work by Avolio and Colleagues (e.g., Avolio et al., 2004; Avolio &

Gardner, 2005; Walumbwa et al., 2006) suggests that transformational leadership is conceptually

distinct, but empirically closely related to authentic leadership. Therefore, I also used the

literature on transformational leadership to estimate the effect size and relationship with outcome

variables reported in this literature. For example, Lowe, Kroeck, and Sivasubramaniam (1996)

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reported that the relationship between transformational leadership and work outcomes was

higher than .50. Most recently, Judge and Piccolo (2004) reported an average corrected meta-

correlation of .44 between transformational leadership and outcome variables, including

performance effectiveness.

On the basis of the above meta-analytic findings and several empirical studies (e.g., Bass

et al., 2003; Bono & Judge, 2003; Dvir, Eden, Avolio,& Shamir, 2002), I set the expected

correlation coefficient between authentic leadership and follower moral identity and moral

decision making intention at a conservative value of .40 (Cohen’s d= .8), considered relatively

high (e.g., Cohen, 1992). Similarly, it is expected that there is a moderate positive correlation

between authentic transactional leadership and follower moral identity and moral intention (e.g.,

Avolio et al., 2004; Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Gardner et al., 2005) and therefore I set this effect

at .20 (Cohen’s d=.5), which is considered a medium correlation.

3.2 Experimental Interventions

In this study, I used two types of manipulations: leadership and moral intensity. The

manipulation of authentic leadership was based on the description of authentic leadership by

Avolio and colleagues (e.g., Avolio et al., 2004; Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Gardner et al., 2005).

The transformational leadership and transactional leadership manipulations were based on Bass

and Avolio’s (1994) descriptions of transformational leadership and transactional behavior

description.

Using a scenario strategy with this type of design has several advantages. First, the

scenarios will present a current and real dilemma/issue and provide some ambiguity about the

“right” solution. Participants will be able to make up their own minds to draw their conclusions

after reading the respective scenarios. The second advantage is that the scenarios will provide a

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good medium for the manipulations of leadership behavior, leader’s gender, and moral

consequence, etc. For example, followers’ judgment of the leader’s level of authenticity is

expected to influence follower’s reported level of moral identity and moral intention. An

additional advantage is that these scenarios will represent practical issues, thus the intent is to get

participants emotionally engaged as if they were deciding on these issues for their respective

schools. This will enhance the realism of the dilemma and ultimately the validity and robustness

of the study.

3.2.1 Research procedure

Subjects were randomly assigned to one of eight conditions by a pre-set computer

system. The subjects were then allowed to log into the website, read the leadership intervention

write-up, evaluate the leadership style, and make their moral decision. The session lasted about

30 minutes. The subjects reading of instructions and consent form completion, as well as the

leadership intervention manipulation took about 10 minutes. The evaluation portion of the

experiment and decision-making took on average about 20 minutes. The authentic

transformational and authentic transactional leadership conditions were a little longer due to the

additional material to be reviewed regarding the intervention of authenticity (See Appendix A to

H for detailed information on all conditions, instructions, etc.).

When each participant logged into the website, they first completed a consent form. Next,

subjects read a brief set of instructions and cover story about their task in the simulation,

explaining that they were supposedly working with a school principal in the State of Nebraska.

The subjects were told they would read a short decision history of this principal and then would

be asked to make some judgments.

3.2.2 Experimental Task

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The participants (e.g., teachers) in this current study were asked to make a decision

regarding a particular moral dilemma couched within a school setting. Specifically, they were

exposed to the same type of moral dilemma, but with different moral intensity, and to different

types of leadership. Participants were also asked to report their demographical data (See

Appendix A to H for details). After completing the demographic survey they were asked to read

the following task instruction:

“You will find below information about a school principal that appeared in the school

board public minutes a few months back. We have requested this information from a

number of schools around Nebraska as part of the work we are doing with the

Nebraska Educational Leadership Institute or NELI. In the institute, we use real

scenarios about challenges confronting leaders in schools that are obtained from the

school leaders and their district supervisors. These materials have been used to

construct a developmental assessment center used by the Institute to assess leadership

potential.

For this project, we have taken some background information provided on one

particular principal to use in the evaluation project you have elected to be a

participant in. We have changed the name of the principal and school district to

assure anonymity.

Your task is to first review background information on this principal followed

by a description of the actions that he has taken as described in the materials provided

to us by his district. After reviewing these materials, we will ask you to make some

judgments regarding your expectations of how this principal would behave in the future

in terms of his leadership style. We are asking you to make these judgments based on

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your first impression from the descriptions of the principal below.”

After the task instruction, subjects read a short story on one principal (Shown in Appendix

A to H). Then, the subjects were asked to rate the principal’s leadership style and to report their

own moral identity assuming they were under the supervision of the leader presented in the

simulated scenario. Next, the subjects were asked to make decision on the following scenario:

“This semester, the average performance of students in Falls High-school is below the

average for the state of Nebraska. Your department chair encourages you to ‘spend more

time preparing’ students for the district-wide criterion-referenced testing program so that

the school can meet the state’s criteria. Yet, the department chair has made it clear that

each and every teacher must help in improving the district’s performance. The chair

suggests that you should shift your focus and spend more time helping students practice

to take the test, as this is common practice in schools throughout the state and nation. It

seems that it is the only way to stay competitive. ”

Again subjects were reminded that they should be operating as if they were under the

supervision of the principal presented in the scenario. Participants were asked to make a moral

decision, in terms of whether they will report the department chair’s suggestion in shifting focus

to the principal.

3.2.2 Leadership treatment (authentic transformational vs. transformational vs. authentic

transactional vs. transactional)

In the four leadership conditions, a short bio-history of the leader was provided to

participants on the web. The four different types of leaders provided different types of

information and advice to participants to help reinforce the differences in leadership style.

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Manipulation of transformational leadership and transactional leadership.

Transformational leadership was characterized by elements of transformational leadership’s four

I’s: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized

consideration, and having a strategic vision. Transactional leadership was characterized as

having some type of contingent reward, positive management by exception, setting goals,

providing contingent reward and feedback.

Manipulation of authenticity. Authentic transformational, transformational, and authentic

transactional leadership behaviors could have the characteristics of being authentic. Many

scholars have discussed the concept of authenticity (e.g., Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Bass &

Steidlmeier, 1999; Erickson, 1995; Ilies et al., 2005; Kernis, 2002; Michie & Gooty, 2005;

Sparrow, 2005). Kernis (2002) argued that authenticity included four components: self-

awareness, unbiased information processing, relational transparency, and behavioral authenticity.

Erickson (1995) and Heidegger (1962) suggested that authenticity be measured as a continuum;

that is, people are not entirely authentic or inauthentic, but vary in levels of authenticity in terms

of degree. Gardner et al. (2005) proposed that authentic people have a deep sense of self; they

know where they stand on important issues, values, and beliefs. With this base they stay their

course and convey to others, oftentimes through actions, not just words, what they represent in

terms of principles, values, and ethics. Harter (2002) stated that authenticity involves both

owning one’s personal experiences (i.e., values, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs) and acting in

accordance with one’s true self (i.e., expressing what one really thinks and believes and behaves

accordingly. Erickson (1995) also proposes that authenticity is not an either/or condition; that is,

authentic leadership can be best described as being more or less authentic or not authentic.

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Finally, Shamir and Eilam (2005) argued that the actions of authentic leaders are based on their

personal values and convictions.

In sum, although different authors have different perspectives and understanding about

the concept of authenticity, they all tend to agree that the consistency between words and action

should be a key component of authenticity. Therefore I manipulated the level of authenticity in

the current field experiment by the consistency between one’s moral values, words, and actions.

3.2.3 Manipulation of high and low moral intensity

As indicated above, subjects were exposed to a moral dilemma. There are six dimensions

of moral intensity, including consequence of effect, social consensus, probability of effect,

intermediacy, proximity, and concentration of effect. In this study, the dilemma is about one

department chair’s suggestion to a teacher about shifting focus on students’ instruction textbook

and the motive for making the shift is only for students to have a higher score. However, this

shift in focus is expected to have a negative effect on students. The high moral intensity will be

like “The shift in focus makes it impossible for students to gain enough knowledge necessary to

fully understand this area. If one takes a long-term perspective, it seems clear that this action will

negatively affect the creativity of these students.” The low moral intensity manipulation is

“There is no strong evidence to indicate that the shift in focus would influence students’ ability

to fully understand this area.”

3.2. 4 Measures

Authentic Leadership Scale. The authentic leadership scale (5 items) utilized in this

study was adopted from Singapore and U.S. national survey on authentic leadership. These five

items were also included in the validation study of authentic leadership scale (Walumbwa,

Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing, & Peterson, 2006). Respondents indicate whether they agree with

59

the statements on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1= “Strongly Disagree” to 5= “Strongly

Agree”. Sample items: “I expect this principal to say exactly what he or she means” and “I

would describe him or her as a genuine person.”

Transformational leadership and Transactional leadership. Transformational and

transactional leadership were evaluated by the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ),

Version 5X short (Bass & Avolio, 2003). Respondents indicated whether they agreed with the

statements on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1= “Strongly Disagree” to 5= “Strongly

Agree”. Sample items of transformational leadership (5 items) include: “I expect this principal

to re-examine critical assumptions to question whether they are appropriate” and “I expect this

principal to instill pride in others for being associated with him”. Sample items of transactional

leadership (3 items) include: “I expect this principal to re-examine critical assumptions to

question whether they are appropriate” and “I expect this principal to provide employees with

assistance in exchange for their efforts”.

Moral Identity. I created a 5-item scale to measure moral identity according to Blasi’s

(1984) and Bergman’s (2002) conceptualization of moral identity. Respondents indicated

whether they agreed with the statements on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1= “Strongly

Disagree” to 5= “Strongly Agree”. Sample items of moral identity include: “I view being an

ethical person as an important part of who I am” and “I am committed to my moral principles.”

Moral Intensity. Based on Jones’ (1991) conceptualization of moral intensity, I created

six items to measure scenario-based moral intensity. Respondents indicated whether they agreed

with the statements on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1= “Strongly Disagree” to 5=

“Strongly Agree”. Sample items of moral intensity include: “This shift in focus would hurt

students” and “The chair’s suggestion in shift focus is not socially acceptable.”

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Moral Decision Intention. The scale of moral decision intention was measured by the

following item: “I would report the chair’s suggestion in changing focus revision to the

principal”. Respondents indicated whether they agreed with the statements on a 5-point Likert

scale ranging from 1= “Strongly Disagree” to 5= “Strongly Agree”.

Social Desirability. The scale of social desirability is a short-version (11 items) of

Crowne and Marlowe (1960). Respondents indicated whether they agreed with the statements on

a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1= “Strongly disagree” to 5= “Strongly Agree”. Sample

items of moral identity include: “I’m always willing to admit it when I make a mistake” and “No

matter who I’m talking to, I am always a good listener.”

3.3 Pilot Tests

I conducted three phases of pilot tests to check the validity of the proposed manipulation

of leadership styles and scenarios with differing moral intensity using samples of undergraduate

students from a large Midwestern undergraduate business program. The main focus of the pilot

tests was to examine how realistic participants perceived the leader and moral decision scenarios

to be, as well as evaluating the leadership styles exhibited and level of moral intensity depicted

in the ethical scenario.

In the three pilot tests, 55, 81, and 73 undergraduate students participated in the

respective research projects. The sample characteristics of participants for the three phases are

shown in Table 3-1. Over seventy percent were part-time employees and 28% were full-time

employees.

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 3-1 about here

-----------------------------------------

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The general expectation for the authentic leadership intervention is that the authentic

leadership rating score will not differ among ATF, TF, and ATS leadership conditions since

authentic transformational leaders, transformational leaders, and authentic transactional leaders

are considered as authentic. I did expect that the authentic leadership scores in ATF, TF, and

ATS leadership conditions should be higher than that in TS condition.

The general expectation for the transformational leadership intervention is that

transformational leadership scores in ATF and TF conditions will be higher than those scores in

ATS and TS conditions. In addition, it is expected that transformational leadership scores do not

differ between ATF and TF conditions since truly transformational leaders are considered

authentic as well.

The general expectation for the transactional leadership intervention is that transactional

leadership intervention scores in the ATS and TS conditions will be higher than those scores in

the ATF and TF conditions. In addition, it is expected that transactional leadership scores do not

differ between the ATS and TS conditions.

3.3.1 Pilot Test 1

Leadership Manipulation Check

In the first pilot test, as indicated in Table 3-2 and Table 3-3, three manipulation scores,

namely authentic leadership, transformational leadership and transactional leadership were

calculated. The internal consistency reliability alpha scores for these three variables were .72,

.80, and .67 respectively.

Post-hoc analysis using one-way ANOVA (F (3, 51) = 1.66, p>.05) showed that mean

scores of authentic leadership did not differ among ATF (3.55), TF (3.96), ATS (4.26), and TS

(3.54) leadership conditions, which indicated that the manipulation of authentic leadership was

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not effective in this pilot test since the initial expectation is that authentic leadership scale score

in ATF, TF, ATS should be higher than that in TS condition.

For the manipulation check score of transformational leadership, the post-hoc ANOVA

revealed that the score in TF (4.15) was significantly higher (F (3, 51) = 2.55, p<.05) than in the

TS condition (3.27), but not higher (F (3, 51) = 1.33, p>.05) than the score in ATS (3.94)

condition. These results suggested that the manipulation of transformational leadership was not

effective in this pilot test.

For the manipulation of transactional leadership, post-hoc analysis using one-way

ANOVA (F (3, 51) = 1.94, p>.05) revealed that mean scores of transactional leadership did not

differ among ATF (3.38), TF (3.53), ATS (4.08), and TS (3.79), which showed that the

manipulation of transactional leadership was not effective across these four conditions. Taken

together, these results suggested that the leadership interventions were generally not effective in

the first pilot test.

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 3-2, 3-3 about here

-----------------------------------------

The Manipulation Check of Moral Intensity

As shown in Table 3-4, the manipulation check score of high moral intensity (2.62) was

not significantly (F (3, 51) = .62, p>.05) higher than that of low moral intensity (2.38), which

suggested that the intervention of moral intensity was not effective in the first pilot test.

-----------------------------------------

Insert Table 3-4 about here -----------------------------------------

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Revision of Leadership Intervention and Moral Intensity Intervention

Based on the results of the first pilot test, I proceeded to revise the scripts to improve both

the interventions of leadership and that of moral intensity. For the leadership interventions, I

focused on manipulating authenticity by revising the leader’s history. Rather than using leaders’

words to manipulate authenticity and transformational leadership as in the first pilot test, I used

followers’ discussions of their principal’s leadership behaviors to do so. For example, the

transformational leadership message in the first pilot test was:

“In one speech, he was quoted as saying, “Our strategic plan is to make sure that our

school will be ranked in the top tier in the whole state within the next five years. Some

people might think that it is impossible or unrealistic for us to realize this goal.

However, I have been here long enough to know that we have the competence, skills,

talents, creativity, and commitment to realize this challenge. Together, we can make a

real, tangible difference in our school. We can be different and we can be the best. My

greatest hope and aspiration is that every student who graduates from this school could

not imagine having gone elsewhere, and that every teacher and parent will believe they

had a significant hand in making sure each student feels as such.”

The transformational leadership message after the revision is:

“When he took the office three years, our school was only ranked average (50%) in the

state of Nebraska. In his inaugural speech, he said that he would make sure that our

school would be ranked in the top 20% in the whole state within the next five years. At

that time, many of us thought that it was impossible or unrealistic for us to realize this

goal. However, he encouraged that we had the competence, skills, talents, creativity,

and commitment to realize this challenge, and that we could make a real, tangible

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difference in our school. Indeed, this year, our school was ranked top 18% in the state.

We were all proud of this achievement.”

The moral intensity in the first pilot test changed from “The shift in focus might make it

difficult for students to gain enough knowledge necessary to fully understand this area” into

“The shift in focus makes it impossible for students to gain enough knowledge necessary to fully

understand this area. If one takes a long-term perspective, it seems clear that this action will

negatively affect the creativity of these students.”

3.3.2 Pilot Test 2

In the second pilot test, I sampled 81 undergraduate business students at a large

Midwestern University. The sample characteristics for the second pilot test are presented in

Table 3-1. The manipulation check for four types of leadership conditions are also shown in

Table 3-5 and Table 3-6.

Leadership Manipulation Check

The internal consistency reliability alpha scores for these three variables, namely

authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and transactional leadership were as follows:

.78, .84, and .60 respectively.

For the authentic leadership intervention, using a one-way ANOVA (F (3, 74) = 2.53,

p<.01) showed that the authentic leadership scores differed significantly among the ATF, TF,

ATS, and TS leadership conditions. The mean score for authentic leadership in the ATS (4.25)

condition was significantly (p<.05) higher than that in TS (3.64), but the difference between ATF

(3.70) condition and TS condition (3.64) was not significant (p>.05).

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For the transformational leadership intervention, the results from a one-way ANOVA (F

(3, 74) = 2.71, p<.05) showed that the transformational leadership scores differed significantly

among the ATF, TF, ATS, and TS leadership conditions. Post-Hoc analysis showed that the

mean score for the transformational leadership TF condition (4.21) was higher than the scores in

ATS condition (3.59, p<.05) and TS conditions (3.63, p<.05) respectively, but the

transformational leadership score in the ATF condition (3.84) was not significantly higher than

that in ATS (3.59, P>.05) and TS condition (3.63, P>.05). This showed that the manipulation of

transformational leadership needs to be strengthened to make sure that transformational

leadership manipulation score in the ATF condition is higher than those in ATS and TS

conditions.

For the transactional leadership manipulation, one-way ANOVA results showed that the

transactional leadership scores (F (3, 74) =4.95, p<.05) differed significantly among the ATF,

TF, ATS, and TS leadership conditions. Specifically, the results revealed that the mean score for

transactional leadership in the ATS (4.33) and TS (3.70) conditions were higher than the scores

in the ATF (3.51) and TF leadership (3.68) conditions, but these differences were not significant

(p>.05). These results suggest that the manipulation of transactional leadership needs to be

strengthened to make sure that the transactional leadership manipulation score in ATS and TS is

higher than those in ATF and TF conditions.

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 3-5, 3-6 about here

-----------------------------------------

As to the intervention of moral intensity, shown in Table 3-7, I found that the

manipulation score for high moral intensity (3.06) was significantly higher (p<.01) as compared

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to the low moral intensity condition (2.56). This showed that the manipulation of moral intensity

was effective.

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 3-7 about here

-----------------------------------------

Results from these analyses showed that the manipulation of transformational leadership

was producing the intended effects, while the manipulation of authentic and transactional

leadership was not yet satisfactory. I decided to conduct a third phase of pilot testing to further

examine the validity of these four types of leadership conditions. Changes have been made to

the authentic leadership condition and transactional leadership before the third pilot test. For

example, the authentic leadership message in the second pilot test was:

“Looking back, when John became the principal, he established the following core

principle for making decisions in our school. When, he knew, all of us teachers would know too.

