The Nexus of Ethical Leadership, Job Performance, and Turnover Intention: The Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction

This study aims to examine the impact of ethical leadership on employees’ job satisfaction, performance, and turnover intention. A conceptual framework is developed which clearly integrates job satisfaction as a mediating mechanism in explaining the nexus among ethical leadership, job performance, and turnover intention. This framework is then analysed employing data from a sample (n = 114) of tourist companies in Lahore, Pakistan. The results reveal that ethical leadership has positive effect on employees’ job satisfaction, performance and has negative effect on their turnover intentions. Further, job satisfaction positively mediates the effect of ethical leadership on employees’ job performance and turnover intentions. The findings recommend that the demonstration of ethical leadership behaviours by managers at workplace enhances employees’ job satisfaction and performance, and decreases the intention of employees to leave the job. The main narrative of this study encompasses the imperative role of ethical leadership in the workplace where it serves as a factor that enhances employees’ job satisfaction, performance, and decreases turnover intention. This research explicitly demonstrates that in Pakistani tourism sector, ethical leadership plays a vital role to achieve performance goals. Future research could analyse the said nexus in different sectors and cultures, and may also consider other measures of individual performance. The consideration of job satisfaction as mediating variable in probing the linkages among ethical leadership, job performance, and turnover intention in the context of the workplace in Pakistan and the analysing of this linkage is novel