Conceptualizing the Ethical Leadership of Managers in Iranian Public Sector Organizations

In recent years, one of the most significant challenges in public administration has been the issue of ethics. Creating and maintaining a high level of ethical behavior to enhance employee effectiveness and strengthen foster better interpersonal relationships is one of the essential issues that necessitates the training of ethical leaders for organizations. The conceptualization of ethical leadership is based on the individual’s perception of the characteristics and behaviors of ethical leadership which are influenced by the characteristics and cultural values of the societies under study. Therefore, this article attempts to re-conceptualize it in Iran, which has ethical, religious and cultural values different from other countries. The method of data gathering is focus groups and semi-structured in-depth interviews. For this purpose, three different focus groups including a total of 16 university professors, managers and organizational experts, and in-depth interviews with 14 experts up to the theoretical saturation stage were used. The data were analyzed by thematic analysis method and finally led to the identification of 28 sub themes in eight main themes in three individual, group and organizational levels. Identified main themes at the individual level include authentic and dignity, at the group level include ethical directing, empowerment of followers and ethical relationships, and at the organizational level include professional behavior, ethical decision making, inspiration, and ethical generalization.