What he meant was that critical information for making decisions should be made available to

all of us within the school. According to John, there is very little that should be kept confidential,

and in fact he felt all information should be assumed available to us. He wanted to build a

culture in our school based on an open exchange of information at all levels especially between

him, us, students’ parents, and students.”

The authentic leadership message after making changes (e.g., in the third pilot test) was:

“Looking back, John is the type of individual who has a clear idea of the type of person

he wants to be in his life and he demonstrates those ideals in his behaviors and actions every

day. For example, he regularly talks about his own core beliefs and values and mentions how

those beliefs and values have shaped his development in terms of how he makes the ‘gray’

decisions—decisions about ethics, morals and values. All of us know that John is a person who

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always keeps his promises, not only to us teachers, but also to school administrators, students,

parents and leaders in the community. He says what is on his mind and in his heart. He is a

person who is true to his intentions and does not waiver in terms of what is right to do based on

any external pressures.”

3.3.3 Pilot Test 3

Based on the above changes, I had conducted a third pilot test with sample of 73

undergraduate business students at the same Midwestern University. The sample characteristics

for the third pilot test are presented in Table 3-1. The manipulation check for four types of

leadership conditions are shown in Table 3-8 and Table 3-9.

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 3-8, 3-9 about here

-----------------------------------------

Leadership Manipulation Check

I first performed a reliability test for each scale producing the following estimates of

internal consistency reliabilities (alpha): authentic leadership .70, transformational leadership

.89, and transactional leadership .60. I then ran a one-way ANOVA for the different leadership

conditions. As shown in Table 3-8 and Table 3-9, the one-way ANOVA revealed that there was a

significant difference (F (3, 67) = 5.62, p<.05) in the scores for authentic leadership among ATF

(4.29), TF (4.37), ATS (3.78), and TS (3.65). I also performed a post-hoc analysis, which

revealed that the authentic leadership scores in ATF condition (4.29) did not differ significantly

from that in TF (p>.05) and ATS (p>.05) leadership conditions. Finally, results also revealed that

the authentic leadership manipulation in the TF (4.37) condition was significantly higher (p<.05)

than TS condition (3.65). However, although the authentic leadership score in ATS (3.78) was

higher than that in TS (3.65), the difference was not significant (p>.05).

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On the other hand, the results of the one-way ANOVA (F (3, 67) = 32.59, p<.05)

revealed that there was a significant difference for the transformational leadership scores among

ATF (4.39), TF (4.71), ATS (3.04), and TS (3.82) conditions as indicated in Table 3-8 and Table

3-9. A post-hoc analysis further indicated that transformational leadership in ATF (4.39) and TF

(4.71) conditions were significantly higher (p<.05) than those in ATS (3.02) and TF (3.82)

leadership conditions. Taken together, these results suggest that the manipulation of

transformational leadership was effective in the third pilot test.

For the manipulation of transactional leadership, post-hoc analysis using one-way

ANOVA (F (3,67) = .20, p>.05) revealed that the mean scores for transactional leadership did

not differ among ATF (4.13), TF (4.07), ATS (3.96), and TS (4.04), suggesting that the

manipulation of transactional leadership was not effective.

Moral Intensity Manipulation Check

As shown in Table 3-10, the moral intensity manipulation score in the high moral

intensity (3.90) versus low moral intensity condition (3.61) was significantly higher (p < .05).

These results further confirm that the moral intensity manipulation appeared to produce the

desired effects necessary for use in the current study.

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 3-10 about here

-----------------------------------------

3.4 The Reliability and Validity of Moral Identity Measure

Since the scale of moral identity was created specifically for this study, I also checked the

reliability and its expected relationships with authentic leadership and transformational

leadership. The internal consistency reliability (alpha) for this scale was .88, .92 and .92,

respectively for the first, second, and third pilot test.

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Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

I also conducted exploratory factor analysis (EFA) analyses on the moral identity scale

using the three pilot samples. Results revealed that one factor emerged in all the three samples.

This one-factor explained 67.65% of the total variance in the first sample, 75.46% in the second

sample, and 78.32% in the third sample, respectively, with the factor loadings ranging from .82

to .92 ( See Table 3-11).

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 3-11, 3-12 about here -----------------------------------------

To examine the validity of the moral identity scale, I examined its relationships with

authentic leadership, transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and moral decision

intention. The results revealed that the correlations between the moral identity scale and these

variables were significant and positive. For example, in the pilot test 3, as indicated in Table 3-

12, moral identity was positively related to authentic leadership (r= .59, p<.05), transformational

leadership (r= .68, p<.05), and moral decision intention (r= .40, p<.05). These above results

suggest that the scale of moral identity is both reliable and valid.

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CHAPTER 4: RESULTS

4.1 Data Collection Procedure

As indicated in chapter 3, the final field data for this experiment was collected in the

Nebraskan Public School Systems as part of the Gallup Leadership Institute work with the

Nebraskan Educational Leadership Institute program. I used a snowball sampling framework.

(Salganik & Heckathorn, 2004). Snowball sampling is a technique for developing a research

sample where existing subjects recruit future subjects from among their units. This strategy has

the potential to produce unbiased estimates (Salganik & Heckathorn, 2004).

In total, an initial 15 principals volunteered to participate in the study. Next, I requested

that each of the volunteer principals, using a snowball strategy, seek volunteer teachers from

their respective schools to participate in the field experiment. Moreover, we supplemented this

pool of participants by going to many other schools in subsequent rounds when there were not

enough participants from these 15 schools.

The volunteered teachers were requested to submit their email address to the Gallup

Leadership Institute. After creating an email database for all the volunteer teachers, I emailed the

web-link of this study to the teachers who had volunteered to participate. A total of 215 teachers

in the Nebraskan public school system responded to the on-line survey. As part of the project, I

informed all participants that this study was designed to examine the effect of leadership on

followers’ judgment in school settings. The subjects were assured that their participation was

completely voluntary and that their responses would be kept strictly confidential by the Gallup

Leadership Institute at the University of Nebraska. The subjects responded to online-survey

which included questions designed to collect biographical data, their responses to the given

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scenarios, and leadership scales. Most respondents needed around 30 minutes to complete the

on-line survey.

The sample characteristics are presented in the Table 4-1a. Three fourths of the

respondents were female. Seventy six percent were married and 95.30% of the respondents were

white Caucasian. Appropriately 32.60% , 30.70%, and 36.70% were from high school, middle

school and elementary school, respectively. 64.65% of the respondents had masters degrees or

above.

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 4-1a about here

-----------------------------------------

All the subjects were randomly assigned to each of the eight different experimental

conditions. I also conducted a one-way ANOVA analysis using the control variables across

different leadership conditions to examine initial equivalence. As shown in Table 4-1b, results

revealed that all control variables, including gender, marital status, education, years in the

current position, years in the current organization, type of school (e.g., high school, middle

school, or elementary school), and social desirability scores, did not differ across the eight

intervention conditions. These results showed that the subjects in the eight intervention

conditions were not statistically different, at least in terms of these control variables, which

showed that there was an initial equivalence.

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 4-1b about here

-----------------------------------------

4.2 Data Screening

I followed the procedure recommended by Tabachnick and Fidell (1996) to clean the data

before intervention manipulation checks and hypotheses testing.

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Missing data A total of 215 teachers in the Nebraskan public school system responded to the on-line

survey. There were only 3 cases that had missing values in several few scales. The missing

values were not systematically patterned, which means that the missing values were not

concentrated in a specific scale. Therefore, I used the group means for those scales to substitute

missing values.

Outliers I performed both univariate and multivariate outlier tests within each group separately

Outliers are those values with large standardized scores (z scores) greater than 3.3 (Tabachnick

& Fidell, 1996). I used SPSS DESCRIPTIVES (i.e., save standardized values) to compute the z

scores for every case in each of the eight groups. Results showed two outliers. One outlier (z =

3.91) was with the authentic leadership scale in ATF condition and the other was with the

transformational leadership scale (z = 4.49) in ATF condition. Since both outliers were close to

3.3, based on the recommendation of Tabachnick and Fidell (1996), I substituted these two

outliers with the specific scale values consistent with z score of 3.3 in each respective group.

Normality check

To test whether the distribution of all scales were normally distributed, I examined both

skewness and kurtosis. Skewness describes how unevenly the data are distributed (Tabachnick &

Fidell, 1996). Kurtosis describes the “peaked” or how “flat” a distribution is (Tabachnick &

Fidell, 1996). Skewness values between + and – 2 and kurtosis values between -7 to + 7 are

considered acceptable.

As indicated in Table 4-3, skewness of all variables are within range of -1.17 to .05 and

kurtosis ranged from -.74 to 1.86, which are well within acceptable values. Therefore, it was

concluded that the normality assumption was not violated in this current dataset.

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Testing for Homogeneity of Variance

According to Tabachnick and Fidell (1996), it is necessary to test the homogeneity of

variance when a researcher is using grouped data. The assumption states that the variability in

the DV is expected to be about the same as that of IV. The analyses of the Levene’s test

suggested this assumption was not violated in this study.

Testing Multicollinearity and Singularity

Since all the correlations among independent variables and dependent variables ranged

from .10 to .68, it is concluded that multi-collinearity was not a likely serious problem in this

study.

4.3 Manipulation Check 4.3.1 Manipulation check of leadership interventions The table 4-2 shows the descriptive statistics for each of the leadership manipulation

scores. As shown in Table 4-2, the one-way ANOVA (F (3, 211) = 5.81, p<.05) showed that

there was a significant difference among the scores for authentic leadership among ATF (4.16),

TF (4.01), ATS (3.84), and TS (3.59), as indicated in Table 4-2 and Table 4-3. Post-hoc analysis

also showed that authentic leadership scores in the ATF condition were not significantly

different from that in TF (p>.05) and ATS (p>.05) leadership conditions, which was consistent

with the initial expectation that authentic leadership scores will not be different among ATF, TF,

and ATS conditions. Results also revealed that the authentic leadership manipulation in ATF

(4.16) and TF (4.01) was significantly higher (P<.05) as compared to the TS condition (3.59),

suggesting that the authentic leadership intervention was effective.

Similarly as indicated in Tables 3-8 and 3-9, the one-way ANOVA (F (3, 211) = 37.91,

p<.05) showed there was a significant difference among the transformational leadership scores

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among ATF (4.29), TF (4.24), ATS (3.15), and TS (2.85), as indicated in Table 3-8 and Table 3-

9. Further post-hoc analysis showed that transformational leadership in ATF (4.29) and TF

(4.24) were significantly higher (p<.05) than those in ATS (3.15) and TF (2.85) leadership

conditions. This analysis indicated that the manipulation of transformational leadership was

effective in the study.

For the manipulation of transactional leadership, post-hoc analysis of one-way ANOVA

(F (3,211) = 2.50, p<.05) showed that mean scores of transactional leadership did differ among

ATF (3.92), TF (3.75), ATS (4.12), and TS (3.95) conditions. Though the transactional

leadership manipulation scores in ATS (4.12) was higher than that in TS (3.95), further post-hoc

analysis showed that the only difference that was significant was between TF and ATS (p<.05).

This analysis indicated that the manipulation of transformational leadership was just generally

effective in the study.

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 4-2, 4-3 about here

-----------------------------------------

4.3.2 Manipulation check of moral intensity intervention

The internal reliability for the measure of moral intensity was .78. Results from Table 4-

4 demonstrate that the manipulation score (3.55) for the high moral intensity condition was

significantly (F (1, 213) = 10.41, p<.05) higher than that of low moral intensity (3.23) condition.

Again, this finding revealed that the manipulation of moral intensity apparently achieved the

desired effects.

-----------------------------------------

Insert Table 4-4 about here -----------------------------------------

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4.4. Hypotheses Testing 4.4.1 Descriptive and Inter-correlations The descriptive statistics and correlations of all variable are shown in Table 4-5a, b, c, d.

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 4-5a,b about here

-----------------------------------------

Table 4-5a shows descriptive statistics for each of the constructs measured in this study,

including means and standard deviations. Table 4-5b shows the inter-correlations among the

various scales in the whole sample. None of the control variables was significantly related to the

independent and the dependent variables in this study. Several ANOVAs were run to examine

any differences between female and male participants, among subjects in high school, middle

school, and elementary school, and between married and non-married subjects. Results of the

ANOVA analysis did not indicate that there is a significant difference between these groups.

Authentic leadership was found to have a significant positive relationship with

transformational leadership (r = .68, p <. 01), transactional leadership (r = .68, p <. 01), follower

moral identity (r = .50, p <. 01), moral intensity (r = .25, p <. 01), and follower moral decision

intention (r = .28, p <. 05). As expected, transformational leadership had a significant

relationship with transactional leadership (r = .38, p <. 01), follower moral identity (r = .59, p <.

01), moral intensity (r = .16, p <. 05), and follower moral decision intention (r = .40, p <. 01).

Finally, transactional leadership had a significant association with follower moral identity (r =

.24, p <. 01), moral intensity (r = .14, p <. 05), but not with follower moral decision intention (r =

.03, p >. 05). These results provide initial support for the hypotheses proposed in this study.

Furthermore, social desirability was found to only have a relatively low correlation with follower

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moral identity (r = .19, p <. 01) and follower moral decision intention (r = .19, p <. 01),

indicating that responses were not given just to be socially desirable.

As to the validity of the scale of moral identity, it was found that moral identity was

positively related to authentic leadership (r= .50, p<.05), transformational leadership (r= .58,

p<.05), and moral decision intention (r= .30, p<.05). These results provide some preliminary

evidence for convergent validity.Also, moral identity did not have a significant relationship with

any of the control variables and produced a low correlation with the social desirability score,

which provided preliminary evidence for divergent validity for this scale..

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 4-5 c, d about here

-----------------------------------------

I also examined the correlations among all of the variables in the four leadership

conditions. Table 4-5c showed the inter-correlations among the various scales from the ATF and

TF leadership conditions. Table 4-5d showed the inter-correlations among the various scales

from the ATS and TS leadership conditions.

As indicated in Table 4-5c, in the ATF leadership condition, among all the control

variables, gender was negatively (r = -.29, p<.05) associated with perception of moral intensity,

which indicated that male vs. female tended to under-estimate moral intensity. The variable of

years in the current organization was negatively (r = -.27, p<.05) associated with moral decision

intention. However, as shown in Table 4-5c, in the TF leadership condition, none of the control

variables were significantly related to independent and dependent variables.

As indicated in Table 4-5d, in ATS leadership condition, gender was negatively (r = -.29,

p<.05) associated with perception of moral identity. Moral intensity was significantly associated

with the variable of years in the current teaching position (r = .28, p<.05) and the variable of

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years in the current organization (r = .26, p<.05). In the TS leadership condition, as shown in

Table 4-5d, gender was significantly related to transactional leadership (r = .32, p<.05) and

moral decision intention (r = .27, p<.05). The scale of years in the current teaching position had

a significant negative relationship with moral identity (r = -.26, p<.05) and with moral intensity

(r = -.29, p<.05).

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 4-6 about here

-----------------------------------------

4.4.2 Main effects of leadership and Moral Intensity

Table 4-6 reveals the mean and standard deviations for all variables in the eight different

experimental conditions. Results from Table 4-7 show that follower moral decision making

intention was significantly different across the four leadership conditions (F(3, 202)=12.54,

p<.01) and for the two different levels of moral intensity (F(1, 202)=12.54, p<.01). However,

there was no significant difference (F(1, 111)=3.50, p>.05) in moral decision making intention

comparing the authentic transformational (M=3.62, S.D. =.78) and transformational leadership

conditions (M=3.66, S.D. =.95). This is consistent with the expectation that authentic

transformational and transformational leadership would have the same effect on follower moral

decision making intention. Therefore, it is inferred that the authentic transformational and

transformational leadership condition could be treated as one group, providing support for the

argument that truly transformational leaders may also be authentic in nature.

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 4-7, 4-8, 4-9 about here -----------------------------------------

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Hypothesis 1

Hypothesis 1 predicted that more vs. less authentic leadership would have a more positive

effect on follower moral decision making intention. Therefore, it was expected that follower

moral decision making in ATF, TF, and ATS leadership conditions would be higher than the TS

leadership condition since ATF, TF, and ATS. As indicated in Table 4-8 and Table 4-9, the post-

hoc analysis result showed that follower moral decision intention in the TS condition (M=2.85,

S.D.=.90) was significantly lower than that in the ATF (M=3.62, S.D.=.78, p<.05) and TF

leadership condition (M=3.66, S.D.=.95, p<.05). Follower moral decision intention in ATS

(M=3.03, S.D. = .90) was not significantly higher than that in the TS (M=2.85, S.D. =.90)

condition. These results provided some support for hypothesis 1.

Hypothesis 2

Hypothesis 2 predicted that more vs. less transformational leadership would have a more

positive effect on follower moral decision making intention. That is, follower moral decision

making intention in ATF and TF leadership condition would be higher than that in ATS and TS

leadership condition since ATF, TF are considered to be a transformational leadership condition,

and ATS and TS are considered transactional. As shown in Table 4-8 and Table 4-9, Moral

decision making intention in ATF (M=3.62, S.D. =.78) was significantly (t=3.73, p<.01) higher

than follower moral decision making intention in ATS (M=3.03, S.D. =.87, t=3.73, p<.01) and

moral decision making intention in TS (M=2.85, S.D. =.90, t=4.76, p<.01) conditions. Moral

decision making intention in TF (M=3.62, S.D. =.78) was significantly (t=4.53, p<.01) higher

than those in ATS (M=3.03, S.D. =.87, t=3.73, p<.01) and in the TS (M=2.85, S.D. =.90, t=4.76,

p<.01) conditions. Hypothesis 2, which stated that more vs. less transformational leadership

would have a more positive effect on follower moral decision making intention was supported.

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The Main Effect of Moral Intensity

Table 4-10 and Table 4-11 present the descriptive statistics and the results of post hoc

analysis of moral intention. The post-hoc analysis showed that the mean score for moral decision

making intention (M=3.45, S.D. =.92) in the high moral intensity condition was significantly

higher (F(1, 213)=4.94, p<.05) than that in low moral intensity condition (M=3.16, S.D. =.94).

These results are consistent with prior research (e.g., Flannery & May, 2000) that has shown that

individuals tend to have a higher moral decision making in situations of high moral intensity.

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 4-10, 4-11 about here -----------------------------------------

Hypothesis 3

Hypothesis 3 predicted that more vs. less transactional leadership would have a more

positive effect on follower moral decision making intention. I used a hierarchical regression

analysis to examine the effect of transactional leadership on follower moral decision making, and

again confirmed the effects of authentic leadership and transformational leadership. As shown in

Table 4-12, all control variables including gender, education, marital status, years in the teaching

position, and years in the organization and social desirability scale, were included in the step 1.

