Ethical Leadership, Ethical Selling, and Financial Services Performances: A Case of Nigerian Market

Introduction

In recent times, the issue of ethical practice in the financial sector of Nigerian economy has been under serious debate and on few occasions banks and insurance companies have been slammed with government hammers of closure, revocation of licenses and imprisonment of top officers of few banks and insurance companies. The bottom line of the government drastic actions against some of the firms largely revolved around ethical practice contravention. Lately, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sacked the Chief Executive Officers of five (5) banks due to excessive high level of non-performing loans and other unethical practices. Unethical conducts and issues related to unprofessional conducts, violation of corporate governance rules, insider trading and balance sheet engineering dominate the ugly table. However, the buck of the practices falls on the leadership in the affected banks and the development directly begs for the question of: What is the level of ethical leadership practice in the financial industry?

The study clearly investigates the relationship between the practice of ethical leadership –EL, and the extent it may enhance or endanger marketing staff performance that leads to customer satisfaction in financial services. Thus, the study investigates the mediating roles of ethical leadership practice and its relationship with selling ethics that will engender positive ethical practice among subordinates, especially sales/marketing staff. Hence, the study will fill the gap that earlier studies have not recognised in terms of how EL and ethical selling can affect or engender marketing staff performance in financial service/industry.