Virtuous Leadership Research Articles

Virtuous leadership: Ambiguities, challenges, and precedents

AbstractVirtuous leadership is the focus of a growing body of academic literature but is little discussed by contemporary philosophers. Current treatments tend to over‐generalisation: assimilating diverse features to a few broad categories and applying simplified ethical theories. This essay argues that virtue and character education need to be keyed to specific activities, that “virtuous leadership” is in danger of being confused with extrinsic activism, and that the history of ethics in health care provides an instructive example of thinking ethically about practice. Questions commonly posed in the literature—What specific virtues are required for leadership? How may these be formed?—are unduly simple and often rest on faulty assumptions about the nature of leadership and of the structure of virtuous action. Philosophers engaged in advising professionals about the virtues of leadership would do well to consider how the relevant points apply to their own practice.

Disfigurement and Deliverance: Eusebian Portrayals of Martyrdom and the Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne

Abstract: This study examines Eusebius’s physical portrayals of martyrs, situating them within his moral and rhetorical agenda in his Ecclesiastical History . To bring the contours of his discourse into greater relief, I first compare Eusebius’s martyr portrayals with those of the Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne (one of the longest ostensibly non-Eusebian martyr narratives in the History ). After noting several minor differences between the descriptions in Eusebius’s martyr stories and those populating the Letter , I highlight one significant discursive disparity: namely, the physiognomic and sartorial details in the Letter tend to emphasize the martyrs’ divine physical restoration and glorification during their ordeals, while Eusebian martyr stories place greater emphasis on the martyrs’ gruesome disfigurement. Having made a case for the Letter ’s distinct deployment of physical details—further suggesting its authorial independence from Eusebius—the remainder of the article focuses on one particular historiographic and pedagogical aim to which Eusebius deploys these grisly martyrological images: amplifying the irrationality and cruelty of persecuting imperial leaders. From the early books of the History , Eusebius frequently catalogues imperial leaders as either pious respecters of the Christians, in step with traditional Roman mores , or impious persecutors, exemplifying their irrationality and lack of imperial virtue. The mangled bodies of the martyrs adorn Eusebius’s History , I argue, at least in part as gruesome monuments to immoral, barbaric leaders. These evil exempla , in turn, provide both an effective foil for the virtuous leadership of Christian-favoring leaders and a stern moral warning for future leaders. At various points in this article, I also bring Eusebius’s earlier narrative, Martyrs of Palestine , into the conversation to demonstrate further the relative stability of Eusebius’s physiognomic portrayals of martyrs.

Patiently winning through virtuous leadership: The impact of virtuous leadership behavior on employee engagement across time

Patiently winning through virtuous leadership: The impact of virtuous leadership behavior on employee engagement across time

Validation and analysis of the metric properties of the Leadership Virtues Questionnaire in work and organizational psychologists and individuals who perform leadership functions in Chile.

The literature on leadership and personal competencies exhibits limitations in terms of construct definition, behavior specifications and valid theory-based measuring strategies. An explanatory design with latent variables and the statistical software SAS 9.4 were used for the validation and adaptation to Spanish of the Leadership Virtues Questionnaire applied to work and organizational psychologists and people who exercise leadership functions in Chile. The levels of agreement between judges for the adaptation to the Spanish language and the confirmatory factor analysis of first order with four dimensions shows insufficient statistical indices for the absolute, comparative and parsimonious adjustments. However, a second-order confirmatory factor analysis with two dimensions presents a satisfactory fit for the item, model, and parameter matrices. The measurement of Virtuous Leadership would provide relevant inputs for further evaluation and training based on ethical competencies aimed at improving management, which would, in turn, allow for its treatment as an independent variable to generate an ethical organizational culture.

ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM OF CORRUPTION IN THE WORKS OF ANCIENT THINKERS AND MOVAROUNNAHR SCHOLARS

This article presents an analysis of the problem of corruption as articulated in the works of ancient thinkers and Movarounnahr scholars. Drawing upon the writings of philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Confucius, as well as the contributions of Movarounnahr scholars including Avicenna, Al-Farabi, and Al-Biruni, the analysis offers a multidisciplinary exploration of the ethical and sociopolitical dimensions of corruption within diverse cultural and historical contexts.The analysis reveals recurring themes and nuanced variations in the conceptualization of corruption, shedding light on the enduring relevance of ancient insights to contemporary discussions of governance, ethics, and societal well-being. Emphasizing the ethical imperatives of virtuous leadership, the cultivation of moral character, and the establishment of resilient institutions, the works of these thinkers and scholars offer valuable perspectives that continue to inform efforts to address corruption and uphold the ideals of just and virtuous societies.