The results revealed that none of the control variables had a significant effect on follower moral

decision intention. These results suggest that follower social desirability (β = .08, p>.10) was not

a likely alternative explanation for follower moral decision making intention in this study. Step

2 examined the direct effects of authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and

transactional leadership on follower moral decision making. It was found that, after controlling

for the potential confounding effects of control variables and social desirability, authentic

leadership (β = .22, p<.05) had a positive effect on follower moral decision making, lending

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support to hypothesis 1 that more vs. less authentic leadership had a positive effect on follower

moral decision making intention. It was also found that transformational leadership (β = .36,

p<.01) had a positive effect on follower moral decision making, again supporting hypothesis 2

that transformational leadership has a positive effect on follower moral decision making

intention. However, contrary to hypothesis 3, results revealed that transactional leadership had a

negative effect on follower moral decision making intention (β = -.28, p<.01). In step 3, it was

found that moral intensity had a positive effect on follower moral decision intention (β = .17,

p<.01).

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 4-12 about here

-----------------------------------------

4.4.3 Mediating effect of moral identity

To test for mediation of moral identity in the relationship between leadership and follower

moral decision making, I examined the following four-step procedure outlined by Baron and

Kenny (1986): (1) whether there is a significant relationship between the independent variables

(i.e., authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and transactional leadership) and the

mediator (moral identity), (2) whether there is a significant relationship between the independent

variables and the dependent variables (follower moral decision making intention), (3) whether

there is a significant relationship between the mediator (follower moral identity) and the

dependent variable (follower moral decision making intention), and (4) controlling for the

influence of the mediator, whether the original relationships between the independent variables

(i.e., leadership variables) and the dependent variable (follower moral decision making) is

reduced or become non-significant. If the influence of the independent variable is reduced but

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still remains significant, then there is evidence of partial mediation. Results of tests of mediation

hypotheses are presented in Table 4-13.

----------------------------------------- Insert Table 4-13 about here

-----------------------------------------

As shown in Table 4-13 (Model 1), authentic leadership (β = .23, p <. 05) and

transformational leadership (β = .46, p <. 01) were significantly related to follower moral

identity. Transactional leadership was not significantly related to follower moral identity (β = -

.10, p>. 05). Thus, hypothesis 4c, which suggested that moral identity would mediate the effect

of transactional leadership on follower moral decision making, was not supported. On the basis

of this result, transactional leadership scale was excluded in subsequent analyses (e.g., Model 2-

4).

Model 2 shows that authentic leadership was significantly related to follower moral

decision- making (β =. 22, p <. 05) and transformational leadership was significantly related to

follower moral decision-making (β = .17, p < .05), satisfying the mediation condition 2 that IVs

were positively related to the DV. Model 3 shows that follower moral identity was significantly

related to follower moral decision intention (β = .31, p < .01), failing to support mediation

condition 3 that the mediator was related to the DV. According to Baron and Kenny (1986), in

model 4, support for the mediation hypothesis would be observed if the initially significant

relationships found between authentic leadership and follower moral decision intention and

between transformational leadership and follower moral decision intention disappears (full

mediation) or decreases (partial mediation) after adding follower moral identity into the

regression equation. As shown in Model 4 of Table 4-13, after follower moral identity was added

into the regression model, the initially significant relationship between authentic leadership and

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follower moral decision intention (β =.16, p > .05) and the initial relationship between

transformational leadership and follower moral decision intention (β = .06, p > .05) disappeared.

Thus, both hypothesis 4a, proposing that follower moral identity mediates the relationship

between authentic leadership and follower moral decision intention and hypothesis 4b stating

that follower moral identity mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and

follower moral decision were supported.

4.4.4 Moderating effect of moral intensity

To test hypothesis 5, I created a dummy variable for moral intensity, namely 1 for high

moral intensity and 0 for low moral intensity, and interaction terms between moral intensity and

authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and transactional leadership. All interaction

terms were mean centered to reduce the potential bias based on multi-collinearity. The

interaction terms were included into model 3 of the hierarchical regression analysis and the

results are shown in Table 4-12.

In model 3 of Table 4-12, the interaction term between authentic leadership and moral

intensity was found to have negative relationship (β = -1.15, p <. 05), suggesting that moral

intensity had a negative moderating effect in the relationship between authentic leadership and

follower moral decision intention. More specifically, when moral intensity is low, authentic

leadership has a more positive effect on follower moral decision intention. Therefore, hypothesis

5a was supported.

Hypothesis 5b stated that moral intensity would have a negative moderating effect on the

relationship between transformational leadership and follower moral intention. More

specifically, the positive relationship between transformational leadership and follower moral

decision making intention would be stronger when moral intensity is low. In model 3 of Table 4-

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13, the interaction term between transformational leadership and moral intensity was found to

have a significant negative relationship (β = -.68, p <. 05) with follower moral decision intention,

suggesting that moral intensity had a negative moderating effect over the relationship between

transformational leadership and follower moral decision intention. More specifically,

transformational leadership has a more positive effect on follower moral decision intention when

moral intensity is low vs. high. Therefore, hypothesis 5b was also supported.

Hypothesis 5c predicted that moral intensity would moderate the relationship between

transactional leadership and follower moral intention. More specifically, the positive relationship

between transactional leadership and follower moral decision making intention would be

stronger when moral intensity is low. However, contrary to the hypothesis, transactional

leadership was found to have a negative relationship (β = -.28, p <. 01) with follower moral

decision intention. In model 3 of Table 4-13, the interaction term between transactional

leadership and moral intensity was found to have positive relationship (β = 1.52, p <. 05) with

follower moral decision intention. Therefore, moral intensity has a negative moderating effect

with regards to the negative relationship between transactional leadership and follower moral

decision intention. This indicated that the negative relationship between transactional leadership

and follower moral decision making intention was stronger when moral intensity is low vs. high.

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CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION

5.1 Overview As indicated in the previous chapters, this study is one of the first empirical studies that

examined the effect of authentic, transformational and transactional leadership on follower moral

decision making and follower moral identity, and the influence process through which leadership

style impacts follower moral decision making. Through random assignment and as validated

through ANOVA, the initial equivalence of the four leadership conditions was established.

Therefore, the causal effect of leadership on follower moral decision making intention could be

addressed in this study.

Based on three pilot tests with undergraduate samples and one experimental study with a

field sample of teachers in public school setting, I found that authentic leadership had a positive

effect on follower moral identity and follower moral decision making intention. Moreover, it was

also found that follower moral identity mediated the effect of authentic leadership and

transformational leadership on follower moral decision intention. The results showed that, when

leaders demonstrated more authentic behavior, or consistency between their words and behaviors

specifically in this study, they were more likely to influence follower moral identity and

consequently moral decision making intention.

Transformational leadership was found to have a positive effect on moral identity and

follower moral decision making intention. Moreover, follower moral identity mediated the effect

of transformational leadership on follower moral decision intention. Results showed that,

demonstrating transformational leadership behaviors such as demonstrating strategic vision were

more likely to influence follower moral identity and consequently moral decision making

intention.

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Contrary to the initial expectations, transactional leadership was found to have a negative

relationship with follower moral decision making intention and no significant effect on follower

moral identity. These initial results should be considered as exploratory and the findings should

be interpreted cautiously. It was expected that transactional contingent reward, which specifies

performance goals for achieving certain goals, would have a positive effect on follower moral

decision intention and moral identity since followers know what they are going to receive if they

accomplish certain goals. This hypothesis was based on prior research findings that indicated that

the nature of the reward system had a positive effect on ethical decision behavior (Ford &

Richardson, 1994; Kurkland, 1995; Nill & Schibrowsky, 2005). One possible explanation for the

inconsistency with prior research findings could be that the manipulation of transactional

leadership did not differ among these four leadership conditions. Furthermore, the reliability of

three items used to check manipulation of transactional leadership was just .65. Further studies

will be needed to examine the effect of transactional leadership on follower moral decision

making intention.

More importantly, it was found that follower moral identity mediated the effect of authentic

leadership and transformational leadership on follower moral decision making. This showed

that, in order to influence follower moral decision making, authentic and transformational leaders

need to help establish follower moral identity by substantiating the belief that they are moral

people.

As to the moderating role of moral intensity, it was found that moral intensity has a

negative moderating role in terms of the relationship between authentic leadership,

transformational leadership, and transactional leadership. More specifically, it was found that

authentic and transformational leadership has a greater effect on follower moral decision making

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intention when moral intensity is low. These findings confirmed the original hypotheses that the

effects of leadership will be stronger when moral intensity is low. This is consistent with the

inference from many prior research findings concerning ethical decision making in that

individuals are more likely to have a higher moral decision making intention when moral

intensity is high (Flannery & May, 2000; Jones, 1991; Kelly & Elm; 2003; Leitsch, 2004).

However, when moral intensity is low, authentic and transformational leadership have a greater

role in influencing follower moral decision making intention. It seems that authentic and

transformational leadership are very important factors that will influence follower moral decision

making since most of the dilemmas are of the nature of low moral intensity.

5.2 Theoretical Contributions This study is one of the first experimental studies that examined the effect of authentic

and transformational leadership on follower moral decision making and follower moral identity,

therefore it helps cast light on whether authentic and transformational leadership has a positive

effect on follower moral decision intention and its potential influence process. More importantly,

I proposed and tested a theoretical model to help explain how authentic and transformational

leadership affected follower moral identity and consequently moral decision intention. Thus, the

study makes a contribution both leadership research and to the field of ethical decision making

and moral development.

In the field of leadership, particularly transformational leadership, a number of studies

have been conducted to examine the effect of transformational leadership on follower work

attitudes and behaviors at both an individual and organizational level (Dumdum, Lowe, &

Avolio, 2002; Judge & Piccolo, 2004; Lowe et al., 1996). Turner and Barling (2002) found that

managers' moral reasoning was associated with their level of transformational and transactional

leadership, and that leaders with high levels of moral reasoning exhibited more transformational

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leadership behaviors than leaders scoring in the lowest moral reasoning group. However, no

other studies have examined the effect of transformational leadership on follower moral

reasoning, so this study has potentially begun to address a significant gap in the leadership

literature by examining the relationship between leadership and moral reasoning intentions.

5.2.1 Theoretical contribution to the research of authentic leadership and

transformational leadership

One of the core components of transformational leadership, labeled by Bass (1985) as

idealized influence or socialized charisma, represents leaders who set high standards for moral

conduct (Kanungo & Mendonca, 1996). Howell and Avolio (1992) posited that transformational

leaders promote moral policies, procedures, and processes within their organization by

consistently placing their followers and collective interests over their own, and by demonstrating

their willingness to sacrifice for the good or interests of the organization.

Kuhnert and Lewis (1987), using Kegan and Lahey’s (1984) constructivists’ perspective

focused on describing what constituted the development of transactional and transformational

leadership. At the lowest level (stage one), leaders are unable to transcend their own self interests

and perspectives for the sake of understanding other individual’s perspectives or needs. At stage

2, leaders may say that they aspire to have team spirit or/and mutual respect, but they have not

necessarily developed the organizing processes and abilities to understand the tradeoffs required

to be a team player—self interests could still trump collective interests.

At stage three, leaders are able to achieve a level of understanding where they can focus on

interpersonal relations transcending their personal interests or goals for the sake of others or the

collective. Indeed, at this stage, leaders are vulnerable to being swayed by their group as they

have not established their core moral center as a basis for making decisions.

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Leaders at stage four are able to construct or make meaning from the outside world

through the establishment of their end goals and values (Avolio & Gibbons, 1988). At this stage

of development, they have developed a self-determined sense of moral identity that guides the

moral actions taken. Kuhnert and Lewis (1987) argued that one must be at this stage to be a truly

transformational leader.

Stage 5 is operationalized as being at what Kegan has called a universal level of

perspective-taking capacity, which means that the leader can question his or her own theory of

leadership, relationships and moral purpose, as well as currently accepted theories of moral and

ethical behavior. At this level, the leader is able to extract him or herself from the very drama in

which he or she is a part to determine whether their contribution is appropriate and in line with

his or her inner moral identity.

5.2.2 Theoretical contribution to research in ethical decision making

Regarding ethical decision making, a number of studies have examined the effects of

many factors, such as individual characteristics, situational factors, organizational culture, and

characteristics of the work, on moral decision intention and moral behavior (Flannery & May,

2000; Jones, 1991; McMahon & Harvey, 2006; Rest, 1986; Trevino, 1986). Individual factors

include ego strength, field dependence, and locus of control and situational factors include the

immediate job context (e.g., reinforcement and other pressures), organizational culture

(normative structure, preferred others, obedience to authority, and responsibility for

consequences), and characteristics of the work (i.e., role taking, and resolution of moral conflict).

However, the influence of leadership on follower moral action and its influence process has

rarely been examined in prior research (see Brown & Trevino, 2003; Schminke, Ambrose, &,

Neubaum, 2005 for exceptions). This is somewhat surprising given the fact that most working

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adults spend a third of their whole life in work settings, supervised by leaders who may or may

not be the best role model for ethical leadership. This study makes a contribution in ethical

decision making by proposing that it is important and necessary to incorporate the effect of

leadership, particularity authentic and transformational leadership, on follower moral decision

making in organizations.

Finally, prior ethical decision making models have largely neglected the central role of

internal factors, namely an individual’s moral identity which enables him or her to make moral

decisions. Confirming Blasi’s view point, I found preliminary evidence that only when

individuals have developed a higher moral identity can it be a source of motivation in terms of

subsequent decision-making. Thus, this study makes a contribution to the ethical decision

making literature by suggesting that moral identity could be a key factor that needs to be

incorporated into ethical decision making models.

5.2.3 Theoretical contribution to research in moral development

This study also makes an important contribution to the field of moral development.

Specifically, drawing on Hoffman’s (1977, 1988) moral socialization perspective and Bandura’s

(1991) social cognitive perspective of moral development, I extend research on moral

development in the following two ways. First, by taking the leadership factor into account and by

generalizing it to working adults in organizations, and secondly, by extending the model

proposed by Kuhnert and Lewis (1987) from the development of transformational leaders to the

development of followers into moral agents. This also extends Burns’ (1978) argument “the

result of transforming is a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts

followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents.” (p.4) in that it is possible that

authentic and transformational leadership could develop followers into moral agents.

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Furthermore, this study also extends Kegan’s (1982) and Kuhnert and Lewis’s (1987)

constructive/developmental theory by highlighting patterns in ways that followers construct

moral meaning during their interactions with their authentic and transformational leaders and by

demonstrating how followers can progress lower levels of moral decision making intention to

higher levels. Based on the findings in this study, the positive influence from authentic and

transformational leadership appears to encourage followers to better reflect on and understand

their personal (i.e., who they are) and interpersonal worlds. This should lead to the follower

intentionally increasing his or her differentiation of oneself from others in terms of moral

standards and beliefs (i.e., moral identity).

5.2.4 Theoretical contribution to research in educational leadership

Shen, Cooley and Wegenke (2004) found that there were not enough qualified applicants

for the principal leadership positions in the United States, and that applicants appeared to prefer

extrinsic rewards than intrinsic rewards. Adalbjarnardottir and Runarsdottir (2006) argued that

school leaders’ pedagogical vision, goals, behaviors, motivation for their work could influence

the leader’s incidents in his/her life history. This is consistent with Avolio et al. (2005) and

Gardner et al.’s (2005) argument that leader’s personal history has a positive effect on authentic

leadership development. A leader’s portrayal vision will guide his/her decision making, which

should support other school leaders in reflecting on their own pedagogical vision and practice as

they lead challenging school development programs

As to the effect of transformational and charismatic leadership, previous researchers have

found that transformational leadership had a positive effect on teachers’ attitudes, including

teachers’ organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, and teacher

satisfaction, and student performance in Singapore contexts (Koh, Steers, & Terborg, 1995). This

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study extended the effect of transformational leadership, as well as authentic leadership, into the

field of follower moral decision intention in school setting.

5.3 Practical Implications The understanding of the complex influence process of authentic leadership and

transformational leadership on follower moral perspectives will help scholars have a more

complete understanding of the inner workings of authentic leadership and transformational

leadership. Furthermore, the study also helps leaders in organizations to propose some effective

strategies to positively affect follower moral perspectives across different organizational levels.

Furthermore, organizations may also apply the potential research findings to propose solutions to

develop authentic and transformational leadership across different organizational levels to

ultimately influence follower moral attitudes and actions, ultimately organizational sustainable

performance.

5.3.1 Developing follower moral identity

It was found that authentic leadership has a positive effect on follower moral identity.

Therefore one of the most important implications is in how leaders use authentic leadership and

transformational leadership to develop follower moral identity. Being authentic means being true

to one’s self values, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs and acting consistent with the true self

values and thoughts, and mindsets. The finding showed that leaders must be authentic in order to

help develop their followers’ moral identity. More importantly, leaders need to be consistent

with their own words, values, and their true behavior to have a positive effect on followers’

moral identity, and then follower moral decision making intention.

More specifically, leaders in organizations may use the tested theoretical model in this study

to guide follower moral development in their organizations, in terms of developing moral

identity and moral decision intention. For example, the results suggest that in order to influence

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follower moral decision making intention, authentic and transformational leaders will have to

establish and strengthen follower moral identity as a central step in the development process.

After establishing high moral identity, followers would be better able to make moral decisions

both for themselves, their groups, and their organizations. Furthermore, authentic leaders may

also establish authentic and transparent decision making processes to promote followers’ moral

identity and in turn higher standards for ethical conduct in organizations. Many scholars (e.g.,

Bergman, 2002; Colby & Damon, 1992) suggest that individuals with high moral identity will: 1)

commit to moral ideals or principles, 2) determine to behave consistent with one’s moral ideals

or principles, 3) are willing to take risk for being loyal to one’s moral values, 4) tend to inspire

others to think and behave ethically, and 5) place the interest of the whole society over one’s

personal ego and interest.

By focusing on followers’ moral self development, authentic leaders encourage such

individuals who currently lack moral self-awareness and moral identity to look inward to achieve

greater moral self-knowledge through the leader’s moral modeling processes. Ultimately,

followers may be more likely to establish their own moral identity since authentic leaders

encourage them to identify with the core values and interests of the collective (work group,

organization, profession, and society). It is argued that “leading by example” (e.g., role

modeling) is an extremely important influence process of leadership on followers and

organizations (Gardner et al., 2005). It has also been suggested that leaders’ confidence, high

moral standards, innovative problem solving, commitment, and self-sacrifice will cascade down

organization levels when followers emulate these behaviors (Bass, Waldman, & Avolio, 1987).

