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There has been growing interest in ethical leadership from both scholars and practitioners because of the positive effects that ethical leaders can have on their subordinates. These benefits come not only from ethical leaders acting as moral exemplars, but also from the tendency for ethical leaders to forge high-quality social exchange relationships with subordinates that help to establish expectations for appropriate conduct and ensure accountability through reciprocal obligation. However, the act of developing and maintaining strong social exchange relationships is resource intensive and requires considerable personal investment from ethical leaders. Extending current theory, we propose that wider spans of control attenuate the positive relationship between ethical leadership and leader-member exchange (LMX). Across two organizational samples, we developed and tested a moderated mediation model in …