How Ethical Leadership Shapes Employees' Readiness to Change

Antecedents of Employees' Readiness to Change: A Brief Literature Review

According to Choi and Holt et al., the literature on antecedents of employees' readiness to change has been developed around four mainstream areas: (1) context, (2) content, (3) process, and (4) the individual. Each of these areas, and its development, has provided important results and advances regarding how to shape readiness to change among employees.

Regarding the area of research related to individual-based factors, a wide range of personal traits have been identified as potential antecedents of readiness-to-change-related outcomes. Some examples of these characteristics include change and generalized self-efficacy, dispositional resistance to change, personal competence, locus of control, and positive affectivity, among others. Although all these factors are important, Choi concluded in his review that individual-based factors have a lower importance in predicting change-related employee outcomes, especially compared to situational factors. Arising from the development of the context, content, and process areas of research, situational factors are indeed the aspects that have received most attention in the literature. The literature has shown the important role of numerous context-related factors in predicting change-readiness-related outcomes. For example, in terms of change-process factors, management processes allowing participation in the change project, effective management–employee communication during the change process, or the positive, successful change history of the individual in the organization appear to have a positive influence. In terms of change content factors, the responses to change may become more positive insofar as the change is appropriate, favorable, and of less magnitude. Finally, with regard to context-related factors, positive change-readiness outcomes can arise as a result of a supportive internal context, a clan-type culture where good human values such as loyalty, mutual trust, or friendship are dominant, and/or a leadership approach that creates quality leader–employee relationships and inspire trust.

Despite the important role of leadership in predicting employee outcomes, the change-readiness literature has not yet dedicated the deserved space to this factor as an antecedent of employees' level of readiness to change. Of the leadership approaches existing in the current literature, transformational leadership is the only one which has received attention; however, other more ethics-rooted forms of leadership have received far less attention. These are much more connected to inspiring trust in employees, and as a consequence, to driving positive change-readiness outcomes. Thus, the role of ethical leadership in shaping employees' readiness to change appears to be an intriguing area of research for learning more about how such an important outcome can be formed in organizations.

In studying the impact of ethical leadership in the workplace we cannot ignore the context in which this leadership is enacted. The important role of context in influencing leadership and its outcomes has been emphasized in the literature, recently. Oc notes that the context includes factors at the omnibus level such as where, when, and who is being led as well as factors at the discrete level such as social, physical, and temporal aspects. Of the omnibus level factors, the where dimension is likely one of the most studied, including the national culture. Hofstede argues that failure in implementing solutions at the organizational level is related to ignoring differences in the way leaders and followers think, feel, and act across different countries. Miroshnik also observed that the national culture and the social structures and values it embeds in people's mindsets may influence the response of the employees to change. This is because the national culture may play an important role in shaping the personality; hence, influencing attitudes and behaviors and likely changing the nature of the relationship between ethical leadership and its outcomes.

Considering Hofstede cultural framework, Egypt is a country with features that could affect readiness to change levels as well as the ethical leadership relationship to employee readiness to change. For example, the preference for avoiding uncertainty and ambiguity in Egypt, the low score in long-term orientation – which leads to normative thinking and seeing change with suspicion – or the low score in indulgence – which indicates a high tendency to pessimism – should lead to low levels of readiness to change. The relatively high scores in power distance of this society, which fosters the use of centralized and autocratic management styles, does not favor proactivity among employees either. In this context, however, the enactment of an ethical leadership approach is congruent with the collectivistic culture of this society and could make a difference in fostering the levels of readiness to change among employees. As we will see below in detail, ethical leadership is congruent with some aspects which could reduce Egyptians' level of pessimism, change ambiguity avoidance, and fear to change. In addition, interactions with close, humane, empowering, and caring leaders such as ethical leaders should be so pleasant in a society that expects the opposite (hierarchy-based and unequal leader–employee relationships) that a positive, proactive response such as readiness to change may emerge among employees with ease.