As to the influence of authentic leadership on follower moral perspective, followers’

internalization of core organizational values and authentic leaders’ moral perspective will lead

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followers to achieve higher levels of moral self-clarity and autonomy. It is has been suggested

that the shared common values and attributes of an organization or group is related to the

collective identity (Kark et al., 2002; Shamir et al., 1993). In the long-term, these followers may

also better establish their moral identity, and ultimately will have a high level of moral intention

and ultimately moral behavior/actions. This was also consistent with social identity theory of

Hogg and his colleagues (e.g., van Knippenberg, van Knippenberg, de Cremer, & Hogg, 2004;

Hog & Terry, 2000), who argued that the role of the followers’ self-conception plays a role in

leadership effectiveness. It is pointed out that follower self-conception (i.e., self-construal, self-

efficacy, self-esteem, and self-consistency) could be a mediator between leadership and follower

behavior/performance.

Authentic leaders demonstrate through their words and actions, the importance of

integrity, trust, transparency, openness, respect for others, and fairness – values that are more

closely aligned with self-transcendence than self-enhancement. Luthans et al. (2003) argued that

authentic leaders’ future-orientation and concern for associate building will lead them to focus

followers’ attention toward thinking of what kind of people they want to be. That is, while we

expect authentic leaders will encourage followers to make an accurate assessment of their current

self, authentic leaders’ developmental focus will help followers to see who they can become.

These individuals with strong moral identity make moral decisions with confidence and

determination, with little fear, doubt, or agonized reflection. When moral beliefs are deeply and

personally institutionalized, moral authority becomes autonomous and the moral will is

strengthened. Under this situation, the self has moral orientation and all underlying desires are

guided by moral goals and moral commitments. Ultimately, moral decision intention is elevated

from conventional to post-conventional.

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Blasi (1989) also pointed out that moral identity serves as a moral motivation toward

moral decision intention and ultimately moral behavior. Blasi (1984) further argued that moral

judgment reflected an individual’s general understanding of him/herself, other people, social

relations, and situations, and that this understanding can and does change when a person

develops his/her intelligence and has a richer and more complex experience with the social

world.

Another practical implication is that transformational leadership may also be used to

develop follower moral identity and follower moral decision making intention. For example,

transformational leaders set high standards for moral and ethical conduct, and for moral

emulation (Avolio, 2005; Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978). With strong moral values and goals,

transformational leaders would promote ethical policies, procedures, and processes within their

organization. Demonstrating idealized influence (i.e., as high ethical role models or moral

exemplars) to encourage followers to establish their own internal set of moral principles and

ideals, transformational leadership helps establish a basis for follower moral identity, and

ultimately moral action (Avolio, 2005; Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978; George, 2003; Luthans &

Avolio, 2003).

Transformational leaders use moral intellectual stimulation, which motivates their

followers to challenge long-term assumptions and the dominant logic of the leader when it is

time to change direction (Avolio, 1999), to challenge their followers’ moral thoughts and to

recognize their moral values, beliefs, and mindset, and subsequently to re-examine their current

levels of moral cognition, moral thought, and moral action.

Through moral individualized consideration, transformational leaders also focus on

coaching and mentoring followers to be prepared to assume greater moral responsibility, and

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ultimately develop followers into moral exemplars through moral socialization (Avolio, 2005;

Avolio & Gibbons, 1988; Hoffman, 1988). Thus, followers are more likely to maintain higher

moral principles and believe they are moral people (formation of their moral identity).

Transformational leaders also show concern for followers’ needs, feelings, and development of

morality. By offering constructive and positive moral feedback to their followers,

transformational leaders help improve followers’ sense of understanding their own and others’

moral perspective, contributing to developing a higher level of moral perspective taking and

interpersonal ability (Eisenberg, 2000; Hoffman, 1988). Under the influence of transformational

leaders, followers are more likely to be able to transcend their own self interests and needs, as

they are guided by a self-determined moral identity, and to act according to their own moral

values and system.

5.3.2 Developing authentic leadership in organizations

The most important practical implication from this study is that, in order to develop

authentic and moral followers, organizations need to develop authentic and transformational

leadership. Organizations may also apply this tested theoretical model to build strategic and

long-term solution to developing authentic and transformational leaders across different

organizational levels to develop higher follower moral perspectives (e.g., moral identity and

moral decision intention). This is likely to contribute to sustainable individual, group and

organizational growth and performance.

Furthermore, organizations may also develop leaders’ moral courage to promote follower

moral identity and follower moral decision intention. Authentic leaders are characterized with

high level of moral courage which enables leaders to adopt a set of moral beliefs when dealing

with ethical dilemmas related to business contexts (Furnham, 2002). It is expected that moral

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courage of authentic leadership would be contagious to their followers, which will help followers

to strengthen their moral identity and moral decision making intention.

Consistent with the suggestion of George (2003), I also recommend for organizations to

develop the authenticity of leaders in their respective organizations. For example, leaders might

need to be trained to leaders to have a high self-awareness, to understand their own strength and

weakness, and to lead with purpose, meaning, values, consistency and self.

5.4. Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research 5.4.1 Theoretical limitations and recommendations

In the present study, I examined how authentic, transformational, and transactional

leadership influences follower moral identity, and in turn how moral identity influences follower

moral decision intention. Notwithstanding, there exists other types of social influences, such as

peer influence, which may certainly affect the development of followers’ moral identity and their

moral decision making intention. It is possible that followers can observe their colleagues’ moral

behaviors and feel the motivation or pressure from peers to act ethically, which, in turn, can

influence their own moral identity, and ultimately moral decision making. In fact, it is possible

these social influences are likely embedded in the context of the ethical climate of organizations

and need to be more closely analyzed. Therefore, from a theoretical perspective, it might be

helpful that future research incorporate the effect of peer influence on the follower moral

decision intention and its possible effect in the relationship between authentic leadership and

transformational leadership and follower moral identity and follower moral decision intention

(Bandura, 1991; Kitts, 2006).

Bandura (1991) argued that peer influence could be considered as a source of social

sanctions that could influence individual moral thought and moral action. Kitts (2006) also

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argued that centralized sanctions and informal norms, including their interaction with their

colleagues have an effect on anti-social behaviors. It is shown that social norms promote the

collective good and thus peer influence could complement those norms. Furthermore, Rice,

Milburn, Rotheram-Borus, and Mallett (2005) also found that peer networks affect amphetamine,

cocaine, and injection drug use among newly homeless adolescents. Based on the arguments and

empirical findings presented in previous research, it is expected that peer influence will have an

effect, be it positive or negative, on follower moral identity and subsequently moral decision

making intention.

Secondly, the focus of the tested theoretical framework was on the effects of individual

leader’s authentic and transformational leadership behavior on follower moral identity and

follower moral decision intention at the individual level. This study also considered the construct

of moral identity as an individual level construct. It is possible that moral identity could be

defined as a relational and/or an organizational level construct (e.g., Waldman & Yammarino,

1999; Lord et al., 1999). For example, followers may develop a relational-level moral identity in

thinking that their relationship with their leader is authentic and moral since they respect each

other and treat each other with dignity and in a moral way. Furthermore, followers can develop

an organizational-level moral identity that they belong to a moral organization, which places

being highly ethical above profitability, and in turn, helps define what constitutes the follower’s

moral self.

It is also worth noting, that we did not examine linkages between authentic leadership,

transformational leadership and ethical climate. Clearly authentic leaders and transformational

leaders could develop an ethical climate that could demonstrate an impact on follower moral

identity and moral decision intention. Future research might examine how authentic and

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transformational leadership influence ethical climate at the group and organizational level, and

its effects on follower moral identity and follower moral decision intention.

This study also failed to consider the effect of ethical climate. Ethical climate is defined as

“the prevailing perceptions of typical organizational practices and procedures that have ethical

content” or “those aspects of work climate that determine what constitutes ethical behavior at

work” (Victor & Cullen, 1988: 101). Victor and Cullen (1988) found that ethical climate

influences employee attitudes and behaviors since ethical climate provides information like our

description of authentic leaders and transformational leaders above, which guides what are

appropriate ways to address ethical dilemmas.

The existence of an ethical climate requires the normative systems in an organization be

institutionalized (Victor & Cullen, 1988). That is to say, organizational members will perceive

the influence of existing norms and formal patterns of conduct, which can be considered an

element of climate. From a long-term perspective, the normative ethical patterns will serve as an

important force in shaping the collective perception of the ethical environment in an

organization, and in turn is expected to influence organizational members’ moral identity and

moral action. Therefore, it is expected that authentic and transformational leadership would have

a more positive effect on followers’ moral identity, and moral decision intention when there is a

positive ethical climate since followers would be striving to establish the belief that they are

moral people and ultimately act morally when the external environment has strong ethical

characteristics. Therefore, future studies may examine how ethical climate has a positive

moderating effect over the effect of authentic and transformational leadership on follower moral

decision intention.

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The existence of an ethical climate requires the normative systems in an organization be

institutionalized (Victor & Cullen, 1988). That is to say, organizational members will perceive

the influence of existing norms and formal patterns of conduct, which can be considered an

element of climate. From a long-term perspective, the normative ethical patterns will serve as an

important force in shaping the collective perception of the ethical climate environment in an

organization, and in turn is expected to influence organizational members’ moral identity and

moral action. This argument shows that ethical climate could have a positive effect on follower

moral identity by shaping a collective perception of ethical patterned behaviors, artifacts,

ceremonies, and special language that represent the organization’s climate (Engelbrecht et al.,

2005; Victor & Cullen, 1988).

Another limitation is that the present study did not directly address the role of individual

differences in the impact of authentic and transformational leadership on the establishment of

follower moral identity, and consequently follower moral decision intention. For example,

followers who start out with a higher level of conscientiousness may be more likely to internalize

authentic and transformational leaders’ moral values and moral perspectives, and ultimately

strengthen or shape their moral identity and have a higher moral decision intention. These are

important issues for future research.

5.4.2 Methodological limitations and recommendations

The first limitation in methodology is that, in an experiment (Scenario), it is very difficult to

capture the full range of authentic and transformational leadership behaviors. For example, in

this study, I manipulated authenticity mainly through manipulating consistency between leader’s

words and behaviors. In future studies, researchers might want to manipulate other components

of authentic leadership, such as relational transparency in order to grasp the complexity of

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authenticity, and therefore examining its effect on follower moral identity and follower moral

decision intention. The second limitation is that the scenario is only for the school settings, and

may not be generalized to other industries or other types of working settings. Future studies may

replicate this theoretical framework in other working settings and industries, including for profit-

making organizations. Since this study was conducted in a non-profit educational environment,

the findings from this research may or may not generalize to other organizational settings or

cultures. Future studies will need to further explore the issue of the generalizabilty of the results.

There are several other limitations. One is the short period of the experimental intervention

used here since it only took thirty minutes for the whole intervention. Therefore, the possible

limitation bias was whether subjects would perceive the scenario was real or not. The limitation

was reduced since the moral dilemma was adapted from the email messages of principals in the

NELI project and therefore I attempted to make the exercise as real as possible relevant to the

school context. Furthermore, the results of three phases of pilot tests showed that the intervention

regarding the nature of the moral dilemma was effective in differentiating between high and low

moral intensity.

The third limitation is the leader in the scenario was not the subjects’ real leader and it

is possible that followers of real leaders may not do what they reported in this experimental

context. However, the simulation of different types of leadership is a common way in leadership

research and has been proven to be effective in prior research (e.g., Awamleh, & Gardner, 1999).

In addition, the social desirability scale used in this study indicated that follower social

desirability did not have a significant effect on self-reported follower moral identity and follower

moral decision making intention. Nevertheless, these results must be replicated in real settings to

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lend confidence to the pattern of results obtained in the current study. Another limitation is that,

in this study, I only used one item to measure follower moral decision intention. In real practices,

there might be more than one type of moral decision intention. Therefore, future studies would

be benefit from using several items to measure moral decision making intention or even let

subjects come op their own solutions.

Another limitation is that all of the survey items were collected from the same source,

which mightinflate the relationships reported in this dissertation due to common source effects.

However, there is some evidence to show that common method variance was not necessarily a

serious problem in this study. Specifically, transactional leadership did not have a significant

relationship with follower moral identity, while follower moral identity had a significant

relationship with follower moral decision intention. We would expect that all relationships might

be inflated if there was a common method bias effect Nevertheless, I am unable to rule out the

effects of common methods/source given the current design of my dissertation, which will need

to be more directly addressed in future leadership research.

Despite these limitations, this study has a number of strengths. The first one lies in the

random assignment of followers into different experimental conditions. The second strength is

that this study included a diverse sample of participants from a broad spectrum of public schools.

Third, although the results are not entirely free of the inflating effects of social desirability

(Chung & Monroe, 2003), I tried to reduce these effects by controlling for social desirability.

Indeed, results did show that social desirability had no significant impact on follower moral

decision making intention and follower moral identity.

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5.5 Conclusion

This study suggests that both authentic leadership and transformational leadership have a

positive effect on follower moral decision making intention and follower moral identity.

Furthermore, it was found that follower moral identity mediated the effect of authentic leadership

and transformational leadership on follower moral decision making intention.

This study is one of the first studies to examine the effect of authentic leadership,

transactional leadership, and transformational leadership on follower moral decision making and

follower moral identity. It therefore helps to cast light on the whether authentic leadership and

transformational leadership has a positive effect on follower moral decision intention and the

influence process of authentic leaders by examining the role of moral identity as a potential

mediator in this relationship. In sum, this study makes significant contribution to both leadership

area and ethical decision intention by testing how authentic leadership and transformational

leadership can influence follower moral identity and follower moral decision intention.

Thirdly, this study makes a significant contribution to the field of moral development.

Drawing on Hoffman’s (1977, 1988) moral socialization perspective and Bandura’s (1991) social

cognitive perspective of moral development, I tested how both authentic and transformational

leadership might morally uplift and develop followers—core premises of authentic and

transformational leadership theories. Thus, I extend Hofmann’s moral socialization theory and

Bandura’s social cognitive perspective of moral development in two ways, by taking the

leadership factor into account and by generalizing to working adults in organizations.

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FIGURE 1: Authentic Leadership and Follower Moral Decision Intention: Role of

Follower Moral Identity

Authentic leadership

Follower moral identity

Follower moral Decision Intention

Moral intensity

119

TABLE 3-1: Sample Characteristics in Pilot Tests

Frequency (Phase 1/2/3)

Percentage (%)

(Phase 1/2/3)

Mean (Phase 1/2/3)

S.D. Phase 1/2/3)

Gender Male 20/39/25 63.6/48.1/34.2 NA NA Female 35/43/48 36.4/51.9/65.8 Marital Status

Not Married 42/69/59 76.4/85.2/80.8 NA NA Married 12/12/14 23.6/14.8/19.2 NA NA Ethnicity Whites 40/69/70 87.3/85.2/95.9 NA NA Others 15/12/3 12.6/14.8/4.1 NA NA Age 24.4/23.3/23.1 6.1/4.9/2.8 <30 49/72/69 88.9/92.3/94.5 >=30 6/9/4 11.1/7.7/5.5 TOTAL 55/81/73 100/100/100 Note: N=55, 81, and 75 respectively in the first, the second, and the third pilot test.

TABLE 3-2: Descriptive of Leadership Intervention Scores (Pilot Test 1)

N Mean Sd. Min. Max. Authentic leadership score ATF 14 3.55 1.39 1.00 5.00 TF 15 3.96 .75 2.25 5.00 ATS 13 4.26 .63 3.25 5.00 TS 13 3.54 .99 2.50 4.75 Total 55 3.82 1.00 1.00 5.00Transformational leadership ATF 14 3.66 1.27 1.00 5.00Score TF 15 4.15 .63 3.00 5.00 ATS 13 3.94 .62 2.50 5.00 TS 13 3.27 .84 2.33 5.00 Total 55 3.77 .92 1.00 5.00Transactional leadership ATF 14 3.38 .87 1.00 5.00Score TF 15 3.53 .79 2.67 5.00 ATS 13 4.08 .49 3.33 5.00 TS 13 3.79 .99 2.00 4.68 Total 55 3.68 .83 1.00 5.00Note: “ATF”= “Authentic Transformational Leadership”, “TF”= “Transformational

Leadership”, “ATS”= “Authentic Transactional Leadership”, “TS”= “Transactional Leadership.” N=55.

120

TABLE 3-3: Post-Hoc Tests of Leadership Conditions (Pilot Test 1)

Dependent Variable

(I) Leadership Condition

(J) Leadership Condition

Mean Difference

(I-J) P-Value Authentic leadership ATF TF -.41 .50 ATS -.71 .21 TS .01 .50 TF ATF .41 .50 ATS -.30 .50 TS .42 .50 ATS ATF .71 .21 TF .30 .50 TS .72 .21 TS ATF -.01 .50 TF -.42 .50 ATS -.72 .21Transformational leadership ATF TF -.49 .42 ATS -.28 .50 TS .39 .50 TF ATF .49 .42 ATS .21 .50 TS .88 .04 ATS ATF .28 .50 TF -.21 .50 TS .67 .18 TS ATF -.39 .50 TF -.88 .04 ATS -.67 .18Transactional leadership ATF TF -.15 .50 ATS -.70 .09 TS -.41 .50 TF ATF .15 .50 ATS -.54 .25 TS -.26 .50 ATS ATF .70 .09 TF .54 .25 TS .28 .50 TS ATF .41 .50 TF .26 .50 ATS -.28 .50

Note: “ATF”= “Authentic Transformational Leadership”, “TF”= “Transformational Leadership”, “ATS”= “Authentic Transactional Leadership”, “TS”= “Transactional Leadership.” N=55.

121

TABLE 3-4: Manipulation Check of Moral Intensity (Pilot Test 1)

Moral intensity conditions N Mean Sd. Std. Error

P-Value

High 29 2.3793 .47746 .08866 p=.11

Low 26 2.6154 .59399 .11649

Total 55 2.4909 .54378 .07332 Note: N=55.

TABLE 3-5: Descriptive of Manipulation Scores of Leadership Interventions (Pilot Test 2)

N Mean Sd. Min. Max. Authentic leadership ATF 21 3.70 .88 1.00 5.00 TF 21 3.82 .73 2.25 5.00 ATS 16 4.25 .53 3.25 5.00 TS 20 3.64 .64 2.50 4.75 Total 78 3.83 .74 1.00 5.00Transformational leadership ATF 20 3.84 .92 1.00 5.00 TF 21 4.21 .65 3.00 5.00 ATS 18 3.59 .68 2.50 5.00 TS 20 3.63 .78 2.33 5.00 Total 79 3.83 .79 1.00 5.00Transactional leadership ATF 21 3.51 .92 1.00 5.00 TF 21 3.68 .53 2.67 5.00 ATS 18 4.33 .64 3.33 5.00 TS 20 3.70 .66 2.00 4.67 Total 80 3.79 .76 1.00 5.00

Note: “ATF”= “Authentic Transformational Leadership”, “TF”= “Transformational Leadership”, “ATS”= “Authentic Transactional Leadership”, “TS”= “Transactional Leadership.” N=81.

