Title: Exploring the Link Between Ethical Leadership and Trust in Higher Education Institutions
Authors: Richard C. Pasco
Volume: 9
Issue: 10
Pages: 16-28
Publication Date: 2025/10/28
Abstract:
Ethical leadership is seen as key to the survival of an organization and trust is viewed as a significant factor to establish reliance and cooperation. This quantitative descriptive-correlational study describes and examines the relationship between the perceived ethical leadership and faculty trust in schools. Proportionate stratified random sampling was used to target the population size of 139 faculties from three different Bukidnon State University satellite campuses, Bukidnon, for S.Y. 20212022. Descriptive statistics, One-Way ANOVA with post hoc Tukey test, and bivariate correlations were utilized for the data analysis. Results revealed that, in terms of gender, more than half of the participants were female. When it comes to their ages, the majority of them were between 26-40 years old and almost all of them had only been in the service for less than three years. The campus cluster profile had shown that the participants in this study were well distributed and represented across campuses. In general, the faculty perceived their heads or school leaders as righteous people and ethical leaders with very high ethical beliefs and values. The overall faculty trust in their campus-in charge, colleagues, and clients range from high to very high. Among the factors in the profile, only the campus cluster revealed a statistically significant difference in ethical leadership while non-significant differences in gender, age, and length of service were found during the analysis. The Post Hoc Tukey test revealed that the statistically significant differences were noted between North and Central Cluster only. It can be inferred from the variation of the results among the campuses that ethical leadership is manifested and perceived differently. Among the factors in the profile, only the campus cluster revealed a statistically significant difference in trust in schools while nonsignificant differences in gender, age, and length of service were found during the analysis. From the univariate result, faculty's level of trust varies among school campuses. This is likely due to the faculty's different experiences with their respective schools. The Post Hoc Tukey test revealed that the statistically significant differences were noted between North and Central Cluster only. The results suggest that teachers' trust towards their heads was distinct. It might be that this is due to the leader's behavior and their efforts in maintaining a healthy relationship among teachers. There is a moderate positive magnitude of the correlation between the general perceived ethical leadership and faculty' trust in schools. This implies that the leaders are demonstrating ethical values which has an effect on the trust of the faculty. Thus, an increase in teachers' perceived ethical leadership has a moderate effect on the increase of teachers' trust in schools. It is recommended for schools on occasion to conduct seminars related to ethical leadership and how it could help build trust in a school organization.