Ethical Leadership as an Organizational Approach to Address Workplace Bullying

Abstract

In light of the evolving professional relationships within higher education institutions, workplace bullying has emerged as a negative organizational behavior reflecting imbalances in interpersonal interactions and power dynamics. This exploratory study aimed to analyze the relationship between ethical leadership and workplace bullying at the University of 8 May 1945 Guelma. The study adopted a descriptive research design and employed an online questionnaire to collect data from a purposive sample of 70 university faculty members. Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS software.

The findings revealed that the level of ethical leadership was moderate, while workplace bullying was found to be at a moderate-to-high level, primarily manifested in strained professional relationships and weak cooperation among staff. The results also demonstrated a statistically significant negative effect of ethical leadership and its dimensions on reducing workplace bullying. Among these dimensions, ethical administrative practices had the strongest influence. Furthermore, no statistically significant differences were found in workplace bullying based on gender, years of service, or academic rank.