122

TABLE 3-6: Post-Hoc Tests of Leadership Conditions (Pilot Test 2)

Dependent Variable (I) Leadership condition

(J) Leadership condition (I-J) P-Value

Authentic leadership ATF ATF TF -.12 .50 ATS -.55 .07 TS .06 .50 TF ATF .12 .50 ATS -.43 .23 TS .18 .50 ATS ATF .55 .14 TF .43 .23 TS .61 .04 TS ATF -.06 .50 TF -.18 .50 ATS -.61 .04 Transformational leadership ATF TF -.36 .40 ATS .25 .50 TS .21 .50 TF ATF .36 .40 ATS .61 .05 TS .57 .06 ATS ATF -.25 .50 TF -.61 .05 TS -.04 .50 TS ATF -.21 .50 TF -.57 .06 ATS .04 .50 Transactional leadership ATF TF -.17 .50 ATS -.83* .00 TS -.19 .50 TF ATF .17 .50 ATS -.65* .02 TS -.02 .50 ATS ATF .83* .00 TF .65* .02 TS .63* .02 TS ATF .19 .50 TF .02 .50 ATS -.63* .02 Note: N=81. * p< .05 (1- tailed). ** p< .01 (1- tailed).

123

TABLE 3-7: Manipulation Check of Moral Intensity (Pilot Test 2)

Intensity N Mean Sd. P-value Moral Intensity

Low Intensity 41 2.56 .69 .01

High Intensity 40 3.06 .80 Note: N=81. TABLE 3-8: Descriptive of Manipulation Scores of Leadership Interventions (Pilot

Test 3)

N Mean Sd. Min. Max. Authentic leadership ATF 18 4.29 .90 1.40 5.00 TF 19 4.37 .34 3.80 5.00 ATS 17 3.78 .72 2.20 4.80 TS 17 3.65 .48 2.40 4.40 Total 71 4.03 .70 1.40 5.00Transformational leadership ATF 18 4.39 .82 1.60 5.00 TF 19 4.71 .25 4.00 5.00 ATS 17 3.04 .46 2.20 4.20 TS 17 3.00 .91 1.20 4.60 Total 71 3.82 1.01 1.20 5.00Transactional leadership ATF 18 4.13 .67 2.33 5.00 TF 19 4.07 .54 3.00 5.00 ATS 17 3.96 .76 2.33 5.00 TS 17 4.04 .63 2.67 4.67 Total 71 4.05 .64 2.33 5.00 Notes: N=81. * p< .05 (1- tailed). ** p< .01 (1- tailed).

124

TABLE 3-9: Post-Hoc Analysis of Leadership Interventions (Pilot Test 3)

Dependent Variable

(I) Leadership condition

(J) Leadership condition

Mean Difference

(I-J) Std. Error P-Value Authentic leadership ATF TF -.08 .21 .50 ATS .51 .22 .07 TS .64* .22 .02 TF ATF .08 .21 .50 ATS .59* .21 .02 TS .72* .21 .01 ATS ATF -.51 .22 .07 TF -.59* .21 .02 TS .13 .22 .50 TS ATF -.64* .22 .02 TF -.72* .21 .01 ATS -.13 .22 .50Transformational leadership ATF TF -.32 .22 .45 ATS 1.35* .22 .00 TS 1.39* .22 .00 TF ATF .32 .22 .45 ATS 1.67* .22 .00 TS 1.71* .22 .00 ATS ATF -1.35* .22 .00 TF -1.67* .22 .00 TS .04 .23 .50 TS ATF -1.39* .22 .00 TF -1.71* .22 .00 ATS -.04 .23 .50Transactional Leadership ATF TF .06 .21 .50 ATS .17 .22 .50 TS .09 .22 .50 TF ATF -.06 .21 .50 ATS .11 .22 .50 TS .03 .22 .50 ATS ATF -.17 .22 .50 TF -.11 .22 .50 TS -.08 .22 .50 TS ATF -.09 .22 .50 TF -.03 .22 .50 ATS .08 .22 .50Notes: N=73. * p< .05 (1- tailed). ** p< .01 (1- tailed).

125

TABLE 3-10: Manipulation Check of Moral Intensity (Pilot Test 3)

Intensity N Mean Sd. P-value Moral Intensity Low

37 3.61 .69 .01

High 36 3.90 .80

Notes: N=73.

TABLE 3-11: EFA of the Scale of Moral Identity

Pilot 1

(N=55) Pilot 2 (N=81)

Pilot 3 (N=73)

Item 1 view being an ethical person as an important part of who I am .90 .92 .86

Item 2 be more committed to my moral principles .91 .90 .92Item 3 be more determined to behave consistent with

my moral ideals or principles .91 .91 .91

Item 4 be more willing to take a risk to be loyal to my moral values .63 .82 .90

Item 5 be more willing to place the collective interest over my own personal ego and interest .69 .78 .82

Note: Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. a: 1 component extracted.

126

TABLE 3-12: Correlations of Moral Identity with Other variables

Mean S.D. 1 2 3 4 Pilot

1 Pilot 2

Pilot 3

Pilot 1

Pilot 2

Pilot 3

Pilot 1

Pilot 2

Pilot 3

Pilot 1

Pilot 2

Pilot 3

Pilot 1

Pilot 2

Pilot 3

Pilot 1

Pilot 2

Pilot 3

1. Authentic leadership

3.82

3.83

4.03

1.00

.74

.70

2. Transf. leadership

3.77

3.83

3.82

.92

.79

1.01

.85**

.59**

.69**

3. Trans. leadership

3.67

3.79

4.05

.83

.76

.64

.58**

.71**

.70**

.43**

.42**

.28**

4.Moral identity

3.73

3.63

3.77

.74

.90

.96

.71**

.56** .59**

.60**

.76**

.68**

.41**

.44**

.29**

5. Moral intention

3.46

3.19

3.33

.58

.93

.94

.20

.47**

.36**

.14

.50**

.46**

.12

.35**

.18

.28*

.44**

.40**

Note: N=55, 81, 73 respectively for the first, the second, and the third pilot test. * p< .05 (1- tailed). ** p< .01 (1- tailed).

127

TABLE 4-1a: Sample Characteristics in the Field Study

Frequency

Percentage Mean SD.

Gender Male 48 22.30

Female 167 77.70

Marital Status

Not Married 51 23.70

Married 164 76.30

Ethnicity

Caucasian 205 95.30

Others 10 4.70 School Type High school 70 32.60 Middle school 66 30.70 Elementary school 79 36.70 Education Bachelor or below 76 35.35 Masters degree or

above 139 64.65

Age 40.91 10.18 Years as a teacher 15.20 9.79 Years in current organization

8.86 8.32

Size of school district 643.88 577.86

Notes: N=215. * p< .05 (1- tailed). ** p< .01 (1- tailed).

128

TABLE 4-1b: ANOVA of Control Variables across Intervention Conditions

Sum of Squares df

Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups .60 7 .09 .49 .84

Within Groups 36.68 207 .18

Gender

Total 37.28 214 Between Groups .94 7 .13 .73 .64

Within Groups 37.96 207 .18

Marital Status or not

Total 38.90 214 Between Groups 1.38 7 .20 .81 .58

Within Groups 50.42 207 .24

Degree

Total 51.80 214 Between Groups 723.14 7 103.31 1.08 .38

Within Groups 19787.22 207 95.59

Years in the current teaching position

Total 20510.36 214 Between Groups 503.17 7 71.88 1.05 .40

Within Groups 14189.44 207 68.55

Years in the organization

Total 14692.61 214 Between Groups 2.29 7 .33 1.02 .42

Within Groups 66.33 207 .32

Social Desirability Scale

Total 68.62 214 Between Groups 7.19 7 1.03 1.50 .17

Within Groups 141.43 207 .68

School type

Total 148.62 214

Notes: N=215.

129

TABLE 4-2: Descriptive of Leadership Intervention Scores

N Mean Sd. Min. Max Authentic leadership ATF 55 4.16 .86 1.20 5.00 TF 58 4.01 .82 1.00 5.00 ATS 51 3.84 .64 2.20 4.80 TS 51 3.59 .58 2.40 5.00 Total 215 3.91 .76 1.00 5.00Transformational leadership ATF 55 4.29 .84 1.00 5.00 TF 58 4.24 .99 1.20 5.00 ATS 51 3.15 .79 1.20 5.00 TS 51 2.85 .88 1.20 5.00 Total 215 3.67 1.09 1.00 5.00Transactional Leadership ATF 55 3.92 .79 1.00 5.00 TF 58 3.75 .91 1.33 5.00 ATS 51 4.05 .71 2.33 5.00 TS 51 4.12 .59 2.67 5.00 Total 215 3.95 .77 1.00 5.00 Notes: N=215.

130

TABLE 4-3: Post-Hoc Tests of Leadership Intervention Conditions

Dependent Variable

(I) Leadership condition

N-size (J) Leadership condition

Mean Difference

(I-J) Std. Error P-Value Authentic leadership ATF 55 TF .16 .14 1.00 ATS .33 .14 .14 TS .57* .14 .00 TF 58 ATF -.16 .14 1.00 ATS .17 .14 1.00 TS .41* .14 .02 ATS 51 ATF -.33 .14 .14 TF -.17 .14 1.00 TS .24 .15 .59 TS 51 ATF -.57* .14 .00 TF -.41* .14 .02 ATS -.24 .15 .59Transformational leadership ATF 55 TF .05 .17 1.00 ATS 1.14* .17 .00 TS 1.44* .17 .00 TF 58 ATF -.05 .17 1.00 ATS 1.09* .17 .00 TS 1.40* .17 .00 ATS 51 ATF -1.14* .17 .00 TF -1.09* .17 .00 TS .31 .17 .49 TS 51 ATF -1.44* .17 .00 TF -1.40* .17 .00 ATS -.31 .17 .49Transactional Leadership ATF 55 TF .17 .14 1.00 ATS -.13 .15 1.00 TS -.20 .15 1.00 TF 58 ATF -.17 .14 1.00 ATS -.30 .15 .26 TS -.37 .15 .07 ATS 51 ATF .13 .15 1.00 TF .30 .15 .26 TS -.07 .15 1.00 TS 51 ATF .20 .15 1.00 TF .37 .15 .07 ATS .07 .15 1.00Notes: N=215. * p< .05 (1- tailed). ** p< .01 (1- tailed).

131

TABLE 4-4: Manipulation Check of Moral Intensity

Moral intensity groups N Mean Sd. T-Test P-value Moral Intensity

High Intensity 109 3.55 .68

3.23 .01

Low Intensity 106 3.23 .78

Notes: N=215. TABLE 4-5a: Descriptive Statistics for the Leadership Manipulation Check Scores

Variable All conditions

(N=215) ATF

(N=54) TF

(N=54) ATS

(N=54) TS

(N=53)

Mean

S.D. Mean

S.D. Mean

S.D. Mean

S.D. Mean

S.D. Authentic leadership 3.91 .76 4.16 .86 4.01 .82 3.84 .64 3.59 .58Transformational leadership 3.67 1.09 4.29 .84 4.24 .99 3.15 .79 2.85 .88Transactional leadership 3.95 .77 3.92 .79 3.75 .91 4.05 .71 4.12 .59Moral identity 3.71 .98 4.04 1.01 4.10 .81 3.41 .81 3.21 .98Moral intensity 3.70 .65 3.44 .81 3.46 .77 3.43 .72 3.23 .64Moral decision intention 3.53 1.05 3.62 .78 3.66 .95 3.03 .87 2.85 .90Social desirability scale 2.78 .57 2.88 .57 2.77 .62 2.72 .57 2.73 .49Notes: N=215. * p< .05 (1- tailed). ** p< .01 (1- tailed). All scales were based on 5-point scale. ATF= authentic transformational leadership; TF = transformational leadership; ATS = authentic transactional leadership; and TS = transactional leadership.

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TABLE 4-5b: Correlations of All Variables

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1. Gender (1=M, 0=F) 1.00

2. Marital status (Married=1, 0=Others) .13 1.00

3. Degree (1=Masters, 0=Others) .06 .03 1.00

4. Years in position .03 .11 .16* 1.00 5. Years in organization .15* .08 .20** .70** 1.00 6. AL .01 .05 .04 -.02 -.02 1.00 .7. TF -.01 .06 .04 .03 .04 .68** 1.008. TS .02 .04 .09 .07 .11 .68** .38** 1.009. Moral identity -.10 -.03 .05 -.06 -.08 .50** .59** .24** 1.0010. Moral intensity -.13 -.01 .07 .02 .04 .25** .16* .14* .21** 1.0011. Moral decision intention .07 -.07 .04 -.07 -.02 .28** .40** .03 .39** .38** 1.0012. Social desirability scale .04 .14* .01 .09 .01 .21** .14* .16* .19** .19** .08 1.00

Note. 1) AL= authentic leadership; TF = transformational leadership; and TS = transactional leadership.

2) N=215. * p< .05 (1- tailed). ** p< .01 (1- tailed).

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TABLE 4-5c: Correlations of All Variables (ATF & TF)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1. Gender (1=M, 0=F) 1.00 .24* -.02 .01 .15 .02 -.08 -.11 -.07 -.05 .06 .05

2. Marital status (Married=1, 0=Others) .22 1.00 -.06 .13 .01 .08 .06 .08 -.03 -.10 -.09 .14

3. Degree (1=Masters, 0=Others) -.07 -.28* 1.00 .24* .19 .00 .12 .11 .16 .14 .12 .16

4. Years in position .07 .04 .11 1.00 .64** .09 .06 .16 .08 .15 .17 .01 5. Years in organization .11 -.02 .14 .74** 1.00 .02 .05 .18 -.06 .03 .05 -.08 6. AL -.11 .00 -.01 -.14 -.02 1.00 .85** .76** .49** .37** .23* .29* 7. TF -.07 -.03 -.07 -.09 -.01 .90** 1.00 .77** .52** .40** .22* .27* 8. TS -.04 .00 .08 .04 .16 .83** .82** 1.00 .42** .29* .12 .29* 9. Moral identity -.17 -.09 -.03 -.15 -.18 .72** .74** .59** 1.00 .31** .43** .16 10. Moral intensity -.29* -.06 .10 -.13 -.03 .24* .22* .18 .33** 1.00 .56** .42** 11. Moral decision intention -.12 -.07 .09 -.27* .00 .22 .16 .07 .30* .62** 1.00 .36** 12. Social desirability scale .18 .11 -.15 .14 .08 .26* .18 .33** .17 -.12 -.17 1.00

Note. 1) AL= authentic leadership; TF = transformational leadership; and TS = transactional leadership.

2) Correlations in authentic transformational leadership (ATF, N=54) condition were presented below the diagonal, and correlations from transformational leadership (TF, N=54) condition were presented above the diagonal. * P< .05 (2-tailed). ** P< .01 (2-tailed).

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TABLE 4-5d: Correlations of All Variables (ATS & TS)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1. Gender (1=M, 0=F) 1.00 .11 .19 .14 .29* .21 .05 .32* .03 -.14 .27* .00

2. Marital status (Married=1, 0=Others) -.11 1.00 .31* .30* .19 -.07 -.09 -.07 .04 -.03 -.22 .09

3. Degree (1=Masters, 0=Others) .13 .13 1.00 .28* .44** -.01 -.18 .10 .04 -.08 -.14 -.03

4. Years in position -.09 .00 .01 1.00 .67** -.13 -.08 -.06 -.26* -.29* -.19 .165. Years in organization .01 .14 .01 .77** 1.00 -.04 -.02 .00 -.04 -.10 .02 .046. Authentic leadership .03 .16 .11 .06 -.06 1.00 .47** .64** .39** .08 .28* .107. Transformational leadership .17 .20 .05 .16 .19 .31* 1.00 .23 .43** -.18 .36** -.098. Transactional leadership .04 .14 .17 .14 .06 .76** .40** 1.00 .14 .04 .07 -.069. Moral identity -.29* -.15 -.10 .07 -.06 .00 .13 .11 1.00 .03 .05 .1110. Moral intensity -.04 .16 .06 .28* .26* .14 -.06 .04 .00 1.00 .08 .0011. Moral decision intention .10 .00 -.05 -.10 -.16 .11 .18 .14 .39** .12 1.00 -.2012. Social desirability scale -.06 .18 .00 .09 -.02 .01 -.01 -.04 .25* .41** .10 1.00

Note. 1) AL= authentic leadership; TF = transformational leadership; and TS = transactional leadership. 2) Correlations in authentic transactional leadership (ATS, N=54) condition were presented below the diagonal, and correlations from transactional leadership (TS, N=53) condition were presented above the diagonal. * P< .05 (2-tailed). ** P< .01 (2-tailed).

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TABLE 4-6: The Descriptive of DV (i.e., Moral Intention) by Leadership x Moral Intensity

Leadership condition

Moral intensity groups Mean Std. Deviation N

ATF High Intensity 3.75 .64 28 Low Intensity 3.49 .89 27 Total 3.62 .78 55TF High Intensity 3.82 .99 29 Low Intensity 3.49 .90 29 Total 3.66 .95 58ATS High Intensity 3.27 .86 26 Low Intensity 2.77 .82 25 Total 3.03 .87 51TS High Intensity 2.88 .89 26 Low Intensity 2.81 .92 25 Total 2.85 .90 51Total High Intensity 3.45 .93 109 Low Intensity 3.16 .94 106 Total 3.31 .94 215

Note: 1) N=215. 2) * P< .05 (1-tailed).

** P< .01 (1-tailed).

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TABLE 4-7: ANCOVA of DV (i.e., Moral Intention) by Leadership x Moral Intensity

Source

Type III Sum of Squares df

Mean Square F Sig.

Partial Eta Squared

Corrected Model 37.57(a) 12 3.13 4.16 .00 .20

Intercept 367.71 1 367.71 488.13 .00 .71Gender 1.23 1 1.23 1.64 .20 .01Marital Status 2.21 1 2.21 2.93 .09 .01Degree .00 1 .00 .01 .94 .00Years in position 1.05 1 1.05 1.40 .24 .01

Years in the organization .35 1 .35 .47 .50 .00

Leadership 28.34 3 9.45 12.54 .00 .16Moral intensity 4.31 1 4.31 5.72 .02 .03Leadership x moral intensity 1.65 3 .55 .73 .54 3.13

Error 152.16 202 .75 367.71Total 2541.00 215 1.23Corrected Total 189.74 214 2.21

a R Squared = .198 (Adjusted R Squared = .150), N=215 * P< .05 (1-tailed). ** P< .01 (1-tailed).

TABLE 4-8: Descriptive of DV (i.e., Moral Intention) Across Leadership Conditions

N Mean Std. Deviation Minimum Maximum

ATF 55 3.62 .78 1.00 5.00TF 58 3.66 .95 1.33 5.00ATS 51 3.03 .87 1.00 5.00TS 51 2.85 .90 1.00 4.33Total 215 3.31 .94 1.00 5.00

Note: N=215 * p< .05 (1-tailed). ** p< .01 (1-tailed).

