Conceptualization of ethical leadership: pitfalls and suggestive pathways

Purpose Despite sustained growth, ethical leadership research remains constrained by conceptual overlap, Western philosophical dominance and measurement approaches that privilege perceptions over verifiable conduct. This paper aims to reconceptualize ethical leadership as an organizational ethics and governance system that institutionalizes moral accountability rather than as an individual moral trait or leadership style. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a theory-driven integrative review and diagnostic critique of foundational and contemporary ethical leadership scholarship. Drawing on ethics management, institutional theory, moral psychology and cross-cultural moral philosophy, it develops a system-level, mechanism-based conceptual framework. Findings The analysis identifies three interrelated constraints—definitional ambiguity, philosophical parochialism and measurement circularity—that undermine cumulative theorizing and ethical system design. To address these limitations, this paper proposes a multimechanism ethical leadership architecture through which leaders build and sustain organizational ethics systems via learning (role modeling), exchange (procedural fairness), identity (moral identification), motivation (self-determination) and signaling (formal ethics structures). This framework clarifies ethical leadership’s distinctiveness from other value-based leadership constructs. Research limitations/implications The framework is conceptual and requires empirical validation using multi-source, longitudinal and system-level research designs. Practical implications The model provides actionable guidance for designing, assessing and governing ethics systems, leadership practices and accountability mechanisms aligned with ethics management and ESG governance. Originality/value This paper reframes ethical leadership as governance capability embedded in organizational ethics systems and advances plural ethical foundation integrating Western procedural ethics with non-Western relational moral traditions.