| Purpose. The purpose of this study was twofold. First, a causal-comparative design was utilized to ascertain the relationship of ethical work climate and leadership style of lodging managers in the state of Missouri. Specifically, the relationship between the three ethical work climate types of egoism, benevolence, and principle with the high task/high relationship leadership style was ascertained.;Procedures. The purposive sample consisted of 207 members of the Missouri Hospitality Association or the Missouri Hotel and Motel Association. The survey process included three phases of soliciting participation. The survey packet included the Ethical Climate Questionnaire, Leadership Scale, and a demographic questionnaire. The responses were statistically analyzed with the MAXR stepwise regression procedure, Multiple Analysis of Variance, Analysis of Variance, Least Squares Means, and descriptive statistics.;Findings. The findings of the study were: (a) the benevolence ethical work climate was the best one-variable model that predicted the high task/high relationship leadership style, (b) the respondents were significantly different in mean ratings when classified by property classification, and (c) there was no significant difference in high task/high relationship leadership style when respondents were classified by the demographic variables of gender, total years of management experience, educational level, and property classification.;Conclusions. Based on the findings and subject to the limitations of this study, the conclusions were: (a) all three ethical work climate types are present in lodging operations. However, benevolence is the predominate ethical work climate type for decision making, (b) the predominate leadership style for managers of lodging operations is high task/high relationship and (c) the ethical work climate type of benevolence is most aligned with the high task/high relationship leadership style for managers of lodging operations. |
