Write a summary

Based on social cognitive theory's social learning (Bandura, 1977: 1986), Trevio and Brown (2005) argued that ethical leaders influence followers primarily through modeling processes. Behavioral modeling is considered to be one of the most important and effective means for leaders to transmit their values, attitudes, and behaviors to their followers, who learn about desirable traits and behaviors by observing their leaders and then emulating those they find to be legitimate and credible. Therefore, ethical leaders should be able to influence followers' characteristics such as moral identity and moral attentiveness through social learning processes. But, can we expect that follower individual differences can differ because of their association with a particular leader? We have long tended to think of individual differences as stable, especially the most heritable ones, such as intelligence and the Big Five personality characteristics (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1988). However, even Costa and McCrae, who have been represented as proponents of the immutability of personality traits, have said that they are open to the possibility that personality can change (Costa & McCrae, 2006). Recent research has explored the notion that rather than being set in "plaster," personality may have "plasticity," leading to the understanding that individual differences (even personality) can and does change (Roberts, Walton, & Viechtbauer, 2006). For example, researchers have demonstrated the plasticity of personality as a result of work experiences (Roberts, 1997). But, we are not proposing here that ethical leaders can change followers' personality, which we suspect may be more difficult to change than the characteristics we consider in our study. We argue here that followers' moral identity and moral attentiveness are somewhat plastic and therefore, likely subject to social influence, something that the developers of these constructs also propose and as we explain below. We also look to Lord and Brown (2004) who also relied on social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986) to propose that leaders can have a profound influence on followers' selves by communicating meaning (verbally and non-verbally) in various situations. For example, an ethical leader's routine use of ethical language in a variety of situations should prime and activate followers' moral identities and awareness. In their book, Lord and Brown (2004) review research demonstrating that leaders can influence followers' self-concepts through priming effects and by creating environments that cue and activate aspects of their identities. Although research has generally treated moral identity as a relatively stable individual difference, Shao, Aquino, and Freeman (2008) also argued that it can develop through social interactions with peers and parents in adolescence. They proposed that, beyond adolescence, moral identity development is affected by institutional contexts such as work contexts. We propose here that one of the most important ethical influences in the work context is a strong ethical leader. Therefore, when employees observe leaders who stand up for doing what is right, especially if the leaders are successful in doing so, their moral identities will be primed and they will be encouraged to think about this aspect of themselves. Further, from a social learning perspective, followers will be inclined to want to emulate ethical leaders and therefore ascribe more importance to the moral aspects of their own identities. The ethical leader's moral values, preferences, aspirations, emotional responses and behaviors become the targets of emulation, with followers desiring to be good and moral persons themselves - persons who value the moral aspect of their identity. Because they admire and wish to emulate the leader, these followers should come to think of themselves differently, as people for whom the moral aspect of themselves is elevated in importance. Furthermore, we propose that ethical leaders can influence followers' moral attentiveness because a strong ethical leader directs followers' attention in an ethical direction - to ethical standards, concerns, and complexities, priming them to notice and attend to ethical issues. Although moral attentiveness (like moral identity) has been treated as a relatively stable individual difference, Reynolds (1998) argued that moral attentiveness is not fixed and that leaders could be helped to increase their moral attentiveness. Along the same lines, we argue here that the moral attentiveness of followers is quite likely open to influence by strong ethical leaders. Ethical leaders set ethical standards, regularly communicate with followers about ethical issues and give them feedback about ethical decisions. When facing moral challenges or dilemmas at work, ethical leaders raise ethical issues, explain the moral values that guide their decisions and actions, provide constructive and insightful suggestions or feedback to followers, and coach followers on how to deal with ethical dilemmas and how to solve issues in an ethical way. With this repetitive attention to ethical issues from their leader, followers should become more regularly attentive to ethical concerns themselves. Because ethical leaders are legitimate and credible role models, followers will also want to emulate the leader's attentiveness to ethical issues. In addition, because ethical leaders care a great deal about their people, they are also likely to take an interest in and engage with their followers' ethical growth and development. Ethical leaders are more likely than other leaders to provide ethical mentoring, with followers reciprocating with their trust and attention. As a result, followers of ethical leaders will be more likely to notice and internalize the ethical values, behaviors, and messages being sent by the ethical leader, and incorporate these into their moral selves through increased moral identity and attentiveness. To this point, we have hypothesized that leader's moral identity and moral attentiveness are positively related to ethical leadership and that ethical leadership is positively related to followers' moral identity and moral attentiveness. In order to complete our model, we predict that the relationships between leaders' moral characteristics and followers' characteristics are mediated by ethical leadership. We suggest that only when leaders "walk the talk" through ethical leadership behaviors can followers become aware of their thoughts and decision processes, witness their behaviors in a variety of organizational settings and learn from their leader's daily moral talk and actions. In other words, a leader's moral identity and moral attentiveness can only be exemplified to followers through ethical leadership behaviors such as the explicit identification of ethical issues in meetings, conversations about the importance of doing the right thing, fair and principled decisions, and actions taken in response to inappropriate behaviors. Then, via modeling processes, followers mimic ethical leaders, resulting in the enhancement of their own moral identity and attentiveness. Ethical leaders, as moral exemplars, provide a strong basis for followers to emulate their attentiveness to ethical issues and to think differently about themselves, elevating the extent to which morality is more central and important to their identity. Therefore, we expect that ethical leadership behavior will mediate between leaders' moral identity and followers' moral identity and between leaders' moral attentiveness and followers' moral attentiveness.