Habitual Leadership Ethics: Timelessness and Virtuous Leadership in the Jesuit Order

This paper is about the relationship between leadership, organisational morals, and temporality. We argue that engaging with questions of time and temporality may help us overcome the overly agentic view of organisational morals and leadership ethics that dominates extant literature. Our analysis of the role of time in organizational morals and leadership ethics starts from a virtue-based approach to leading large-scale moral endeavours. We ask: how can we account for organizational morality across generations and independently of the leader? To address this question, we studied the leadership model of the Jesuits, a Catholic Religious Order. Our case reveals that a virtue-based model of leadership does not necessarily imply that those who are selected to lead the organization are themselves virtuous, but that the processes underpinning the exercise of leadership are cyclical and repeated as truthfully as possible. Virtuous leadership, for the Jesuits, is therefore about the construction of an ideal type of leadership against which the processes which sustain it were designed. Our theoretical contribution is twofold. First, we propose an habitual understanding of moral forms of leadership, in which the procedural is constitutive of moral forms of organising; second, we explain how “timelessness”, understood as the quality of not changing as years go by, allowed the Jesuits to centre the processes which sustain their ethical model on the repetition, across space and time, of said processes, rather than on their outcome. We conclude that the search for virtue might be more relevant for large-scale moral endeavours than virtue itself.

The relationship between virtuous leadership and innovation management in the pharmaceutical companies of the public business sector – Egypt

Purpose The current paper is aimed to explore the relationship between virtuous leadership (VL) dimensions and the dimensions of innovation management (IM) among employees in pharmaceutical companies of the public business sector – Egypt. Design/methodology/approach The current paper relied on the descriptive and analytical method and the survey paper in dealing with the paper variables. Participants for this paper consisted of (312) employees who completed a questionnaire that assessed VL and IM. Findings The results revealed that there is a positive, statistically significant relationship between VL and IM, Specifically, there is a positive effect of courage, justice and prudence on strategic innovation, a positive effect of courage, humanity and asceticism on technical innovation, and there is a positive effect of prudence, humanity and courage on management innovation. Practical implications The paper concluded that VL acts as an important tool that facilitates IM and promotes high levels of innovation for employees. Originality/value The current paper contributed to understanding the conditions in which employees of pharmaceutical companies have VL and provided additional guidance for effective practices of quality IM in pharmaceutical companies of the public business sector. In this study, a model was built to analyze the mechanism underlying the relationship between virtuous leadership and innovation management in pharmaceutical companies.

THE IMPACT OF VIRTUOUS LEADERSHIP ON EMPLOYEES’ PERFORMANCE

This study seeks to examine the impact of virtuous leadership on individual performance of employees, and the mediator role of affective commitment in the mentioned relationship. The sample comprises 370 individuals from different Portuguese organizations. The findings suggest that (i) virtuous leadership explains individual performance and affective commitment, (ii) affective commitment explains individual performance, (iii) the relationship between virtuous leadership and individual performance is totally mediated by affective commitment. Despite the limitations of the study, the empirical evidence helps to understand that organizations, and in particular leaders, can promote emotionally committed employees who exhibit high levels of performance, if the leaders encourage virtues (e.g., courage, temperance, justice, prudence, and humanity) in the exercise of their leadership.

The Pattern of Relationship between Virtuous Leadership and Organizational Reputation: A Comparative Analysis

The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship pattern between school administrators' virtuous leadership behaviors and organizational prestige of schools. In order to examine the relationship pattern between variables, relational survey model (predictive design) was preferred among quantitative research methods. The study group of the research consists of 489 teachers actively working in Maltepe, Kartal, Pendik and Tuzla districts in 2023. Personal information form, Virtuous Leadership Scale and Organizational Respectability Scale were used to collect the data. Pearson correlation and regression analyses were used to analyze the data. According to the findings of the study, according to teachers' perceptions, the level of virtuous leadership of school administrators is high and the level of respectability of schools is medium. There is a positive and moderately significant relationship between the virtuous leadership behaviors of school administrators and the organizational prestige of schools. It was determined that virtuous leadership has the ability to predict the organizational prestige of schools positively. This study has made theoretical contributions to the field by identifying the virtuous leadership of school administrators and the organizational prestige of schools and revealing the relationship pattern between these two variables. Considering the findings and results, inferences were made about the virtuous leadership behaviors of school administrators and the dignity of schools and suggestions were made for practitioners, decision makers and researchers.

