Ethical leadership in a remote working context: implications for salesperson well-being and performance

Employees are believed to benefit most from ethical leadership when they can directly interact with or observe a leader's ethical behaviors. Given the popularity of remote work in sales, many salespeople may be unable to observe the ethical behavior of a leader, producing a potential tension between this beneficial leadership style and remote work arrangements. We present two quantitative studies using samples of sales professionals to examine the indirect effects of ethical leadership on well-being and performance via employee affective commitment and the extent to which remote supervision influences these indirect effects. In studies 1 and 2, our findings offer support for our proposed mediation effects, such that ethical leadership indirectly relates to our outcomes via affective commitment. Further, remote supervision does not moderate the relationship between ethical leadership and affective commitment. In study 3, we provide qualitative evidence to further probe this unexpected finding, discovering that remote ethical leaders often engage in behaviors to demonstrate their values. Therefore, results from all three studies indicate that remote supervision does not negatively impact the relationship between ethical leadership and affective commitment and, in some cases, may be positive.