Ethical Leadership and Teacher Job Satisfaction in Post-Conflict Tigray: The Primacy of Moral Relationship

The purpose of this study is to examine which dimension of ethical leadership most strongly predicts teacher job satisfaction in the post-war Tigray. Employing an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, it deconstructs leadership into four dimensions: Moral Person (integrity), Moral Manager (procedural fairness), Moral Leader (vision), and Moral Relationship (interpersonal fairness). The study considered 259 teacher educators from teacher education college in Tigray. Data were collected through questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The questionnaires were adapted from pre-existing research on the filed of job satisfaction and varied dimension of leadership. Quantitative data were analyzed using hierarchical regression, while the qualitative data were analyzed thematically. The findings reveal a fundamental reconfiguration: while all dimensions correlate with satisfaction, only Moral Relationship (β = .454, p < .001) emerges as a unique, significant predictor, uniquely explaining 12.6% of the variance (sr² = .126). The analysis demonstrates complete statistical mediation; the effects of personal character and managerial competence are fully subsumed by relational quality. Qualitative insights from 30 interviews explain this dominance, revealing that abstract virtues feel cold and rigid procedures feel traumatic without relational enactment. This indicates a necessary theoretical shift from principles ethics (deontology, utilitarianism) toward the Ethics of Care. The study concludes that in post-conflict settings, ethical leadership must be fundamentally relational to be effective, positioning relational institution-building as the core mechanism for recovery. The findings necessitate a paradigm shift in theory and practice, advocating for policies and training that prioritize relational competencies over traditional managerial frameworks in fragile environments.