The relationship of ethical leadership with teachers’ organizational behavior, attitudes, and perceptions: a meta-analysis study

This study aims to investigate the influence of the school principal’s ethical leadership on teachers’ organizational behavior, attitudes, and perceptions and the moderating effect of some variables in this relationship. For this purpose, a meta-analysis of data collected from a total of 47 empirical studies involving 18,423 participants was performed. A random effects model was used to measure the overall effect sizes. The results showed that ethical leadership has a very strong positive effect on organizational trust and organizational justice, and a strong positive effect on job satisfaction, motivation, and organizational commitment. The analysis also revealed that ethical leadership has a strong negative relationship with organizational silence and a moderate negative relationship with mobbing and organizational cynicism. Among the tested moderators, only the level of education was found to moderate the effect of ethical leadership on organizational commitment. It was also concluded that ethical leadership has a greater effect on organizational commitment in primary schools. The current study evidenced that the ethical leadership of the school principal is an important variable in the organizational behavior, attitudes, and perceptions of teachers.