International Journal of Social and Behavioural Sciences Vol. 1 (3), pp. 085-090 March 2013 Available online at http://www.academeresearchjournals.org/journal/ijsbs ISSN 2327-719X ©2013 Academe Research Journals Full Length Research Paper The roles of personality and leadership in promoting ethical behavior among bank employees Catherine Chovwen Psychology Department, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. E-mail: chovwenc@yahoo.com, chovwenco@gmail.com. Accepted 13 February, 2013 Exhibition of unethical behavior by employees have posed serious human resource challenges to organizations in contemporary times. On the other hand, ethical behavior can be promoted through the identification and development of factors that significantly contribute to productive behaviours. This survey was designed to examine the role of personality and leadership variables in the promotion of ethical behavior among employees in banking industries. Two hundred and twenty-five (255) respondents comprising of one hundred and thirty two males (51.7%) and one hundred and twenty three females (48.2%) were sampled for the study. Five hypotheses were tested; two were fully confirmed, two partially confirmed and one not confirmed. Specifically, there was no significant influence of leadership on ethical behaviour, results showed that personality significantly influenced ethical behavior and that type A personality exhibited more ethical behavior than type B individuals. Results confirm that personality has significant implication in promoting ethical behavior among employees. Key words: Personality, type A, type B, transformational and transactional leadership, ethical behavior. INTRODUCTION One of the biggest challenges faced by organizations and institutions in general is getting workers to do what they need to do in order to achieve organizational objectives with the efficiency it deserves. Due to the complex nature of organizational settings, the realization of these set goals is often jeopardized due to the expression of unethical behavior (such as absenteeism, pilfering, falsifying numbers of hours worked or business records) resulting in sub optimal and inadequate performance. Generally speaking, external or environmental factors determine behavior (Skinner, 1972) whether positive or negative. It is evident in different organizations and societies that negative behaviours are at variance with the common good of a people. Thus, each or a combination of positive human behaviour, organizational culture, leadership effectiveness and the dynamics of personality when managed effectively may promote the expression of ethical behaviours in organisations. Ethical behaviours have been identified as actions which are morally accepted as “good” and “right” as opposed to “bad” or “wrong” in a particular setting. Ethical work behaviour is such that conform to the standard and acceptable ways of behaving in an organization (Kreitner et al., 2002). Such behaviours include loyalty, punctuality, diligence and obedience to superiors and they lead to the growth, survival of the organization, result in higher performance and productivity and consequently promote wellbeing and satisfaction of employees. As earlier noted employee work behaviour is not an isolated concept; it is a function of person-situation interactions and factors influencing it include organizational structure, attitudinal and performance differentials, leadership styles and individual personality. An organization is made up of people of different backgrounds who have different attitudes, values and norms with their cultural heritages and orientation reflecting in different behaviours and in different contexts. According to American Psychological Association (1991), personality is the enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to and thinking about the environment and oneself which is exhibited in a wide range of social contexts. People’s personalities obviously have a great impact on many, if not everything they do. It is a major determinant of behavior and overall productivity in organizations. In essence, if personality has been used to predict or explain behaviour in many contexts, it is suggestive that it