Ethical Leadership and Project Success: Mediating Role of Leader-Member Exchange and Knowledge Sharing

Abstract

Ethical leadership is vital in enhancing project success by fostering trust, and integrity within teams. The main objective of this research is to examine how ethical leadership influences project success by mediating the effect of leader-member exchange and knowledge sharing. Data were collected from 335 respondents in the IT industries of Pakistan using a multistage sampling technique using a well-structured questionnaire methodology. The hypotheses were tested on Smart PLS 4, and the descriptive statistics were evaluated on SPSS 29.0. The results suggested that ethical leadership has a practical impact on project success. This study also determined that knowledge sharing and leader-member exchange both potentially mediate this relationship. The results highlight the dominance of fostering ethical leadership practices in project environments. Escalating leader-member relationships and promoting knowledge sharing can significantly improve project performance. The study implies that organizations can enhance project success by promoting ethical leadership that strengthens leader–member exchange and encourages knowledge sharing among team members.