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TABLE 4-9: Post-Hoc Analysis of DV (i.e., Moral Intention) Across Leadership Conditions

90% Confidence Interval

(I) Leadership condition

(J) Leadership condition

Mean Difference

(I-J) Std.

Error Sig. Lower Bound

Upper Bound

TF -.03 .16 .85 -.30 .24ATS .60* .17 .00 .32 .88

ATF

TS .77* .17 .00 .49 1.05TF ATF .03 .16 .85 -.24 .30

ATS .63* .17 .00 .35 .91 TS .81* .17 .00 .53 1.08

ATS ATF -.60* .17 .00 -.88 -.32TF -.63* .17 .00 -.91 -.35 TS .18 .17 .31 -.11 .46

TS ATF -.77* .17 .00 -1.05 -.49TF -.81* .17 .00 -1.08 -.53 ATS -.18 .17 .31 -.46 .11

Note: N=215 * p< .05 (1-tailed). ** p< .01 (1-tailed).

TABLE 4-10: Descriptive of DV (i.e., Moral Intention) Across Moral Intensity Conditions

Moral intensity groups Mean S.D. N High Intensity 3.45 .93 109Low Intensity 3.16 .94 106Total 3.31 .94 215

Note: N=215

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TABLE 4-11: Post-Hoc Analysis of DV (i.e., Moral Intention) Across Moral Intensity Conditions

Source SS df MS F Sig. Corrected Model 7.60(a) 6 1.27 1.45 .20Intercept 359.06 1 359.06 410.05 .00Gender 1.03 1 1.03 1.18 .28Marriage 1.35 1 1.35 1.54 .22Degree .25 1 .25 .29 .59Years in current position .53 1 .53 .61 .44Years in organization .06 1 .06 .07 .79Moral Intensity 4.09 1 4.09 4.67 .03Error 182.14 208 .88 Total 2541.00 215 Corrected Total 189.74 214

a R Squared = .040 (Adjusted R Squared = .012) N=215

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TABLE 4-12: Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Follower Moral Decision Intention

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Beta Beta Beta Male or female .08 .08 .06Marry or not -.07 -.11* -.10*Master or others .05 .03 .03Years in current teaching position -.10 -.07 -.10Years in the organization .04 .04 .06Social desirability Scale .10 .04 .04Authentic leadership .22* .36**Transformational leadership .36** .20*Transactional Leadership -.28** -.48**Moral Intensity (MI) (1=High, 0=Low) .17** -.80**AL x MI -1.15*TFL x MI -.68*TSL x MI 1.52** F .79 7.20 7.11R2 .02 .24** .30**Adjusted R2 .01 .21** .26**Change in R2 .01 .20** .06**

1) AL= authentic leadership; TFL = transformational leadership; TSL = transactional leadership. 2) N=215. * p<. 05 (1-tailed), ** p<.01 (1-tailed).

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TABLE 4-13: Hierarchical Regressions for Mediation Tests

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Moral Identity Moral intention Moral intention Moral intention Gender -.09 .06 09 .08 Marital Status -.07 -.09 -.06 -.07 Education .05 .07 .04 .05 Years in position -.02 -.13 -.12 -.13 Years in this organization -.06 .14 .15 .15 Social Desirability Scale .10 .05 .02 .02 Authentic leadership .23* .22* . .16 Transformational leadership .46** .17* .06

Transactional Leadership -.10

Moral Identity 31** .25**

F 15.02** 2.78** 4.06** 3.51**

R2 .40** .11** .12** .15**

Adjusted R2 .37** .07** .09** .11**

Note: Standardized regression coefficients are shown. N=215 N=215 * p< .05 (1-tailed). ** p< .01 (1-tailed).

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APPENDIX A: ATF-High INFORMED CONSENT FORM

Identification of Project: IRB# 2005-04-315EP Authentic Leadership and Follower Moral Intention: Role of Moral Identity Purpose of the Research: This is a study which explores the relationship between leadership and employee moral decision making perspectives and moral identity. We will gather information relating to leadership and ethics. You must be 19 years of age or older to participate. Procedures: The questionnaire will require approximately 30 minutes of your time in total. If you choose to participate in this study, go to the web address given and proceed accordingly. You will first take the initial portion of the questionnaire consisting of one short article about a leader’s decision history that requires you to read and answer a few questions about the leader and yourself. Then you will be asked to read two moral dilemmas and make a decision. Your answers will be kept strictly confidential and will only be used for the research purposes. Risks and/or Discomforts: There are no known risks or discomforts associated with this research. Benefits: You may find the learning experience from this study enjoyable and the information will be helpful to demonstrate ethics concepts and leadership in your career and life. The information gained from this study may also help you to better understand ethical dilemmas and leadership issues in school settings. In addition, we will debrief you on the basic goals and hypotheses of this project. At that time, we will fully explain the study and will answer any questions you might have for this project. Confidentiality: Any information obtained during this study which could identify you will be kept strictly confidential. The on-line data will be stored on a secure server and stored by a unique code (not by your name). The anonymous data will only be seen by the investigators of this study. The principal investigator will keep the data for three years and then delete it. The information obtained in this study may be published in scientific journals or presented at scientific meetings but the data will be reported as aggregated anonymous data. Opportunity to Ask Questions: You may ask any questions concerning this research and have those questions answered before agreeing to participate in or during the study. You may call Weichun Zhu at any time, office phone, (402) 472-2089, or Dr. Bruce Avolio, (402) 472-6380. You can also email Weichun Zhu at wxzhu@unlnotes.unl.edu, or Dr. Avolio, at bavolio@unlnotes.unl.edu. If you have questions concerning your rights as a research subject that have not been answered by the investigator or to report any concerns about the study, you may contact the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Institutional Review Board, telephone (402) 472-6965. Please initial here to indicate you have read this page_________

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Freedom to Withdraw: You are free to decide not to participate in this study or to withdraw at any time without adversely affecting your relationship with the investigators or the University of Nebraska. Your decision to participate or not to participate will not result in any loss or benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. Consent, Right to Receive a Copy: You are voluntarily making a decision whether or not to participate in this research study. Your signature certifies that you have decided to participate having read and understood the information presented. ___________ Check if you agree to participate in this research. Signature of Participant: ______________________________________ ___________________________ Signature of Research Participant Date Name and Phone number of investigator(s) Weichun Zhu, Ph.D. candidate, Principal Investigator, Office: (402) 472-2089 Dr. Bruce Avolio, Professor, Secondary Investigator, Office: (402) 472-6380

______________________________________________________________________________

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Thank you for participating in this study! Please tell us a little bit about yourself by responding to the following items. Remember, ONLY the researchers will see your responses, which will be kept strictly confidential. 1. Email address:

(This is required for record keeping purposes and to remind you about part two of this study only, this information will be eliminated upon completion of the study)

2. Your Age (years):

3. Your Sex: Male Female

4. Your Highest Completed Level of Education

a) Less than high school b) High school degree c) Some college d) Associate degree e) Four-year degree f) Masters degree g) Ph.D. or equivalent h) Other (please specify):

5. Marital Status:

(a) Single (b) Married (c) Widowed (d) Divorced or separated

6. Ethnicity: (a) White not of Hispanic Origin (b) Hispanic Origin (c) African American (d) Asian American (e) Native American (f) Other

7. Teaching Position (check all that apply): (a) High School (b) Middle School (c) Elementary School

8. Number of years as a teacher?

9. Number of years in current teaching position?

10. Approximate size of school district (# of students) ______

(a) Less than high school (b) High school degree

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(c) Some college (d) Associate degree (e) Four-year degree (f) Masters degree (g) Ph.D. or equivalent (h) Other (please specify):

Task instruction: You will find below information about a school principal that appeared in the school board public minutes a few months back. We have requested this information from a number of schools around Nebraska as part of the work we are doing with the Nebraska Educational Leadership Institute or NELI. In the institute, we use real scenarios about challenges confronting leaders in schools that are obtained from the school leaders and their district supervisors. These materials have been used to construct a developmental assessment center used by the Institute to assess leadership potential. For this project, we have taken some background information provided on one particular principal to use in the evaluation project you have elected to be a participant in. We have changed the name of the principal and school district to assure anonymity. Your task is to first review background information on this principal followed by a description of the actions that he has taken as described in the materials provided to us by his district. After reviewing these materials, we will ask you to make some judgments regarding your expectations of how this principal would behave in the future in terms of his leadership style. We are asking you to make these judgments based on your first impression from the descriptions of the principal below. Materials Received from the School District John has been principal in Falls High-School for the last 3 years. The following information was extracted from teacher’s comments that were made about John during his standard three year review for contract renewal as reflected in the school Board’s public meeting minutes. “In his school leadership role, John has provided us with ideas that have challenged our basic thinking on how to best lead in our classrooms. John believes in helping us and our students to understand the basic meaning underlying our work together, engaging in the shared goal of learning together, and building the best learning community. He views the classroom as ‘center stage’ for leadership at the most ‘local’ level. John makes decisions by taking time to illicit our views on how best to evaluate the situation and then challenges core assumptions that need to be addressed in the school. He works to constantly get us to question the status quo to find a better way of approaching problem issues and to consider what would be the most positive outcome for the greatest number of people. His over arching goal is to create a positive, optimistic school culture that breeds hope at all levels of the school. John is the type of person that gets to know everyone. He is very good at recalling people’s names, and shows a genuine interest in getting to know each individual. He tends to focus a lot of his energy on figuring out what are our individual strengths, and then sets about challenging us to use those strengths to achieve our full potential. John has frequently demonstrated his commitment to our school. He is generally the last one to

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leave the building after school, and after an event. He makes a lot of personal sacrifices in terms of his time and resources to help us be the kind of school he envisions we can be. Looking back, John is the type of individual who has a clear idea of the type of person he wants to be in his life and he demonstrates those ideals in his behaviors and actions every day. For example, he regularly talks about his own core beliefs and values and mentions how those beliefs and values have shaped his development in terms of how he makes the ‘gray’ decisions—decisions about ethics, morals and values. All of us know that John is a person who always keeps his promises, not only to us teachers, but also to school administrators, students, parents and leaders in the community. He says what is on his mind and in his heart. He is a person who is true to his intentions and does not waiver in terms of what is right to do based on any external pressures.”

Instructions: Based upon your initial impression of John as a leader, we want you to complete the following: 11. Please answer the following questions in relation to how you would expect this principal to behave in the future based on what you just read. Please indicate whether you agree with the following statements (1= Strongly disagree, 5= Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree Sources: 8 items of MLQ (Bass & Avolio, 2003) were from the Mindgarden (http://wwww.mindgarden.com). Five authentic leadership scales were from Avolio and GLI. 12. Imagine the principal (i.e., John) in the scenario is your leader. We want you to rate how this leader would impact your likelihood of agreeing with these statements. There is no right or wrong answer. As a consequence of working with this principal (i.e., John), I would_________

1) view being an ethical person as an important part of who I am ......................................1 2 3 4 5

2) be more committed to my moral principles ........................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) be more determined to behave consistent with my moral ideals or principles...............1 2 3 4 5

4) be more willing to make a sacrifice to be loyal to my moral values ...............................1 2 3 4 5

5) be more willing to place the collective interest over my own personal ego

and interest ..............................................................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

Please read the following scenario. You are to assume the role of a teacher working for the principal described above. After reading the scenario, you will be asked to make some judgments.

Scenario 1:

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This semester, the average performance of students in Falls High-school is below the

average for the state of Nebraska. Your department chair encourages you to ‘spend more time

preparing’ students for the district-wide criterion-referenced testing program so that the school

can meet the state’s criteria. Yet, the department chair has made it clear that each and every

teacher must help in improving the district’s performance. The chair suggests that you should

shift your focus and spend more time helping students practice to take the test, as this is common

practice in schools throughout the state and nation. It seems that it is the only way to stay

competitive.

Consequence: The shift in focus makes it impossible for students to gain enough knowledge

necessary to fully understand this area. If one takes a long-term perspective, it seems clear that

this action will negatively affect the creativity of these students.

13. Again, based on your observation of the characteristics of the principal described above, indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree

1) I expect the principal (i.e., John) described above to oppose training towards the test 1 2 3 4 5

2) I would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the principal (i.e., John) described

above ...................................................................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) I expect that my colleagues would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the

principal (i.e., John) described above .................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

14. Indicate your agreement with the following. There is no right or wrong answer.

1) This shift in focus would hurt students ...............................................................................1 2 3 4 5

2) This shift in focus would do harm to this school’s (i.e., Falls High-school) reputation

........................................................................................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) Training for the test should not be done on moral grounds...............................................1 2 3 4 5

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4) The chair’s suggestion in shift focus is not socially acceptable .......................................1 2 3 4 5

5) The negative effect of the chair’s suggestion in shift focus will be seen shortly ..........1 2 3 4 5

6) I am feeling psychologically close to students ...................................................................1 2 3 4 5

15. We would like you to answer the last 11 questions, and indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree 1). It is sometimes hard for me to go on with my work if I am not encouraged..................1 2 3 4 5

2). I sometimes feel resentful when I don’t get my way.........................................................1 2 3 4 5

3). No matter who I’m talking to, I am always a good listener..............................................1 2 3 4 5

4). There have been occasions when I took advantage of someone .....................................1 2 3 4 5

5). I’m always willing to admit it when I make a mistake......................................................1 2 3 4 5

6). I sometimes try to get even rather than forgive and forget ...............................................1 2 3 4 5

7). I am always courteous, even to people who are disagreeable ..........................................1 2 3 4 5

8). I have never been irked, even when people expressed ideas very different from my own

........................................................................................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

9). There have been times when I was quite jealous of the good fortunes of others...........1 2 3 4 5

10). I am sometimes irritated by people who ask favors of me .............................................1 2 3 4 5

11). I have never deliberately said something that hurt someone’s feelings........................1 2 3 4 5

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APPENDIX B: ATF-LOW

(Inform Consent Form and Demographical Questions Q1 to Q10, see Appendix A) Task instruction: You will find below information about a school principal that appeared in the school board public minutes a few months back. We have requested this information from a number of schools around Nebraska as part of the work we are doing with the Nebraska Educational Leadership Institute or NELI. In the institute, we use real scenarios about challenges confronting leaders in schools that are obtained from the school leaders and their district supervisors. These materials have been used to construct a developmental assessment center used by the Institute to assess leadership potential. For this project, we have taken some background information provided on one particular principal to use in the evaluation project you have elected to be a participant in. We have changed the name of the principal and school district to assure anonymity. Your task is to first review background information on this principal followed by a description of the actions that he has taken as described in the materials provided to us by his district. After reviewing these materials, we will ask you to make some judgments regarding your expectations of how this principal would behave in the future in terms of his leadership style. We are asking you to make these judgments based on your first impression from the descriptions of the principal below. Materials Received from the School District John has been principal in Falls High-School for the last 3 years. The following information was extracted from teacher’s comments that were made about John during his standard three year review for contract renewal as reflected in the school Board’s public meeting minutes. “In his school leadership role, John has provided us with ideas that have challenged our basic thinking on how to best lead in our classrooms. John believes in helping us and our students to understand the basic meaning underlying our work together, engaging in the shared goal of learning together, and building the best learning community. He views the classroom as ‘center stage’ for leadership at the most ‘local’ level. John makes decisions by taking time to illicit our views on how best to evaluate the situation and then challenges core assumptions that need to be addressed in the school. He works to constantly get us to question the status quo to find a better way of approaching problem issues and to consider what would be the most positive outcome for the greatest number of people. His over arching goal is to create a positive, optimistic school culture that breeds hope at all levels of the school. John is the type of person that gets to know everyone. He is very good at recalling people’s names, and shows a genuine interest in getting to know each individual. He tends to focus a lot of his energy on figuring out what are our individual strengths, and then sets about challenging us to use those strengths to achieve our full potential.

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John has frequently demonstrated his commitment to our school. He is generally the last one to leave the building after school, and after an event. He makes a lot of personal sacrifices in terms of his time and resources to help us be the kind of school he envisions we can be. Looking back, John is the type of individual who has a clear idea of the type of person he wants to be in his life and he demonstrates those ideals in his behaviors and actions every day. For example, he regularly talks about his own core beliefs and values and mentions how those beliefs and values have shaped his development in terms of how he makes the ‘gray’ decisions—decisions about ethics, morals and values. All of us know that John is a person who always keeps his promises, not only to us teachers, but also to school administrators, students, parents and leaders in the community. He says what is on his mind and in his heart. He is a person who is true to his intentions and does not waiver in terms of what is right to do based on any external pressures.”

Instructions: Based upon your initial impression of John as a leader, we want you to complete the following: 11. Please answer the following questions in relation to how you would expect this principal to behave in the future based on what you just read. Please indicate whether you agree with the following statements (1= Strongly disagree, 5= Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree Sources: 8 items of MLQ (Bass & Avolio, 2003) were from the Mindgarden (http://wwww.mindgarden.com). Five authentic leadership scales were from Avolio and GLI. 12. Imagine the principal (i.e., John) in the scenario is your leader. We want you to rate how this leader would impact your likelihood of agreeing with these statements. There is no right or wrong answer.

As a consequence of working with this principal (i.e., John), I would_________

1) view being an ethical person as an important part of who I am ......................................1 2 3 4 5

2) be more committed to my moral principles ........................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) be more determined to behave consistent with my moral ideals or principles...............1 2 3 4 5

4) be more willing to make a sacrifice to be loyal to my moral values ...............................1 2 3 4 5

5) be more willing to place the collective interest over my own personal ego and interest 1 2 3 4 5

Please read the following scenario. You are to assume the role of a teacher working for the principal described above. After reading the scenario, you will be asked to make some judgments.

150

Scenario 1:

This semester, the average performance of students in Falls High-school is below the

average for the state of Nebraska. Your department chair encourages you to ‘spend more time

preparing’ students for the district-wide criterion-referenced testing program so that the school

can meet the state’s criteria. Yet, the department chair has made it clear that each and every

teacher must help in improving the district’s performance. The chair suggests that you should

shift your focus and spend more time helping students practice to take the test, as this is common

practice in schools throughout the state and nation. It seems that it is the only way to stay

competitive.

Consequence: There is no strong evidence to indicate that the shift in focus would influence

students’ ability to fully understand this area.