Virtuous Leadership: Insights from the Example of Joseph

This paper is a conceptual paper that identifies eight testable propositions about virtuous leadership, incorporating insights from the example of Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob, as set forth in the Old Testament. Joseph, or Yosuf, is one of the most highly regarded individuals in holy writ and an exemplar of virtuous leadership. We introduce and explain the nature of virtuous leadership and summarize the life of Joseph, as set forth in the Old Testament and the Qur’an. We identify seven key characteristics of virtuous leadership and cite examples from Joseph’s life that demonstrate those qualities. We conclude the paper by identifying five contributions of the paper for practitioners and scholars.

Relationship between employees’ perceived illegitimate tasks and their work procrastination behavior: Role of negative emotions and paternalistic dimensions

Job performance can be negatively affected by work procrastination, and few studies have been conducted on how work tasks affect procrastination. Based on the Temporal Motivation Theory, this study uses an empirical method to explore the relationship between employees’ perceived illegitimate tasks and work procrastination by analyzing the mediating role of negative emotions and the moderating role of paternalistic leadership (authoritative, benevolent, and virtuous leadership). These findings indicate that perceived illegitimate tasks are positively related to work procrastination. Negative emotions mediated the relationship between perceived illegitimate tasks and procrastination. Benevolent leadership negatively moderates the relationship between perceived illegitimate tasks and work procrastination, whereas authoritative and virtuous leadership positively moderate it. The findings of this study enrich research on the mechanisms of action between illegitimate tasks and work procrastination and provide a guide for managers to reduce work procrastination.

Virtuous leadership and individual performance among Indian bank employees: a parallel mediation model

PurposeThis study aims to empirically explore the effect of virtuous leadership on the individual performance of an employee in light of “institutional theory”, considering work engagement and subjective happiness as parallel mediators with specific reference to the banking sector in India.Design/methodology/approachThe data were gathered through a survey questionnaire from bank workers employed in branches across central India. After the survey, 453 responses were accepted for analysis after excluding incomplete returns. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses and validation of the proposed model.FindingsThe results revealed the integrated association of virtuous leadership and individual performance in relation to the Indian banking sector. This study also found a significant parallel mediating function of work engagement and subjective happiness in the positive relationship between virtuous leadership and self-assessed individual performance.Research limitations/implicationsIndividual performance was assessed using respondents' perceptions of their own performance. Though appropriate care was made to avoid procedural and statistical common method bias, the possibility of an exaggerated relationship between constructs and single-source could not be excluded.Practical implicationsThe findings indicate that banks may benefit from a greater emphasis on virtuous leadership in both staff selection and leadership development programmes. According to the present research, employees who believe in the virtuous character of their leader feel more engaged and happier and exhibit better performance; this can help the efficiency of Indian banks.Originality/valueThe study significantly bridges the gap in current literature by explaining the mechanism of the effect of virtuous leadership on individual performance in the Indian banking sector. The study has also addressed the gaps in individual performance literature and has empirically established the layered connection.

Exploring coaching leadership behaviors among top-division university badminton teams in Taiwan: A “Five Cardinal Relationships” (Wulun) perspective

This study examines coaching leadership behaviors among top-division university badminton teams in Taiwan. Our analytical framework is based on the concepts of Confucianism and its values regarding the behaviors proposed by Mencius that comprise the “Five Cardinal Relationships” (Wulun). As Confucianism is the basis for the Chinese order, Wulun is a unique cultural phenomenon in Chinese society that dominates role norms and duties. A total of 10 relationships based on the relationships associated with Wulun shape the relationship networks of Chinese individuals and thus the behaviors of individual Chinese people. Methodologically, 10 interviews were conducted with two coaches, two player coaching assistants and six players from two first-division university badminton teams in Taiwan. Paternal leadership is a style of leadership associated with authority, discipline, fatherly benevolence and strong morals. First, our results indicate that on Taiwanese sports teams, the leadership behavior of a coach must meet the expectations associated with Wulun relationships. If there is a threat to the image required to play this role, authoritarian leadership becomes the most commonly used style. Second, when a coach consciously demonstrates benevolent and virtuous leadership, relationships have the potential to evolve into friendships. Third, when a coach delegates power to an assistant, the assistant's leadership style becomes rather similar to that of the head coach, thereby maintaining harmony in relationships.

