Perceived Ethical Leadership and Organisational Justice at a Selected Municipality in the Limpopo Province in South Africa

Abstract

Perceived ethical leadership and organisational justice have been a challenge for organisations in both developed and developing countries. The organs of the state including municipalities, are not an exception in South Africa, although the systems and processes tend to be structured than in the private institutions. However, it is a common belief that employees are more likely to perceive fairness if ethical leaders lead them. Perceived ethical leadership by employees often leads to fairness in the distribution of resources, rewards, information communication and the interaction between employees and their immediate supervisors. Employees who are likely to perceive fairness in the workplace, tend to be loyal to the organisation and their turnover rate is improved. The paper aims to examine the perceptions of employees regarding ethical leadership and organisational justice in a selected municipality in the Limpopo Province in South Africa. The paper is exploratory, and a quantitative approach was used. A self-administered questionnaire was utilised to collect data where 107 respondents were simply randomly sampled. Data was analysed using the IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 27.0 version. Descriptive statistics were used during data analysis. An ethical clearance letter was obtained via the Turfloop Research and Ethics Committee of the University of Limpopo together with the permission to conduct the study. The findings indicated a positive relationship between ethical leadership and organisational justice. However, the results also revealed that employees do not perceive fairness in the workplace, and they do not see the existence of ethical leadership. It is recommended that municipalities establish and enforce ethical codes of conduct, provide leadership with training and development programmes, and implement transparent and fair performance management. Furthermore, municipalities must foster a culture of accountability, open communication, and employee participation which contributes to the perceptions of ethical leadership and organisational justice.