RUNNING HEAD: Ethical Leadership and Core Job Characteristics Ethical Leadership and Core Job Characteristics: Designing Jobs for Employee Well-Being

Most organizations and its leaders are evaluated on specific, objective, and tangible short term outcomes such as market, financial, and accounting metrics of organizational performance. Although this approach to measuring performance creates an environment that encourages continual innovation and growth, it also fosters a climate that puts pressure on managers at multiple levels to deliver and/or report favorable economic outcomes. The rewards for achieving financial objectives are rich (e.g., lucrative bonus packages, stock option appreciation) while the punishment for failing to achieve can be severe (e.g., dismissal). Such pressure has the potential negative consequence of driving a narrow view of success, creating dilemmas, often of an ethical nature, in terms of how decisions should be made. This is especially problematic in that employees have come to expect more from work than a narrow focus on bottom-line profits. The ethical nature of leadership has an important influence on the climate in which employees make decisions, as leaders shape the tangible and perceived characteristics of work.