Exploring Ethical Leadership and Gender Discrimination at the Workplace: A Study in Indian Insurance Sector

Abstract

Managing gender diversity is one of the challenges faced by present-day organizations resulting in the most prominent workplace issue- gender discrimination, which can be resolved through practicing the ethical leadership behavior at the workplace. The rationale of this study is to examine the employees’ perception of gender discrimination in the workplace. A survey of 130 employees was conducted in insurance companies of Uttar Pradesh state of India through a self-administered questionnaire including 83 males and 47 females. Independent T-test is used for the analysis of data. The findings indicate implied prevalence of gender discrimination among employees working in both public and private sectors; however, their leader exhibits ethical leadership behavior to some extent. Similar instances of discrimination were found in private and public sector employees on parameters of behavioral, climatic, and decision-making ethics.

The present study calls organizations to assess the state of gender discrimination and provide insight into the implications of ethical leadership. This paper presents employee’s perception towards the ethical component of their leader’s behavior and its role in preventing the repercussions of gender discrimination.