The relationship between a perceived ethical leadership style and workaholism

Abstract

Academic literature has shown that an ethical leadership style might have positive as well as negative consequences for the organization. Some results show that it might contribute to employees’ workaholism, but this relationship is still controversial. The aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship between a perceived ethical leadership style and employees’ workaholism. The importance of employees’ socio-demographic characteristics (gender, age, education and years in organization) for this relationship was also tested. The study involved 302 (41 men and 261 women) employees working in different Lithuanian organizations. A perceived ethical leadership style was assessed with the help of Brown, Trevino & Harrison’s (2005) questionnaire. The 10-item Dutch Work Addiction Scale developed by Schaufeli, Taris, & Bakker (2009) was used for the measurement of workaholism. The results revealed that workaholism of employees who consider their leaders as more ethical is lower than workaholism of those who consider their leader to be less ethical. The study results showed that the relationship between a perceived ethical leadership style and workaholism is stronger for employees whose work duration in the current organization is shorter. Gender, education and age are not significant for this relationship. The conclusion may be drawn that employee attitudes towards their leader are important for the negative engagement with their work and proneness to workaholism. This means that ethical behaviour must be considered when addressing employees’ workaholism. In future it is important to investigate the factors that may change employees’ perception of the manager and working environment.