Managerial Ethics

Individual Assignment - I

ARIJIT DASH12009

1. Are you a leader, born or cultivated or both? How do you characterize your leadership traits based on the leadership profiles presented by Narayana Murthy and Rahul Khosla?

In-born Leadership Traits

Cultivated Leadership Elements

Pillars of Leadership

1. Leadership Style 2. Motivation Style3. Negotiation &

Influencing abilities4. Empathy

1. Moral & Ethical sensitivity2. Goal setting3. People and Social Skills4. Understanding psychology of

followers5. Teamwork

1. Self-awareness2. Self-regulation3. Self-motivation4. Empathy5. Social Skills

First, effective leaders develop self-awareness—the understanding and insight of how they themselves affect others, facilitating their ability to work well with them.

Second, leaders self-regulate. They have the ability to control or redirect impulses and moods that are disruptive, and they wisely engage in serious thinking before they act.

Third, leaders are self-motivated. They work because of their passion to pursue goals, not merely because of money.

Fourth, leaders have empathy. Their understanding of others’ needs and what is important to them enables them to build more meaningful relationships. Finally, leaders possess social skills that let them build rapport and find common ground with others while concurrently revealing what they themselves stand for and value in the process.

While I inherently possess some of the leadership traits, I have also been groomed in a way such that I have been able to cultivate certain key elements of leadership.

Personal Leadership Traits based on

N.Murthy Leadership Profile

Rewarding MeritocracyHonesty and Loyalty, Encouraging Participative Decision making, Having own clear Vision and Goal, Creating a Unified Goal for Followers and Leading them towards it, Offering value to customers, Unity among diversity

Essentially Mr Murthy’s style of leadership is more directed to Social commitment and Reward Oriented. This in-turn helps to groom up raw Talents and motivates them to be focused towards a common goal.

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Personal Leadership Traits based on R.Khosla

Leadership Profile

Personally inspired for better performance, Result driven by taking Calculated Risk, Clear Communication with all the levels, Ability to spot talent and groom the individual, cultivating Responsible leadership style

Mr Khosla’s style of leadership is Performance driven – Result is the key factor and Grooming Healthy competitive spirit for the well-being of the Organization.

I am more aligned to Mr. Murthy’s style of leadership. Using Mr Murthy’s style I always try to keep my team motivated with a democratic way for taking decisions so as to create a comfortable environment for everyone to participate and grow.

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2. Mindful leaders, says Rahul Khosla (ibid), learn constantly and the richness and diversity of their experience enhances their effectiveness progressively. How will you structure and embellish your leadership traits with experience and exposure of the past?

Leadership TraitCultivated through

ExperienceCultivated through Past

Exposure

Vision

Providing guidance and think beyond the obvious.Proactively seeking outside help if need be.Charter steps for the future thinking realistically.

Have developed the ability to forecast based on past exposures, to share a common vision.

Honesty & IntegrityImparted through Teachings by Parents, Teachers and proper guidance from Superiors.

Realized the importance and weightage of this trait by facing situations of ethical dilemma both in personal and professional lives

Com

mun

icati

on Self-awarenessSelf-regulationSelf-motivationEmpathySocial Skills

Learnt attributes of responsible behaviour while communicating with others during study life; Learnt the technical features of communication through soft skill development studies.

Practised effective way of communication with subordinates peers and superiors; Self- Learning through Training and feedback from team members;Creating a productive and conducive work environment through effective communication skill.

Motivation Skills

Through Education and past experiences, have learnt different facets of inspiring team members.

Developed ability to acknowledge and appreciate the efforts of team members and reward them.

Confidence

Undertaken challenging tasks and delivered quality output in time

As a Leader, I have always worked towards quality result with optimistic view and keeping up Team Morale; During tough situations, assured team members that only who work they fail and the important thing is to learning from mistake and to focus on the larger goal

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Commitment & Dedication

My commitment and dedication drove me to pursue higher education.I have learnt to set up goals that challenge my limits and endeavour to achieve those goals.

Self-Learning by leading other peers through examples in various team work situations; Delivered quality responsible work with peak amount of hard-work and the proper focus.

Intuition

At unfavourable situation guided the team based on intuition and gut feeling and by taking calculated risk based on past experiences.

