Following recent ethical failures in numerous industries, the prominence of ethics in business school programs has been highlighted as having an important role in inculcating future leaders with ethics. Ethical leadership role modeling is one of the approaches a number of business educators practice with the belief, supported by many scholars, that students learn by witnessing and then striving to duplicate.

This research aims to investigate the matching of perceptions of ethical leadership role modeling between educators and students in business school. In five business classrooms in Thailand, self-administered questionnaires were conducted with lecturers and students to identify their perceptions of ethical leadership role modeling practiced. Statistical analysis was later utilized to assess the match between perceptions of educators and students.

The findings reveal that overall; business educators consider themselves as ethical leadership role models, and students also perceive their lecturers’ role modeling in ethical leadership. However, the level of overall perceptions are moderately different, with a considerable difference in certain elements of ethical leadership.

The results underline the importance for educators wishing to emphasize ethics in business classrooms, by using a role modeling approach to ensure the alignment with students’ perception. Elements with a wide difference of perceptions should be accentuated in classrooms to assure the effectiveness of role modeling approach.