The Essence of Ethical Leadership and Its Influence in Achieving Employees’ Job Satisfaction

This study strongly conveys that, ethical practices have to be followed by organizations to ensure employees' job satisfaction, achieving employees' job satisfaction is essential for the success and longevity of the organizations. The research structurally consists of four sections. The first section deals with the essence of ethical leadership explaining the need and benefits associated with businesses from ethical practices. The second section defines the ethical factors, which if not taken into account reduce the effectiveness of leadership, the typical ethical mistakes of managers, which leads to a reduction in the transparency of relationships in the team, discourages creative thinking and forms a negative working environment (indifference to employees, delay in wage payments, inhibition of career opportunities for workers, unfavorable conditions for increasing the labor productivity, etc.). The third section, deals with the prerequisites of ethical leadership (honesty in relations with employees, clients, shareholders and the public, integrity and consistency, balance of relations, consistency of standard expectations and real attitude to work, compliance with guarantees and obligations, loyalty of management to employees and vice versa − employees to the company, taking into account not only the financial, but also the emotional long-term effects of business decisions, etc.). The fourth section explains the role of ethical leadership in maintaining employees' job satisfaction. The author points out that, for achieving the employees' job satisfaction, leaders should remain aware of the real, rather than formal, reasons for employees' dissatisfaction, create a dynamic stress-free work environment, stimulate the development of the common interests of the staff/managers, motivate employees to communicate fearlessly the matters concerning the job, take a proactive intermediary position in working conflicts, etc.. Within each of these sections, the author summarizes the methodical achievements of the researchers from different countries of the world, as well as defines the applied ethical practices that can be applied by the leaders of different companies, regardless of a sector specificity and a dominant type of management.