Inculcated the ability to Trust myself during tough situations; Developed good reflex based decision making through past exposure

Positive Attitude

Have learnt the art of balancing work and social life in order to better deliver my work.

Learnt to maintain the fine balance between productivity and fun while working in team settings;

Incorporated positive frame of mind while working within a diverse team environment

Creativity

Out of Box thinking – on basis of trust on own intuition and abilities, has driven me to nurture my creativity.

Decision making under various types tough situations demands critical thinking abilities which has improved to develop my creativity.

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3. What is ethical versus moral versus corporate leadership, and how do you map your life along these three paths? [See Table 9.3].

Corporate Leadership

Ethical Leadership

Moral Leadership

Nat

ure

Dimensions

Is Multifaceted involving concept, construct, model, paradigm and Exercises influence in the choice of means and ends

Is Multifaceted involving elements of Diversity of Attitudes, Values, Cultures and Exercises Moral influence in the choice of means and ends?

Is Multifaceted involving parameters of Religious beliefs, conscience, virtues, and integrity and Exercises Moral principles and improves communities of humans.

Self-Correlation

Basic Leadership Style: Corporate

Mainly result driven by utilizing various means. However, at the time of leading team members from diverse communities and nationalities Ethics and Morality also become important dimensions.

Entit

y of

Influ

ence

Dimensions

The leader follows principles of the corporate he/she represents while making decisions and exerting influences on subordinates.

The leader follows Ethical principles while imparting corporate decisions on followers and subordinates.

The Leader follows Moral Principles to induce and influence followership based on attitudes, beliefs, intentions and values.

Self-Correlation

Basic Leadership Style: Moral

My basic leadership style belongs to Moral Principles while taking Decisions or Facing Dilemmas under corporate environment.

Styl

e of

Lea

ders

hip

Dimensions

Leadership style involves ways such as Incentive, Rewards, Force, and Promises to influence leader follower relationship.

Leadership style involves Impression, Inspiration, Incentives, and Persuasion that must be Ethical in motives.

Leadership style involves Organization, Council, Persuasion, and Incentives that must be Moral in Content.

Self-Correlation

Basic Leadership Style: Ethical

My leadership style is generally Inspirational, Reward based and Persuasive. While addressing diversity and variety of thoughts my style incorporates Ethical and Moral values.

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Scop

e O

f Lea

ders

hip

Dimensions

Employer vs. employees; Supervisor vs. workers; suppliers and distributors; Leader vs. followers;

Leadership in ideas, technology, innovation, products and services, markets and market share, profits and performance, growth and prosperity.

Employer vs. employees; Supervisor vs. workers; suppliers and distributors; Leader vs. followers;

Local vs. global communities.

Leadership in company industry codes of ethical conduct, worker morale, customer experience and loyalty, ecological stewardship and global sustainability.

Employer vs. employees; Supervisor vs. workers; Leader vs. followers; worker families and communities; supplier family and communities; distributors and families.

Leadership in wisdom, integrity, caring, sharing, giving, understanding, forgiving, reconciling, compassion, mercy.

Self-Correlation

Basic Leadership Style: Corporate

As a leader, I strive to incorporate Corporate Values, Sustainability Principles and the duty of giving back to the community.

Prim

e M

otive

be

hind

Lea

ders

hip

Dimensions

Control of Follower behaviour, popularity, reputation, wealth, benefits and loyalty.

Following Fair Trade Principles, fulfilling rights and duties, doing right/just things.

Following Moral Principle of Trade, Inclusive growth of the communities involved.

Self-Correlation

Basic Leadership Style: Ethical

The Prime motive behind my leadership style is Sense of following fair principles, Deliver goodwill for the society and being Ethically balanced.

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4. Some twenty five years ago, Robert Greenleaf spoke and wrote about servant leadership. How do you understand, apply and verify it in your life up to now?

The very notion of a servant as leader, or “servant-leadership” is purposefully oxymoronic and arresting in nature. It challenges long-standing assumption held about the relationship between leaders and followers in an organization. By combining seemingly contradictory terms, Greenleaf helps us to reconsider the very nature of leadership.