13. Again, based on your observation of the characteristics of the principal described above, indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree

1) I expect the principal (i.e., John) described above to oppose training towards the test 1 2 3 4 5

2) I would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the principal (i.e., John) described

above ...................................................................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) I expect that my colleagues would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the

principal (i.e., John) described above .................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

14. Indicate your agreement with the following. There is no right or wrong answer.

1) This shift in focus would hurt students ...............................................................................1 2 3 4 5

2) This shift in focus would do harm to this school’s (i.e., Falls High-school) reputation

........................................................................................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) Training for the test should not be done on moral grounds..............................................1 2 3 4 5

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4) The chair’s suggestion in shift in focus is not socially acceptable...................................1 2 3 4 5

5) The negative effect of the chair’s suggestion in shift in focus will be seen shortly .....1 2 3 4 5

6) I am feeling psychologically close to students ...................................................................1 2 3 4 5

15. We would like you to answer the last 11 questions, and indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree 1). It is sometimes hard for me to go on with my work if I am not encouraged..................1 2 3 4 5

2). I sometimes feel resentful when I don’t get my way.........................................................1 2 3 4 5

3). No matter who I’m talking to, I am always a good listener..............................................1 2 3 4 5

4). There have been occasions when I took advantage of someone .....................................1 2 3 4 5

5). I’m always willing to admit it when I make a mistake......................................................1 2 3 4 5

6). I sometimes try to get even rather than forgive and forget ...............................................1 2 3 4 5

7). I am always courteous, even to people who are disagreeable ..........................................1 2 3 4 5

8). I have never been irked, even when people expressed ideas very different from my own

........................................................................................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

9). There have been times when I was quite jealous of the good fortunes of others...........1 2 3 4 5

10). I am sometimes irritated by people who ask favors of me .............................................1 2 3 4 5

11). I have never deliberately said something that hurt someone’s feelings........................1 2 3 4 5

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APPENDIX C: TF-High (Inform Consent Form and Demographical Questions Q1 to Q10, see Appendix A)

Task instruction: You will find below information about a school principal that appeared in the school board public minutes a few months back. We have requested this information from a number of schools around Nebraska as part of the work we are doing with the Nebraska Educational Leadership Institute or NELI. In the institute, we use real scenarios about challenges confronting leaders in schools that are obtained from the school leaders and their district supervisors. These materials have been used to construct a developmental assessment center used by the Institute to assess leadership potential. For this project, we have taken some background information provided on one particular principal to use in the evaluation project you have elected to be a participant in. We have changed the name of the principal and school district to assure anonymity. Your task is to first review background information on this principal followed by a description of the actions that he has taken as described in the materials provided to us by his district. After reviewing these materials, we will ask you to make some judgments regarding your expectations of how this principal would behave in the future in terms of his leadership style. We are asking you to make these judgments based on your first impression from the descriptions of the principal below. Materials Received from the School District John has been principal in Falls High-School for the last 3 years. The following information was extracted from teacher’s comments that were made about John during his standard three year review for contract renewal as reflected in the school Board’s public meeting minutes. “In his school leadership role, John has provided us with ideas that have challenged our basic thinking on how to best lead in our classrooms. John believes in helping us and our students to understand the basic meaning underlying our work together, engaging in the shared goal of learning together, and building the best learning community. He views the classroom as ‘center stage’ for leadership at the most ‘local’ level. John makes decisions by taking time to illicit our views on how best to evaluate the situation and then challenges core assumptions that need to be addressed in the school. He works to constantly get us to question the status quo to find a better way of approaching problem issues and to consider what would be the most positive outcome for the greatest number of people. His over arching goal is to create a positive, optimistic school culture that breeds hope at all levels of the school. John is the type of person that gets to know everyone. He is very good at recalling people’s names, and shows a genuine interest in getting to know each individual. He tends to focus a lot of his energy on figuring out what are our individual strengths, and then sets about challenging us to use those strengths to achieve our full potential.

153

John has frequently demonstrated his commitment to our school. He is generally the last one to leave the building after school, and after an event. He makes a lot of personal sacrifices in terms of his time and resources to help us be the kind of school he envisions we can be.” Instructions: Based upon your initial impression of John as a leader, we want you to complete the following: 11. Please answer the following questions in relation to how you would expect this principal to behave in the future based on what you just read. Please indicate whether you agree with the following statements (1= Strongly disagree, 5= Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree Sources: 8 items of MLQ (Bass & Avolio, 2003) were from the Mindgarden (http://wwww.mindgarden.com). Five authentic leadership scales were from Avolio and GLI. 12. Imagine the principal (i.e., John) in the scenario is your leader. We want you to rate how this leader would impact your likelihood of agreeing with these statements. There is no right or wrong answer. As a consequence of working with this principal (i.e., John), I would_________

1) view being an ethical person as an important part of who I am ......................................1 2 3 4 5

2) be more committed to my moral principles ........................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) be more determined to behave consistent with my moral ideals or principles...............1 2 3 4 5

4) be more willing to make a sacrifice to be loyal to my moral values ...............................1 2 3 4 5

5) be more willing to place the collective interest over my own personal ego and interest 1 2 3 4 5

Please read the following scenario. You are to assume the role of a teacher working for the principal described above. After reading the scenario, you will be asked to make some judgments.

Scenario 1

This semester, the average performance of students in Falls High-school is below the average for

the state of Nebraska. Your department chair encourages you to ‘spend more time preparing’

students for the district-wide criterion-referenced testing program so that the school can meet the

state’s criteria. Yet, the department chair has made it clear that each and every teacher must help

in improving the district’s performance. The chair suggests that you should shift your focus and

154

spend more time helping students practice to take the test, as this is common practice in schools

throughout the state and nation. It seems that it is the only way to stay competitive.

Consequence: The shift in focus makes it impossible for students to gain enough knowledge

necessary to fully understand this area. If one takes a long-term perspective, it seems clear that

this action will negatively affect the creativity of these students.

13. Again, based on your observation of the characteristics of the principal described above, indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree

1) I expect the principal (i.e., John) described above to oppose training towards the test 1 2 3 4 5

2) I would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the principal (i.e., John) described

above ...................................................................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) I expect that my colleagues would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the

principal (i.e., John) described above .................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

14. Indicate your agreement with the following. There is no right or wrong answer.

1) This shift in focus would hurt students ...............................................................................1 2 3 4 5

2) This shift in focus would do harm to this school’s (i.e., Falls High-school) reputation 1 2 3 4 5

3) Training for the test should not be done on moral grounds...............................................1 2 3 4 5

4) The chair’s suggestion in shift focus is not socially acceptable .......................................1 2 3 4 5

5) The negative effect of the chair’s suggestion in shift focus will be seen shortly ..........1 2 3 4 5

6) I am feeling psychologically close to students ...................................................................1 2 3 4 5

15. We would like you to answer the last 13 questions, and indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree 1). It is sometimes hard for me to go on with my work if I am not encouraged..................1 2 3 4 5

2). I sometimes feel resentful when I don’t get my way.........................................................1 2 3 4 5

155

3). No matter who I’m talking to, I am always a good listener..............................................1 2 3 4 5

4). There have been occasions when I took advantage of someone .....................................1 2 3 4 5

5). I’m always willing to admit it when I make a mistake......................................................1 2 3 4 5

6). I sometimes try to get even rather than forgive and forget ...............................................1 2 3 4 5

7). I am always courteous, even to people who are disagreeable ..........................................1 2 3 4 5

8). I have never been irked, even when people expressed ideas very different from my own 1 2 3 4 5

9). There have been times when I was quite jealous of the good fortunes of others...........1 2 3 4 5

10). I am sometimes irritated by people who ask favors of me .............................................1 2 3 4 5

11). I have never deliberately said something that hurt someone’s feelings........................1 2 3 4 5

156

APPENDIX D: TF-Low (Inform Consent Form and Demographical Questions Q1 to Q10, see Appendix A)

Task instruction: You will find below information about a school principal that appeared in the school board public minutes a few months back. We have requested this information from a number of schools around Nebraska as part of the work we are doing with the Nebraska Educational Leadership Institute or NELI. In the institute, we use real scenarios about challenges confronting leaders in schools that are obtained from the school leaders and their district supervisors. These materials have been used to construct a developmental assessment center used by the Institute to assess leadership potential. For this project, we have taken some background information provided on one particular principal to use in the evaluation project you have elected to be a participant in. We have changed the name of the principal and school district to assure anonymity. Your task is to first review background information on this principal followed by a description of the actions that he has taken as described in the materials provided to us by his district. After reviewing these materials, we will ask you to make some judgments regarding your expectations of how this principal would behave in the future in terms of his leadership style. We are asking you to make these judgments based on your first impression from the descriptions of the principal below. Materials Received from the School District John has been principal in Falls High-School for the last 3 years. The following information was extracted from teacher’s comments that were made about John during his standard three year review for contract renewal as reflected in the school Board’s public meeting minutes. “In his school leadership role, John has provided us with ideas that have challenged our basic thinking on how to best lead in our classrooms. John believes in helping us and our students to understand the basic meaning underlying our work together, engaging in the shared goal of learning together, and building the best learning community. He views the classroom as ‘center stage’ for leadership at the most ‘local’ level. John makes decisions by taking time to illicit our views on how best to evaluate the situation and then challenges core assumptions that need to be addressed in the school. He works to constantly get us to question the status quo to find a better way of approaching problem issues and to consider what would be the most positive outcome for the greatest number of people. His over arching goal is to create a positive, optimistic school culture that breeds hope at all levels of the school. John is the type of person that gets to know everyone. He is very good at recalling people’s names, and shows a genuine interest in getting to know each individual. He tends to focus a lot of his energy on figuring out what are our individual strengths, and then sets about challenging us to use those strengths to achieve our full potential.

157

John has frequently demonstrated his commitment to our school. He is generally the last one to leave the building after school, and after an event. He makes a lot of personal sacrifices in terms of his time and resources to help us be the kind of school he envisions we can be.” Instructions: Based upon your initial impression of John as a leader, we want you to complete the following: 11. Please answer the following questions in relation to how you would expect this principal to behave in the future based on what you just read. Please indicate whether you agree with the following statements (1= Strongly disagree, 5= Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree Sources: 8 items of MLQ (Bass & Avolio, 2003) were from the Mindgarden (http://wwww.mindgarden.com). Five authentic leadership scales were from Avolio and GLI. 12. Imagine the principal (i.e., John) in the scenario is your leader. We want you to rate how this leader would impact your likelihood of agreeing with these statements. There is no right or wrong answer.

As a consequence of working with this principal (i.e., John), I would_________

1) view being an ethical person as an important part of who I am ......................................1 2 3 4 5

2) be more committed to my moral principles ........................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) be more determined to behave consistent with my moral ideals or principles...............1 2 3 4 5

4) be more willing to make a sacrifice to be loyal to my moral values ...............................1 2 3 4 5

5) be more willing to place the collective interest over my own personal ego and interest 1 2 3 4 5

Please read the following scenario. You are to assume the role of a teacher working for the principal described above. After reading the scenario, you will be asked to make some judgments.

Scenario 1

This semester, the average performance of students in Falls High-school is below the average for

the state of Nebraska. Your department chair encourages you to ‘spend more time preparing’

students for the district-wide criterion-referenced testing program so that the school can meet the

state’s criteria. Yet, the department chair has made it clear that each and every teacher must help

in improving the district’s performance. The chair suggests that you should shift your focus and

158

spend more time helping students practice to take the test, as this is common practice in schools

throughout the state and nation. It seems that it is the only way to stay competitive.

Consequence: There is no strong evidence to indicate that the shift in focus would influence

students’ ability to fully understand this area.

13. Again, based on your observation of the characteristics of the principal described above, indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree

1) I expect the principal (i.e., John) described above to oppose training towards the test 1 2 3 4 5

2) I would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the principal (i.e., John) described

above ...................................................................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) I expect that my colleagues would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the

principal (i.e., John) described above .................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

14. Indicate your agreement with the following. There is no right or wrong answer.

1) This shift in focus would hurt students ...............................................................................1 2 3 4 5

2) This shift in focus would do harm to this school’s (i.e., Falls High-school) reputation 1 2 3 4 5

3) Training for the test should not be done on moral grounds...............................................1 2 3 4 5

4) The chair’s suggestion in shift focus is not socially acceptable .......................................1 2 3 4 5

5) The negative effect of the chair’s suggestion in shift focus will be seen shortly ..........1 2 3 4 5

6) I am feeling psychologically close to students ...................................................................1 2 3 4 5

15. We would like you to answer the last 11 questions, and indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree 1). It is sometimes hard for me to go on with my work if I am not encouraged..................1 2 3 4 5

2). I sometimes feel resentful when I don’t get my way.........................................................1 2 3 4 5

3). No matter who I’m talking to, I am always a good listener..............................................1 2 3 4 5

159

4). There have been occasions when I took advantage of someone .....................................1 2 3 4 5

5). I’m always willing to admit it when I make a mistake......................................................1 2 3 4 5

6). I sometimes try to get even rather than forgive and forget ...............................................1 2 3 4 5

7). I am always courteous, even to people who are disagreeable ..........................................1 2 3 4 5

8). I have never been irked, even when people expressed ideas very different from my own 1 2 3 4 5

9). There have been times when I was quite jealous of the good fortunes of others...........1 2 3 4 5

10). I am sometimes irritated by people who ask favors of me .............................................1 2 3 4 5

11). I have never deliberately said something that hurt someone’s feelings........................1 2 3 4 5

160

APPENDIX E: ATS-High

(Inform Consent Form and Demographical Questions Q1 to Q10, see Appendix A) Task instruction: You will find below information about a school principal that appeared in the school board public minutes a few months back. We have requested this information from a number of schools around Nebraska as part of the work we are doing with the Nebraska Educational Leadership Institute or NELI. In the institute, we use real scenarios about challenges confronting leaders in schools that are obtained from the school leaders and their district supervisors. These materials have been used to construct a developmental assessment center used by the Institute to assess leadership potential. For this project, we have taken some background information provided on one particular principal to use in the evaluation project you have elected to be a participant in. We have changed the name of the principal and school district to assure anonymity. Your task is to first review background information on this principal followed by a description of the actions that he has taken as described in the materials provided to us by his district. After reviewing these materials, we will ask you to make some judgments regarding your expectations of how this principal would behave in the future in terms of his leadership style. We are asking you to make these judgments based on your first impression from the descriptions of the principal below. Materials Received from School District John has been principal in Falls High-school for the last 3 years. The following information was extracted from teacher’s comments that were made about John during his standard three year review for contract renewal as reflected in the Board’s public meeting minutes. “As a leader, John thinks that employees are motivated by just reward and punishment and that organizations like school systems work best with a clear chain of command. He believes that we as teachers need to do what he tells us to do to achieve the best results. He often says: “Do as I have asked in terms of goals and expectations and I will make sure you get the resources and rewards you need to be successful. Fail to meet our agreed upon expectations and I will be swift in correcting the problem. Both in success and in failure you will know my position. John is very hands on in terms of his style, and constantly monitors and checks whether we have deviated from the prescribed teaching goals and deliverables for the school. If a teacher, staff member or student does something wrong, John will point it out immediately and take whatever punitive action is necessary. John spends a lot of time in trying to get us to avoid making mistakes in our school. We all know very clearly that when he allocates work to us, he expects that we are fully responsible for it and to make him aware immediately if we can’t achieve the goals. He is not someone who enjoys surprises, nor excuses. John regularly spends time clarifying the goals we have and his expectations in terms of deliverables. Although he is swift in correcting mistakes, he is also equally swift in providing

161

rewards for achieving expected performance. John is a performance driven leader who focuses on outcomes, and is less concerned about the process to get to those outcomes. Looking back, John is the type of individual who has a clear idea of the type of person he wants to be in his life and he demonstrates that in his behaviors and actions every day. For example, he regularly talks about his own core beliefs and values and mentions how those beliefs and values have shaped his development in terms of how he makes the ‘gray’ decisions—decisions about ethics, morals and values. All of us know that John is a person who keeps his promises, not only to us teachers, but also to the school district, students, and students’ parents, and the community. He has no reservation about saying what is on his mind. He is a person who is true to his intentions and does not waiver in terms of what is right to do based on any external pressures. ” Instructions: Based upon your initial impression of John as a leader, we want you to complete the following: 11. Please answer the following questions in relation to how you would expect this principal to behave in the future based on what you just read. Please indicate whether you agree with the following statements (1= Strongly disagree, 5= Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree Sources: 8 items of MLQ (Bass & Avolio, 2003) were from the Mindgarden (http://wwww.mindgarden.com). Five authentic leadership scales were from Avolio and GLI. Imagine the principal (i.e., John) in the scenario is your leader. We want you to rate how this leader would impact your likelihood of agreeing with these statements. There is no right or wrong answer.

As a consequence of working with this principal (i.e., John), I would_________

1) view being an ethical person as an important part of who I am ......................................1 2 3 4 5

2) be more committed to my moral principles ........................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) be more determined to behave consistent with my moral ideals or principles...............1 2 3 4 5

4) be more willing to make a sacrifice to be loyal to my moral values ................................1 2 3 4 5

5) be more willing to place the collective interest over my own personal ego and interest 1 2 3 4 5

Please read the following scenario. You are to assume the role of a teacher working for the principal described above. After reading the scenario, you will be asked to make some judgments.

Scenario 1

162

This semester, the average performance of students in Falls High-school is below the

average for the state of Nebraska. Your department chair encourages you to ‘spend more time

preparing’ students for the district-wide criterion-referenced testing program so that the school

can meet the state’s criteria. Yet, the department chair has made it clear that each and every

teacher must help in improving the district’s performance. The chair suggests that you should

shift your focus and spend more time helping students practice to take the test, as this is common

practice in schools throughout the state and nation. It seems that it is the only way to stay

competitive.

Consequence: The shift in focus makes it impossible for students to gain enough knowledge

necessary to fully understand this area. If one takes a long-term perspective, it seems clear that

this action will negatively affect the creativity of these students.