Al-Fārābī’s Political Science and Its Contribution to Islamic Humanism as It is Expounded in His Iḥṣā’ al-ᶜUlūm (Enumeration of the Sciences)

Islam is the origin of humanism. God Almighty revealed it to guard and guarantee mankind’s saᶜādah (happiness) in this world and hereafter. The true humanism is for mankind to feel a sincere and veracious comfort that emanates from within him. Muslims recognise the highest levels of humanism, before others, because it is of complete love for people, which is to love khayr (good) for them. Therefore, the role of Muslims is to hold on to Islam and to convey its massage to all mankind. This helps to achieve the happiness and tranquility the world and hereafter need. Among Muslim philosophers, Al-Fārābī has distinguished himself in conveying this message in his classification of sciences, particularly in political science. He asserts that when human actions are examined and their ends, the role of political science is to illustrate that some of these ends are true happiness, while others are presumed to be happiness but, they are not. Although wealth, honour and pleasure are presumed to be happiness in this life, he argues that it is impossible for true happiness to be of this life, it is in fact of another life which is the life of hereafter. Al-Fārābī provides a purely religious perspective of true happiness, which is of hereafter and paradise. This article examines the political science of Al-Fārābī as his contribution to Islamic humanism. It discusses his main ideas of political science, which he calls “virtuous leadership” or “virtuous monarchical profession”, arguing that a leader enacts rules, preserves virtuous cities and nations, and whose end is true happiness, which is attained by good, noble, and virtuous deeds.

Organizational leadership: How much does it matter?

AbstractI study the influence of leadership on organizational performance and worker wellbeing using data from the 2004 and 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS). Our most conservative estimates from fixed effects regressions on a panel of organizations reveal that virtuous leadership is significantly and positively linked to an upbeat assessment of organizational performance, and an increase in worker wellbeing. Specifically, the estimates reveal that an increase in leadership quality by one standard deviation increases organizational performance and worker job satisfaction by 0.27 and 0.73 standard deviations, respectively, while it leads to a fall in worker job anxiety by 0.13 standard deviations. The results support the hypothesis that good leadership is vital for the success of business, including worker wellbeing, which organizational policymakers ought to heed. There is a dearth of empirical evidence on organizational leadership as an institution and its influence on organizational outcomes, which this article aims to address.

Virtuous leadership, moral behavior, happiness and organizational citizenship: the mediating effect of virtues-centered moral identity

PurposeGuided by the importance ascribed to the self-cultivation of virtue, the authors examined virtues-centered moral identity (VCMI) as a mediator of the positive relationship between virtuous leadership and several valued personal and organizational outcomes.Design/methodology/approachHypotheses were tested using data from 131 leader–subordinate dyads based in the USA and Canada, using the SPSS Statistics Software 27.0 PROCESS Macro v 3.5.FindingsLeaders’ VCMI mediates the positive effects of virtuous leadership (subordinate-rated) on leaders’ moral behavior (subordinate-rated) and their self-rated happiness. Followers’ VCMI mediates the positive effects of virtuous leadership on organizational citizenship (as judged by leaders) and self-rated happiness of followers. Followers’ VCMI did not mediate between virtuous leadership and followers’ moral behavior.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough participants of this study were from a variety of industries, the sample was based in the USA and Canada; hence, any culture-specific leader behaviors and processes were likely missed. Moreover, some of the relationships examined involved data from the same source such that these associations may have been artificially inflated by common method variance. Even so, in each case, the sources we used (leader and follower) were appropriate to the research question. Nonetheless, for example, to collect Virtuous Leadership Questionnaire (VLQ)-based assessments from other stakeholders (e.g. peers and customers) remains of interest.Practical implicationsA practiced strong sense of VCMI has the potential to short-circuit unethical behavior and contribute to happiness among both subordinates and leaders. VCMI is implicated in the fostering of subordinates’ organizational citizenship as well.Social implicationsThe authors' findings imply that leaders and followers can acquire knowledge structures associated with moral virtues and virtuous acts through formal and informal learning, suggesting an affirmative answer to the question, “Are virtuous acts teachable? This is an important starting point in developing theoretically sound programs for promoting virtuous acts as called for by many scholars and practitioners. The authors' study highlights the importance of virtues-related education because VCMI is likely developed through formal learning.Originality/valueThe authors' VCMI mediation-based findings offer a completely new explanation for the positive functioning of virtuous leadership, which formerly had been grounded in attribution and social learning processes only.

