1/10/13 Ethical leadership - Wikipedia, the f ree ency clopedia

1/3en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_leadership

Ethical leadershipFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Traditionally, the view of leadership has been that the main goal of leaders is to increase production and profits7.The traditional view of leadership is slowly diminishing, as more theorists in the 21st century are asserting that

leaders also have the responsibility for ensuring standards of moral and ethical conduct1. Good leadership refers

not only to competence, but to ethics and transforming people as well6.

All leadership is responsible for influencing followers to perform an action, complete a task, or behave in a

specific manner 6. Effective leaders influence process, stimulate change in subordinate’s attitudes and values,augment followers’ self-efficacy beliefs, and foster the internalization of the leaders’ vision by utilizing strategies

of empowerment6. It is believed that the nurturing aspect of leaders can raise organizational cultures and

employee values to high levels of ethical concern6. Ethical leadership requires ethical leaders6. If leaders areethical, they can ensure that ethical practices are carried out throughout the organization.

Contents

1 Leadership

2 Ethical leadership in organizations

3 Enron Corporation

4 Opposing viewpoints

5 References

Leadership

Ethical leadership is leadership that is involved in leading in a manner that respects the rights and dignity of

others7. “As leaders are by nature in a position of social power, ethical leadership focuses on how leaders use

their social power in the decisions they make, actions they engage in and ways they influence others”7. Leaderswho are ethical demonstrate a level of integrity that is important for stimulating a sense of leader trustworthiness,

which is important for followers to accept the vision of the leader7. These are critical and direct components to

leading ethically4. The character and integrity of the leader provide the basis for personal characteristics that

direct a leader’s ethical beliefs, values, and decisions7. Individual values and beliefs impact the ethical decisions

of leaders9.

Leaders who are ethical are people-oriented7, and also aware of how their decisions impact others8, and use

their social power to serve the greater good instead of self-serving interests7. In ethical leadership it is important

for the leader to consider how his or her decisions impact others7. Motivating followers to put the needs or

interests of the group ahead of their own is another quality of ethical leaders3. Motivating involves engagingothers in an intellectual and emotional commitment between leaders and followers that makes both parties

equally responsible in the pursuit of a common goal4. These characteristics of ethical leaders are similar to

inspirational motivation, which is a style component of transformational leadership2. Inspirational motivation

“involves inspiring others to work towards the leader’s vision for the group and to be committed to the group”7.Similarly, ethical leadership “falls within the nexus of inspiring, stimulating, and visionary leader behaviors that

make up transformational and charismatic leadership”4. Ethical leaders assist followers in gaining a sense of

1/10/13 Ethical leadership - Wikipedia, the f ree ency clopedia

2/3en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_leadership

personal competence that allows them to be self-sufficient by encouraging and empowering them7.

Ethical leadership in organizations

In organizational communication, ethics in leadership are very important. Business leaders must make decisionsthat will not only benefit them, but also they must think about how the other people will be affected (Stansbury33). The best leaders make known their values and their ethics and preach them in their leadership style andactions. It consists of communicating complete and accurate information, where there is a personal, professional,ethical, or legal obligation to do so (McQueeney 165). When practicing ethics, you gain the respect andadmiration of employees, with the satisfaction of knowing you did the right thing. If you never make clear whatyou want, and expect, then it can cause mistrust.

Being unethical in the workplace can include anything from taking personal phone calls while at your desk, tellingsomeone the "check is in the mail", when in fact it hasn't even been written yet, and even taking office supplieshome for your personal use. Most organizations create an ethical code, which is usually a list of rules that tellsyou what behaviors are right and what are wrong in the company.

For your organization, you might want to let employees know your values right off the bat. Such values can be,teamwork, ambition, honesty, efficiency, quality, accomplishment, and dedication.

Enron Corporation

One of the most famous examples of not having an ethical leader is in the company Enron. According to Seegerand Ulmer, which is noted in Organizational Communication: Perspectives and Trends by Michael J.Papa, Tom D. Daniels and Barry K. Spiker, this is the best way to understand ethical failures.

Enron Corporation is a gas pipeline company that turned into a huge enterprise. In 2001, the company collapseddue to scandals and bad leadership. Basically, the reason why they failed was due to a set of values thatemployees had to agree to, but in fact executives were demonstrating a different set of values. Due to thismiscommunication of values and other important facts, the company went bankrupt.

The conclusion to the Enron case, according to Wee Heesun, is that smart CEOs will realize that an honest,transparent, and trustworthy culture can also bolster employee morale and ultimately guard shareholder value.

Opposing viewpoints

Opposing perspectives surrounding ethical leadership exist. The perspectives of ethical leadership summarizedabove present a social learning view that involves role modeling and promotes normative and ethically

appropriate conduct that is demonstrated in the decisions that leaders make4. Contrasting perspectives focus onthe leaders’ cognitions and actions, and assert that ethical leadership is demonstrated through multiple levels of

psychological processes7 that impact behavior and not social learning.

References

1. Barnard, C. I. (1938). The functions of the executive. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.2. Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York, NY: Free Press. #

Bonner, W. (2007). Locating a space for ethics to appear in decision-making: Privacy as an exemplar.Journal of Business Ethics, 70, 221-234.

3. Brown, M. E., Trevino, L. K., & Harrison, D. A. (2005). Ethical leadership: A social learning

perspective for construct development and testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision

1/10/13 Ethical leadership - Wikipedia, the f ree ency clopedia

3/3en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_leadership

perspective for construct development and testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision

Processes, 97, 117-134.

4. Dirks, K. T., & Ferrin, D. L. (2002). Trust in leadership: Meta-analytic findings and implications forresearch and practice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 611- 628.

5. Reilly, E. C. (2006). The future entering: Reflections on and challenges to ethical leadership. EducationalLeadership and Administration, 18, 163-173.

6. Resick, C. J., Hanges, P. J., Dickson, M. W., & Mitchelson, J. K. (2006). A cross-cultural examinationof the endorsement of ethical leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 63, 345-359.

7. Trevino, L. K., Brown, M., & Hartman, L. P. (2003). A qualitative investigation of perceived executiveethical leadership: Perceptions from inside and outside the executive suite. Human Relations, 56(1), 5-37.

8. Watts, T. (2008). Business Leaders’ Values and Beliefs Regarding Decision Making Ethics. LosAngeles, CA: LULU.

9. Papa, M.J., Daniels, T.D., Spiker, B.K.(2008). Organizational Communication: Perspectives and

Trends. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.10. McQueeny, E.(2006). Making Ethics Come Alive. Business Communication Quarterly, 69(2), 158-170

11. Wee, H. Corporate Ethics: Right makes might. Business Week Online.12. Stansbury, J.(2009). Reasoned Moral Agreement: Applying discourse ethics within organizations.

Business Ethics Quarterly. 19(1), 33-56.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethical_leadership&oldid=519307871"Categories: Leadership

Navigation menu

This page was last modified on 23 October 2012 at 01:25.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms mayapply. See Terms of Use for details.

Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.