The basic framework of servant leadership is explained below:

Service to OtherServant-leadership begins when a leader assumes the position of servant in their interactions with followers. Authentic, legitimate leadership arises not from the exercise of power or self-interested actions, but from a fundamental desire to first help others. A servant-leader’s primary motivation and purpose is to encourage greatness in others, while organizational success is just an indicator of the same.

Holistic Approach to WorkThe theory promotes a view that individuals should be encouraged to be who they are, in their professional as well as personal lives. This more personal, integrated valuation of individuals, it is theorized, ultimately benefits the long-term interests and performance of the organization.

Promoting a Sense of communityThat by establishing the sense of community, defined as groups of individuals that are jointly liable for each other both individually and as a unit, can an organization succeed in its objectives. The theory states that this sense of community can arise only from the actions of individual servant-leaders.

Sharing of Power in Decision-MakingBy nurturing participatory, empowering environments, and encouraging the talents of followers, the servant-leader creates a more effective, motivated workforce and ultimately a more successful organization. In this process an “inverted pyramid”, with employees, clients and other stakeholders at the top, and leader(s) at the bottom which promotes flexible, delegated organizational structures.

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DimensionsMajor Philosophy/

UnderstandingMapping to my Life and

Verifying the Experiences

Necessity

Legitimate absolute power is irrelevant and becomes an Ethical imperative. Leader or Follower is expected to always Listen, Search, Give and Expect.

In in the absence of the assigned authority, I have always followed the servant leadership style.

Focus

Servant is the first priority and inspired by the desire to Serve. The service must be selfless and involve collective enthusiasm. The nature of relationship is essentially Relational.

Whenever I find that any of my team member is unable to perform or is under any kind of stress due to the workload, as a team leader, I always try to go beyond my way to help the person out.

I always try to find out the problems he/she is facing and try to help him/her out with solving the issues.

Characteristic

Positive, affirmative, inspiring. This kind of leadership is prophetic and driven by inspiration than rationalism. Helps the follower to grow in faith, hope, self-esteem and most importantly freedom.

During any kind of review meeting, I always try to begin the discussion by highlighting the key achievements and fruitful performances and unique contributions by my team members.

This tends to boost the confidence of my team members and improves mutual understanding and cooperation.

Challenges

The ethical failure persists as long as the world is occupied by the marginalized and the powerless. People are continually exploited and discriminated. Ethical and Moral Challenges lie in followers responding only to those individuals who are chosen as leaders because they have proven worthy.

While leading team members belonging to diverse communities, at times I assign responsibilities based not on skill sets but on their community background.

Impact

Significance of this leadership is serving a community having a common journey. The leader sets a vision and directs the team members and the community involved towards achieving the common destiny. Thus, Servant leadership can transform Global capitalism, to serve better the whole of humanity.

At the time of taking various management decisions, care is taken such that outcome of the process leaves a positive impact on the immediate community involved.

Also, the process is well documented such that in future the process can be enhanced and better utilized for the betterment of the whole community.

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5. Leadership is both an art and a science. Delineate the art features of your leadership style as well its science features. What do you see and learn from the past, and how do you plan for effective leadership for the future that is a convex combination of art and science?

Leadership Dimensions Learning from Past Experiences Requirements for Implementation Plan for the Future

ART

CommunicationInvolves the psychology reading of the listener and also the expectation of them.

Need to understand the non-verbal cues as effective communication is built with help of it and also fulfils the expectation of the audience.

Persuasiveness

Involves both intra Team and inter team negotiation skills. One has to address and empathize the degrees of demands of both the client and the service provider in equanimity.

1. Persuasion is basically a combination of several different traits.

2. There is a need to be confident (not brash), fluent and self-assured, and be appealing and engaging. 

Creativity

Under circumstances where traditional solutions become inapplicable, thinking out of the box involves creativity. This creativity in turn involves knowledge and relational aspects across different domains of technology and ideas.

Need to enhance my imagination and objective relational skill sets. As my past experiences has been diverse, relating learning’s from diverse domains and creating solutions for seemingly unsolvable problems is much an Art.

