In the article two issues are taken into consideration. First, the ethical aspects of leaders’ communication are discussed in the context of two general models of leadership: transformational and transactional. Second, the partial results of the analysis of are ethical standards followed by Polish CEO’s and entrepreneurs are presented. The qualitative analysis was based on a sample of interviews with 37 CEO’s and 28 entrepreneurs, who manage middle and large sized companies located in different regions of Poland. Ethical standards were reconstructed regarding the transformational leadership and the leaders’ communication. The intergroup differences have been uncovered. In the CEOs’ group the ideal of transformational leadership, based on a sense of obligation to communicate moral values and ethical standards, was much more rooted, as well on the employee rolemodeling of ethical conduct through visible adherence to ethics. The standards of the ethical mode of communication were more evident in the CEOs’ group than in entrepreneurs, especially as far as the scope and the ‘dialogic’ way of communication are concerned.