Leading with moral courage: The interplay of guilt and courage on perceived ethical leadership and group organizational citizenship behaviors

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12270
• Date: 01 July 2020
• Author: Gazi Islam,Filipe Sobral,Juliana Mansur
• Published date: 01 July 2020

Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2020;29:587–601. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer  

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  587© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

“Thus conscien ce does make cowards of us all”, Hamlet,

Act III, i, 64–98.

1 | INTRODUCTION

Leaders ofte n need to make ethic ally relevant dec isions, especia lly

in contexts of gre at risk (e.g., Den Hartog, 2 015). Where uncertaint y

and ambiguity are intrinsic elements of organizational functioning,

acting accord ing to one’s ethical princi ples may mean facing pe rsonal

risk, social excl usion, or even physic al danger (e.g., Palanski, Culle n,

Gentry, & Nichols, 2015). In such contexts, ethical decisions require

what has been ter med “moral courage” (C omer & Vega, 2011; Hannah

& Avolio, 2010; Kidder, 2005 ), defined as a complex of ethical co m-

petencies enab ling and motivat ing individuals t o commit to moral

principles an d do what they believe to be mora lly right in face of ob-

stacles and t hreats (Sekerk a, Bagozzi, & Char nigo, 2009). By act ing

with moral cour age, leaders bring e thical values into ma nagerial deci-

sions, bringin g long-term benefits f or the organizatio n (Simola, 2018).

Despite growing i nterest around t he positive benef its of leader

morality an d ethicality (e. g., Mayer, Kuenzi, Green baum, Bardes , &

Salvador, 2009; Pe ng & Lin, 2017; Pircher Verdor fer & Peus, 2019;

Zheng et al., 2015), few s tudies have examined the impac t of lead-

ers’ moral cour age on follower attitu des and behaviors (e.g ., Hannah,

Avolio, & Walumbwa, 2011; Palan ski et al., 2015). Par ticularly, we

know little ab out how leaders’ moral cour age influences group pro-

social outcomes, specifically fostering collective engagement in

discretionar y helping behaviors, know n as group OCB. We propose

that leaders w ho are morally courageous will li kely be perceived as

ethical role mo dels by followers, who will te nd to reproduce the be-

haviors of their su periors and “do the right t hing” for their work te am

and organization.

However, because mor al courage works as a signaling mec hanism

by which group mem bers recognize their lea ders as ethical role m odels

Received: 5 July 2 018 

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  Revised: 23 Januar y 2020 

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  Accepted: 26 Januar y 2020

DOI: 10 .1111/bee r.12270

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Leading with moral courage: The interplay of guilt and courage

on perceived ethical leadership and group organizational

citizenship behaviors

Juliana Mansur1 | Filipe Sobral1 | Gazi Islam2

1Brazilian Sc hool of Public and Bus iness

Administration, Fundação Getulio Vargas,

Rio de Janeiro, B razil

2Grenoble Ecole de Management, France

[Correctio n added on 27 June 2020, a fter

first onlin e publication: Th ird author

affiliation has been amended to ‘Grenoble

Ecole de Manage ment, France’ in this

versio n.]

Correspondence

Filipe Sobr al, Escola Brasil eira de

Administr ação Pública e de Em presas -

Fundação Get ulio Vargas, Rua Jorn alista

Orlando Dant as, 30, Rio de Jane iro 22231-

010, Bra zil.

Email: filipe.sobral@fgv.br

Funding information

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento

Científico e Tecno lógico, Grant/Award

Number: 30 3690; Fundação Ca rlos Chagas

Filho de Ampa ro à Pesquisa do Est ado

do Rio de Janeir o, Grant/Award Numbe r:

226687

Abstract

This study uses a mo derated mediation model to inves tigate the role of leaders’ mor al

courage and guilt in pro moting group-level organizationa l citizenship behavior (OCB).

Based on the idea tha t leaders model ethical behavior a mong followers, we examine

whether leaders’ display of morally laden emotions weaken follower perceptions of

ethical leader ship, thus disrupting t he influence of moral cou rage on followers. Two

independent st udies examined the p roposed model. Stud y 1 used an experiment al

design to examine lead ers’ moral displays, te sting the interac tive effect s of leader

moral courage, and g uilt on follower perceptio ns of ethical leader ship. Study 2 used

a multis ource field s tudy with 100 leaders and 336 sub ordinates to ex plore how a

leader displays of cour age and guilt influenced group-level OCB, m ediated by ethical

leadership. Consis tent with our theore tical model, we fin d an indirect positi ve rela-

tionship betwee n a leader’s moral cour age and group OCB. However, we also find

that this effect i s weakened by displays of guilt by the leader.