Ethical Transformational Leadership: Sustaining Business Resilience in the VUCA World

This chapter aims to shed light on the necessary relationship between ethics and leadership to sustain business resilience, particularly in the face of the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) of the modern world. In such situations, the ability to be aware, analyze, diagnose, cope, and manage organizations promptly is crucial for survival. However, in this VUCA World, some executives have claimed that activities previously considered essential for driving organizational performance and ensuring business sustainability, such as strategic planning, are now seen as futile. Leaders in the VUCA era must think fast and act promptly, which can potentially give rise to ethical risks and dilemmas. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether current ethical and transformational leadership practices remain constant in the VUCA World, and to propose a conceptual model for factors affecting ethical transformational leadership and business sustainability. The deductive approach was employed, based on a literature review of research in Western ethical theories, Thai ethical leadership principles, and leadership concepts, to explain the dyadic relationship between ethics and leadership in sustaining business resilience. Implications for further research were provided.