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An ethical leadership assessment center pilot: Assessing and developing moral person and moral manager dimensions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2024

Alexis d’Amato ,
Vignesh Murugavel ,
Kelsey Medeiros  and
Logan L. Watts Open the ORCID record for Logan L. Watts [Opens in a new window]
Alexis d’Amato
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA
Vignesh Murugavel
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA
Kelsey Medeiros*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA
Logan L. Watts
Affiliation:
Psychology, University of Texas Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA
*
Corresponding author: Kelsey Medeiros; Email: kmedeiros@unomaha.edu
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Abstract

Ethical leaders are those who exemplify moral behavior personally, as well as those who facilitate follower ethical behavior. Although recent attention has been given to the ethical leadership construct, there remains a lack of innovation regarding the assessment and development of ethical leaders in organizations. To address these issues, a pilot study was conducted to examine the convergent validity of an ethical leadership assessment center, as well as the efficacy of using assessment center feedback to foster ethical leadership. Assessees completed a battery of pre tests, a virtual business simulation with a novel exercise, and a set of post tests. Half of the assessees were randomly assigned to a feedback condition, whereas the other half did not receive feedback until after the post tests were completed. Due to low statistical power, quantitative results were inconclusive. Nevertheless, qualitative insights were gained that point to implications for validating assessment center methodologies when assessing and developing ethical leadership.

Keywords

Assessment centerethical leadershipmoral managermoral person
Type
Focal Article
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , First View , pp. 1 - 19
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology

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