Ethical leadership in the public sector: an African perspective

Ethical leadership is a descriptive and predictive approach that engages behaviours that are beneficial to followers and not detrimental, by inculcating moral principles into their beliefs, values and actions through ethical decision-making processes. Several studies have seen positively related the concept of ethical leadership to effective followers, commitments, organisational citizenship behaviours and organisational performance within the scope of the private organisation. Furthermore, a large proportion of works have focused on the examination of the behavioural benefits and influence of ethical leadership within the western perspective and excluded the skills perspective and challenges facing the development of the concept. While not a relative new concept, the concept within the African perspective is nascent. This developmental paper provides preliminary findings on the concept of ethical leadership from the African perspective with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. In this study, methodology adopted were clearly stated, initial findings were presented, and further development provided.