More recently, Brown et al. (2005) developed and validated the Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS), using a social learning framework. The authors proposed as a foundation that ethical leaders influence followers to behave ethically which at its base means that followers must attend to, accept, and role model leadership behavior. Brown et al constructed a 10-item scale that they validated in seven interlocking studies. These studies indicated that the ELS was unidimensional, correlated with aspects of leadership influence, honesty, fairness, and was predictive of leader effectiveness. In their discussion, Brown et al. asked if distance from the leader would influence employees ratings of ethical leadership" (p. 131). That question is the one we tackle in this article.