13. Again, based on your observation of the characteristics of the principal described above, indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree

1) I expect the principal (i.e., John) described above to oppose training towards the test 1 2 3 4 5

2) I would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the principal (i.e., John) described

above ...................................................................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) I expect that my colleagues would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the

principal (i.e., John) described above .................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

14. Indicate your agreement with the following. There is no right or wrong answer.

1) This shift in focus would hurt students ...............................................................................1 2 3 4 5

2) This shift in focus would do harm to this school’s (i.e., Falls High-school) reputation 1 2 3 4 5

3) Training for the test should not be done on moral grounds...............................................1 2 3 4 5

4) The chair’s suggestion in shift focus is not socially acceptable .......................................1 2 3 4 5

163

5) The negative effect of the chair’s suggestion in shift focus will be seen shortly ..........1 2 3 4 5

6) I am feeling psychologically close to students ...................................................................1 2 3 4 5

15. We would like you to answer the last 11 questions, and indicate your agreement with

the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree 1). It is sometimes hard for me to go on with my work if I am not encouraged..................1 2 3 4 5

2). I sometimes feel resentful when I don’t get my way.........................................................1 2 3 4 5

3). No matter who I’m talking to, I am always a good listener..............................................1 2 3 4 5

4). There have been occasions when I took advantage of someone .....................................1 2 3 4 5

5). I’m always willing to admit it when I make a mistake......................................................1 2 3 4 5

6). I sometimes try to get even rather than forgive and forget ...............................................1 2 3 4 5

7). I am always courteous, even to people who are disagreeable ..........................................1 2 3 4 5

8). I have never been irked, even when people expressed ideas very different from my own 1 2 3 4 5

9). There have been times when I was quite jealous of the good fortunes of others...........1 2 3 4 5

10). I am sometimes irritated by people who ask favors of me .............................................1 2 3 4 5

11). I have never deliberately said something that hurt someone’s feelings........................1 2 3 4 5

164

APPENDIX F: ATS-Low (Inform Consent Form and Demographical Questions Q1 to Q10, see Appendix A)

Task instruction: You will find below information about a school principal that appeared in the school board public minutes a few months back. We have requested this information from a number of schools around Nebraska as part of the work we are doing with the Nebraska Educational Leadership Institute or NELI. In the institute, we use real scenarios about challenges confronting leaders in schools that are obtained from the school leaders and their district supervisors. These materials have been used to construct a developmental assessment center used by the Institute to assess leadership potential. For this project, we have taken some background information provided on one particular principal to use in the evaluation project you have elected to be a participant in. We have changed the name of the principal and school district to assure anonymity. Your task is to first review background information on this principal followed by a description of the actions that he has taken as described in the materials provided to us by his district. After reviewing these materials, we will ask you to make some judgments regarding your expectations of how this principal would behave in the future in terms of his leadership style. We are asking you to make these judgments based on your first impression from the descriptions of the principal below. Materials Received from School District John has been principal in Falls High-school for the last 3 years. The following information was extracted from teacher’s comments that were made about John during his standard three year review for contract renewal as reflected in the Board’s public meeting minutes. “As a leader, John thinks that employees are motivated by just reward and punishment and that organizations like school systems work best with a clear chain of command. He believes that we as teachers need to do what he tells us to do to achieve the best results. He often says: “Do as I have asked in terms of goals and expectations and I will make sure you get the resources and rewards you need to be successful. Fail to meet our agreed upon expectations and I will be swift in correcting the problem. Both in success and in failure you will know my position. John is very hands on in terms of his style, and constantly monitors and checks whether we have deviated from the prescribed teaching goals and deliverables for the school. If a teacher, staff member or student does something wrong, John will point it out immediately and take whatever punitive action is necessary. John spends a lot of time in trying to get us to avoid making mistakes in our school. We all know very clearly that when he allocates work to us, he expects that we are fully responsible for it and to make him aware immediately if we can’t achieve the goals. He is not someone who enjoys surprises, nor excuses. John regularly spends time clarifying the goals we have and his expectations in terms of deliverables. Although he is swift in correcting mistakes, he is also equally swift in providing

165

rewards for achieving expected performance. John is a performance driven leader who focuses on outcomes, and is less concerned about the process to get to those outcomes. Looking back, John is the type of individual who has a clear idea of the type of person he wants to be in his life and he demonstrates that in his behaviors and actions every day. For example, he regularly talks about his own core beliefs and values and mentions how those beliefs and values have shaped his development in terms of how he makes the ‘gray’ decisions—decisions about ethics, morals and values. All of us know that John is a person who keeps his promises, not only to us teachers, but also to the school district, students, and students’ parents, and the community. He has no reservation about saying what is on his mind. He is a person who is true to his intentions and does not waiver in terms of what is right to do based on any external pressures. ” Instructions: Based upon your initial impression of John as a leader, we want you to complete the following: 11. Please answer the following questions in relation to how you would expect this principal to behave in the future based on what you just read. Please indicate whether you agree with the following statements (1= Strongly disagree, 5= Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree Sources: 8 items of MLQ (Bass & Avolio, 2003) were from the Mindgarden (http://wwww.mindgarden.com). Five authentic leadership scales were from Avolio and GLI. 12. Imagine the principal (i.e., John) in the scenario is your leader. We want you to rate how this leader would impact your likelihood of agreeing with these statements. There is no right or wrong answer. As a consequence of working with this principal (i.e., John), I would_________

1) view being an ethical person as an important part of who I am ......................................1 2 3 4 5

2) be more committed to my moral principles ........................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) be more determined to behave consistent with my moral ideals or principles...............1 2 3 4 5

4) be more willing to make a sacrifice to be loyal to my moral values ................................1 2 3 4 5

5) be more willing to place the collective interest over my own personal ego and interest 1 2 3 4 5

Please read the following scenario. You are to assume the role of a teacher working for the principal described above. After reading the scenario, you will be asked to make some judgments.

Scenario 1

166

This semester, the average performance of students in Falls High-school is below the

average for the state of Nebraska. Your department chair encourages you to ‘spend more time

preparing’ students for the district-wide criterion-referenced testing program so that the school

can meet the state’s criteria. Yet, the department chair has made it clear that each and every

teacher must help in improving the district’s performance. The chair suggests that you should

shift your focus and spend more time helping students practice to take the test, as this is common

practice in schools throughout the state and nation. It seems that it is the only way to stay

competitive.

Consequence: There is no strong evidence to indicate that the shift in focus would influence

students’ ability to fully understand this area.

13. Again, based on your observation of the characteristics of the principal described above, indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree

1) I expect the principal (i.e., John) described above to oppose training towards the test 1 2 3 4 5

2) I would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the principal (i.e., John) described

above ...................................................................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) I expect that my colleagues would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the

principal (i.e., John) described above .................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

14. Indicate your agreement with the following. There is no right or wrong answer.

1) This shift in focus would hurt students ...............................................................................1 2 3 4 5

2) This shift in focus would do harm to this school’s (i.e., Falls High-school) reputation 1 2 3 4 5

3) Training for the test should not be done on moral grounds...............................................1 2 3 4 5

4) The chair’s suggestion in shift focus is not socially acceptable .......................................1 2 3 4 5

5) The negative effect of the chair’s suggestion in shift focus will be seen shortly ..........1 2 3 4 5

167

6) I am feeling psychologically close to students ...................................................................1 2 3 4 5

15. We would like you to answer the last 11 questions, and indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree 1). It is sometimes hard for me to go on with my work if I am not encouraged..................1 2 3 4 5

2). I sometimes feel resentful when I don’t get my way.........................................................1 2 3 4 5

3). No matter who I’m talking to, I am always a good listener..............................................1 2 3 4 5

4). There have been occasions when I took advantage of someone .....................................1 2 3 4 5

5). I’m always willing to admit it when I make a mistake......................................................1 2 3 4 5

6). I sometimes try to get even rather than forgive and forget ...............................................1 2 3 4 5

7). I am always courteous, even to people who are disagreeable ..........................................1 2 3 4 5

8). I have never been irked, even when people expressed ideas very different from my own 1 2 3 4 5

9). There have been times when I was quite jealous of the good fortunes of others...........1 2 3 4 5

10). I am sometimes irritated by people who ask favors of me .............................................1 2 3 4 5

11). I have never deliberately said something that hurt someone’s feelings........................1 2 3 4 5

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APPENDIX G: TS-High

(Inform Consent Form and Demographical Questions Q1 to Q10, see Appendix A) Task instruction: You will find below information about a school principal that appeared in the school board public minutes a few months back. We have requested this information from a number of schools around Nebraska as part of the work we are doing with the Nebraska Educational Leadership Institute or NELI. In the institute, we use real scenarios about challenges confronting leaders in schools that are obtained from the school leaders and their district supervisors. These materials have been used to construct a developmental assessment center used by the Institute to assess leadership potential. For this project, we have taken some background information provided on one particular principal to use in the evaluation project you have elected to be a participant in. We have changed the name of the principal and school district to assure anonymity. Your task is to first review background information on this principal followed by a description of the actions that he has taken as described in the materials provided to us by his district. After reviewing these materials, we will ask you to make some judgments regarding your expectations of how this principal would behave in the future in terms of his leadership style. We are asking you to make these judgments based on your first impression from the descriptions of the principal below. Materials Received from School District John has been principal in Falls High-school for the last 3 years. The following information was extracted from teacher’s comments that were made about John during his standard three year review for contract renewal as reflected in the Board’s public meeting minutes. “As a leader, John thinks that employees are motivated by just reward and punishment and that organizations like school systems work best with a clear chain of command. He believes that we as teachers need to do what he tells us to do to achieve the best results. He often says: “Do as I have asked in terms of goals and expectations and I will make sure you get the resources and rewards you need to be successful. Fail to meet our agreed upon expectations and I will be swift in correcting the problem. Both in success and in failure you will know my position. John is very hands on in terms of his style, and constantly monitors and checks whether we have deviated from the prescribed teaching goals and deliverables for the school. If a teacher, staff member or student does something wrong, John will point it out immediately and take whatever punitive action is necessary. John spends a lot of time in trying to get us to avoid making mistakes in our school. We all know very clearly that when he allocates work to us, he expects that we are fully responsible for it and to make him aware immediately if we can’t achieve the goals. He is not someone who enjoys surprises, nor excuses. John regularly spends time clarifying the goals we have and his expectations in terms of deliverables. Although he is swift in correcting mistakes, he is also equally swift in providing

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rewards for achieving expected performance. John is a performance driven leader who focuses on outcomes, and is less concerned about the process to get to those outcomes.” Instructions: Based upon your initial impression of John as a leader, we want you to complete the following: 11. Please answer the following questions in relation to how you would expect this principal to behave in the future based on what you just read. Please indicate whether you agree with the following statements (1= Strongly disagree, 5= Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree Sources: 8 items of MLQ (Bass & Avolio, 2003) were from the Mindgarden (http://wwww.mindgarden.com). Five authentic leadership scales were from Avolio and GLI. 12. Imagine the principal (i.e., John) in the scenario is your leader. We want you to rate how this leader would impact your likelihood of agreeing with these statements. There is no right or wrong answer. As a consequence of working with this principal (i.e., John), I would_________

1) view being an ethical person as an important part of who I am ......................................1 2 3 4 5

2) be more committed to my moral principles ........................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) be more determined to behave consistent with my moral ideals or principles...............1 2 3 4 5

4) be more willing to make a sacrifice to be loyal to my moral values ................................1 2 3 4 5

5) be more willing to place the collective interest over my own personal ego and interest 1 2 3 4 5

Please read the following scenario. You are to assume the role of a teacher working for the principal described above. After reading the scenario, you will be asked to make some judgments.

Scenario 1

This semester, the average performance of students in Falls High-school is below the average for

the state of Nebraska. Your department chair encourages you to ‘spend more time preparing’

students for the district-wide criterion-referenced testing program so that the school can meet the

state’s criteria. Yet, the department chair has made it clear that each and every teacher must help

in improving the district’s performance. The chair suggests that you should shift your focus and

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spend more time helping students practice to take the test, as this is common practice in schools

throughout the state and nation. It seems that it is the only way to stay competitive.

Consequence: The shift in focus makes it impossible for students to gain enough knowledge

necessary to fully understand this area. If one takes a long-term perspective, it seems clear that

this action will negatively affect the creativity of these students.

13. Again, based on your observation of the characteristics of the principal described above, indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree

1) I expect the principal (i.e., John) described above to oppose training towards the test 1 2 3 4 5

2) I would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the principal (i.e., John) described

above ...................................................................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) I expect that my colleagues would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the

principal (i.e., John) described above .................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

14. Indicate your agreement with the following. There is no right or wrong answer.

1) This shift in focus would hurt students ...............................................................................1 2 3 4 5

2) This shift in focus would do harm to this school’s (i.e., Falls High-school) reputation 1 2 3 4 5

3) Training for the test should not be done on moral grounds...............................................1 2 3 4 5

4) The chair’s suggestion in shift focus is not socially acceptable .......................................1 2 3 4 5

5) The negative effect of the chair’s suggestion in shift focus will be seen shortly ..........1 2 3 4 5

6) I am feeling psychologically close to students ...................................................................1 2 3 4 5

15. We would like you to answer the last 11 questions, and indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree 1). It is sometimes hard for me to go on with my work if I am not encouraged..................1 2 3 4 5

2). I sometimes feel resentful when I don’t get my way.........................................................1 2 3 4 5

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3). No matter who I’m talking to, I am always a good listener..............................................1 2 3 4 5

4). There have been occasions when I took advantage of someone .....................................1 2 3 4 5

5). I’m always willing to admit it when I make a mistake......................................................1 2 3 4 5

6). I sometimes try to get even rather than forgive and forget ...............................................1 2 3 4 5

7). I am always courteous, even to people who are disagreeable ..........................................1 2 3 4 5

8). I have never been irked, even when people expressed ideas very different from my own 1 2 3 4 5

9). There have been times when I was quite jealous of the good fortunes of others...........1 2 3 4 5

10). I am sometimes irritated by people who ask favors of me .............................................1 2 3 4 5

11). I have never deliberately said something that hurt someone’s feelings........................1 2 3 4 5

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APPENDIX H: TS-Low (Inform Consent Form and Demographical Questions Q1 to Q10, see Appendix A)

Task instruction: You will find below information about a school principal that appeared in the school board public minutes a few months back. We have requested this information from a number of schools around Nebraska as part of the work we are doing with the Nebraska Educational Leadership Institute or NELI. In the institute, we use real scenarios about challenges confronting leaders in schools that are obtained from the school leaders and their district supervisors. These materials have been used to construct a developmental assessment center used by the Institute to assess leadership potential. For this project, we have taken some background information provided on one particular principal to use in the evaluation project you have elected to be a participant in. We have changed the name of the principal and school district to assure anonymity. Your task is to first review background information on this principal followed by a description of the actions that he has taken as described in the materials provided to us by his district. After reviewing these materials, we will ask you to make some judgments regarding your expectations of how this principal would behave in the future in terms of his leadership style. We are asking you to make these judgments based on your first impression from the descriptions of the principal below. Materials Received from School District John has been principal in Falls High-school for the last 3 years. The following information was extracted from teacher’s comments that were made about John during his standard three year review for contract renewal as reflected in the Board’s public meeting minutes. “As a leader, John thinks that employees are motivated by just reward and punishment and that organizations like school systems work best with a clear chain of command. He believes that we as teachers need to do what he tells us to do to achieve the best results. He often says: “Do as I have asked in terms of goals and expectations and I will make sure you get the resources and rewards you need to be successful. Fail to meet our agreed upon expectations and I will be swift in correcting the problem. Both in success and in failure you will know my position. John is very hands on in terms of his style, and constantly monitors and checks whether we have deviated from the prescribed teaching goals and deliverables for the school. If a teacher, staff member or student does something wrong, John will point it out immediately and take whatever punitive action is necessary. John spends a lot of time in trying to get us to avoid making mistakes in our school. We all know very clearly that when he allocates work to us, he expects that we are fully responsible for it and to make him aware immediately if we can’t achieve the goals. He is not someone who enjoys surprises, nor excuses. John regularly spends time clarifying the goals we have and his expectations in terms of deliverables. Although he is swift in correcting mistakes, he is also equally swift in providing

173

rewards for achieving expected performance. John is a performance driven leader who focuses on outcomes, and is less concerned about the process to get to those outcomes.” Instructions: Based upon your initial impression of John as a leader, we want you to complete the following: 11. Please answer the following questions in relation to how you would expect this principal to behave in the future based on what you just read. Please indicate whether you agree with the following statements (1= Strongly disagree, 5= Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree Sources: 8 items of MLQ (Bass & Avolio, 2003) were from the Mindgarden (http://wwww.mindgarden.com). Five authentic leadership scales were from Avolio and GLI. 12. Imagine the principal (i.e., John) in the scenario is your leader. We want you to rate how this leader would impact your likelihood of agreeing with these statements. There is no right or wrong answer. As a consequence of working with this principal (i.e., John), I would_________

1) view being an ethical person as an important part of who I am ......................................1 2 3 4 5

2) be more committed to my moral principles ........................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) be more determined to behave consistent with my moral ideals or principles...............1 2 3 4 5

4) be more willing to make a sacrifice to be loyal to my moral values ................................1 2 3 4 5

5) be more willing to place the collective interest over my own personal ego and interest 1 2 3 4 5

Please read the following scenario. You are to assume the role of a teacher working for the principal described above. After reading the scenario, you will be asked to make some judgments.

Scenario 1

This semester, the average performance of students in Falls High-school is below the average for

the state of Nebraska. Your department chair encourages you to ‘spend more time preparing’

students for the district-wide criterion-referenced testing program so that the school can meet the

state’s criteria. Yet, the department chair has made it clear that each and every teacher must help

in improving the district’s performance. The chair suggests that you should shift your focus and

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spend more time helping students practice to take the test, as this is common practice in schools

throughout the state and nation. It seems that it is the only way to stay competitive.

Consequence: There is no strong evidence to indicate that the shift in focus would influence

students’ ability to fully understand this area.

13. Again, based on your observation of the characteristics of the principal described above, indicate your agreement with the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree

1) I expect the principal (i.e., John) described above to oppose training towards the test 1 2 3 4 5

2) I would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the principal (i.e., John) described

above ...................................................................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

3) I expect that my colleagues would report the chair’s suggestion in shifting focus to the

principal (i.e., John) described above .................................................................................1 2 3 4 5

14. Indicate your agreement with the following. There is no right or wrong answer.

1) This shift in focus would hurt students ...............................................................................1 2 3 4 5

2) This shift in focus would do harm to this school’s (i.e., Falls High-school) reputation 1 2 3 4 5

3) Training for the test should not be done on moral grounds...............................................1 2 3 4 5

4) The chair’s suggestion in shift focus is not socially acceptable .......................................1 2 3 4 5

5) The negative effect of the chair’s suggestion in shift focus will be seen shortly ..........1 2 3 4 5

6) I am feeling psychologically close to students ...................................................................1 2 3 4 5

15. We would like you to answer the last 13 questions, and indicate your agreement with

the following (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly Agree). There is no right or wrong answer.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly disagree Neutral Strongly agree 1). It is sometimes hard for me to go on with my work if I am not encouraged..................1 2 3 4 5

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2). I sometimes feel resentful when I don’t get my way.........................................................1 2 3 4 5

3). No matter who I’m talking to, I am always a good listener..............................................1 2 3 4 5

4). There have been occasions when I took advantage of someone .....................................1 2 3 4 5

5). I’m always willing to admit it when I make a mistake......................................................1 2 3 4 5

6). I sometimes try to get even rather than forgive and forget ...............................................1 2 3 4 5

7). I am always courteous, even to people who are disagreeable ..........................................1 2 3 4 5

8). I have never been irked, even when people expressed ideas very different from my own 1 2 3 4 5

9). There have been times when I was quite jealous of the good fortunes of others...........1 2 3 4 5

10). I am sometimes irritated by people who ask favors of me .............................................1 2 3 4 5

11). I have never deliberately said something that hurt someone’s feelings........................1 2 3 4 5