Virtues-Centered Moral Identity: An Empirical Evaluation of Its Role in Virtuous Leadership

Competing perspectives concerning ethical leadership reflect a range of theoretical viewpoints. Some focus on rules, principles, duties, and obligations to act; others highlight the consequences of actions. We build on a model grounded in virtue ethics - in which the role of leader character is underscored, as is self-cultivation of the moral virtues, reflected by the importance one ascribes to moral identity that is virtues centered. Using a sample of 131 leader-follower dyads, followers’ judgements of their leader’s virtuous leadership positively predicted the self-rated virtues-centered moral identity of their leaders, as well as their own (self-rated) virtues-centered moral identity. Leaders’ self-rated virtues-centered moral identity also positively predicted followers’ evaluations of their leaders’ moral behavior, as well as leaders’ self-rated happiness. Finally, followers’ self-rated virtues-centered moral identity linked positively with their moral behavior (leader rated), and to their self-rated happiness.

고려전기 사면의례의 구성과 의미

This study examines how amnesty ritual was organized in the former period of Goryeo based on Yeji of 『Goryeosa』and also designed goods used for amnesty to consider the symbolicity of it. Amnesty ritual is d compared to the other rituals dealt with in Yeji of『Goryeosa』, it is more noteworthy as it allows us to understand how the authority of reward and punishment, one of the essentials of royal authority, was operated and manifested at the site. In addition, because the pardoning power was absolute and special right given to the king only, it can be said that examining rituals related to it is a process indispensable to figure out the substance of royal authority in Goryeo.BR Amnesty ritual as an act of ritual to declare a pardon was a means of the king to show his power and a medium for him to exhibit virtuous leadership for all the people. Accordingly, the king made the process of amnesty into a ritual and made good use of it as a means of ruling. Three amnesty rituals found in Yeji of 『Goryeosa』are the very examples. Among them, ‘Uibongmunseonsaseoui (儀鳳門宣赦書儀)’ and ‘Chinsawonguhusasaui (親祀圓丘後肆赦儀)’ are the ones conducted in the former period of Goryeo, and there were differences found in the moving line of the king or organization.BR In the meantime, the king in Goryeo exhibited his authority and beneficence all over the world by showing uniquely designed goods, many and diverse attendees, and splendid and magnificent scenes for expression in the ritual of amnesty. Also, it came to be firmly positioned as a national event that not only the king and his subjects but all the people could enjoy together. Therefore, we can conclude that amnesty ritual in the former period of Goryeo was national ritual in which the king’s authority was manifested visually.

The mediating effect of moral courage in the relationship between virtuous leadership and moral voice

PurposeThe present study examines how virtuous leadership influences moral voice in organisations through moral courage as a mediating variable.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected using a questionnaire survey of 376 employees and their immediate supervisors (289 employees and 87 supervisors), working in 11 firms of medical suppliers. The data were collected from employees and their immediate supervisors at two different phases and on separate questionnaires.FindingsThe results revealed that virtuous leadership has a positive and significant relationship with moral voice. Furthermore, the results showed that moral courage fully mediates the indirect relationship between virtuous leadership and moral voice.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to address the relationship between virtuous leadership and moral voice. In addition, it is the first to explore the mediating mechanism in the relationship between virtuous leadership and moral voice through moral courage as a mediating variable.

Business Innovation Management: a General Overview to Virtuous Leadership

The concept of leadership continues to develop as a concept that still maintains its importance. In the most general sense, leadership shapes employees’ behaviours and facilitates all processes to achieve common goals and objectives. In today's innovative and rapidly changing business world, practical and good leadership is an important study topic in management studies. Effective and good leadership, also known as positive leadership, motivates ineffective employees, develops their skills, improves negative attitudes and behaviours and copes with stress and burnout. Positive Psychology is the newly advancing field of organisational behaviour sciences. Positive leadership highly addresses its relevance with positive character traits as defined virtue. Virtues, which are the source of well-being and glorify people's feelings, thoughts and behaviours, manifest as business ethics principles in business life. The virtues play an influential and vital role in various leadership styles, such as ethical, spiritual and transformational leadership. On the other hand, these leadership styles do not extensively define the core characteristics of a virtuous leader. In this direction, over the past decade, numerous virtuous leadership theories and models have recently developed that cite virtues as essential and indispensable. A review of previous studies revealed a gap in the literature on virtuous leadership. The problem of this study is that virtuous leadership has been examined in primarily ethical literature. This study aims to conceptualise by examining the prominent approaches of virtuous leadership according to the current literature. Traditional literature scrutiny is used as the research method in the paper. Studies are scattered in the relevant literature. This paper summarises the existing virtuous leadership literature and brings out a literature review. The study provides an overview of virtuous leadership theories and models among the definitions and classifications listed in Table 1 and also presents virtues-relevant leadership theories in the literature. Thence, it is expected to contribute to management, leadership and organisational behaviour. The research is a current study in terms of the subject discussed.