ART

& S

CIEN

CE

Emotional Intelligence Higher levels of emotional intelligence are associated with better performance in the following areas:

Participative Management Putting People at Ease Self-Awareness Balance Between Personal Life and Work Straightforwardness and Composure Building and Mending Relationships Decisiveness Confronting Problem Employees Change Management

1. EI can be developed through the practice of seeking on-going feedback.

2. Ask supervisors and co-workers who know you well for honest feedback on how your behaviour is impacting them.

3. Use opportunities to self-reflect upon adversity – business failures, demotions, missed promotions, unchallenging jobs, and personal trauma.

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Empathy

Empathy is also particularly critical to leadership development in this age of young, independent, highly marketable and mobile workers.

Leaders with empathy thoughtfully consider employees' feelings – along with other factors – in the process of making intelligent decisions.

1. They are people who use empathy to engender trust and build bonds; they are catalysts who are able to create positive communities for the greater good.

2. But even if empathy does not come naturally to some of us, I firmly believe that we can develop this capacity.

3. Empathy is an emotional and thinking muscle that becomes stronger the more we use it.

Social Intelligence

To communicate effectively, it is helpful to be able to read into others’ thoughts and emotions.

It is commonly expected that those in leadership positions have the knowledge and ability to address any issue, but often they do not.

Social intelligence can be enhanced through learning, training and education.

Ability to Motivate

People need to feel that they are involved in the decision making process and end results obtained. Hence accountability of people is also involved. More so, ability to forecast a Common vision for the team certainly inspires them for long term results.

Need to understand the deficiencies of the team as a whole. Thus, making the team realize their shortcomings will better prepare them for the shared vision and give them freedom to be creative.

Commitment & Dedication

With dedication and commitment, high quality standards can be maintained even in the most stressful conditions.

This is particularly important in the current times as the world is going through a volatile environment and is in need of leaders who are committed and dedicated.

1. Set difficult but achievable targets – this will enable testing a person’s mettle by pushing him to use his maximum capability.

2. Self-Learning by leading other peers through examples in various team work situations will also bring commitment and dedication.

Honesty & IntegrityIt cannot be taught but can be acquired and inherited. People have varying degrees of honesty and this can be well accessed in team environment.

Better understand Team dynamics, so that members with this prominent quality can be suitably rewarded and made as role models for the organization.

Confidence

It encompasses all the leadership qualities mentioned. A befitting leader will have proportionate qualities that in turn will mould into supreme confidence.

As I will subsequently fulfil the requirements of all the qualities mentioned above, this will in turn hone my leadership skills. Thus, I will emerge as a Supremely confident individual.

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SCIE

NCE

Intuition

Past experiences have honed my reflexive decision making ability. Moreover, a mindset is created where probable outcomes are already known within that in turn makes the decision making process more efficient.

Need to understand the qualitative and quantitative aspects of decision making processes. This will in turn enhance my intuitive abilities and further my understanding of building effective intuition based on learning from past experiences.

Ability to Delegate

Essentially involves understanding of Team dynamics and postulate the strengths and weaknesses of team members. Delegating work based on such factors, makes the whole exercise enjoyable and interesting.

1. Need to better understand and address the diversity among international team settings.

2. Certain cultures and communities have inherent strengths and weaknesses, if known will certainly make the process simpler and efficient.

Problem Solving Skills

This is somewhat dependent on the education and background and past experiences.

1. Taking up challenging projects add value to one’s self rather than being in one’s comfort zone.

2. Planning tactically keeping in mind the future is of utmost importance.

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6. According to Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana (2010), leaders create meaning, communicate it effectively, and realize it in themselves and their followers. How will you understand, apply and verify this form of leadership in your life up to now, as well as plan for the future? [See Table 9.5].

Leadership Activity

Dimensions

Understanding, Application and Verification Based on Experiences

Implementation Plan for the Future

Creation of a Vision

Leaders make Vision based on Big Ideas which are exciting to the people.

The whole creative process of vision development consists of stages like observing, reflecting, writing, speaking.

A powerful Vision attracts people to join that organization and motivates them to deliver better resulting growth of the business.

1. Objective understanding of the entire organization and the ethos on which it stands.

2. More effective communication skills, understanding the demand of the business and the way to relate it with people.

Creation of Mission

Successful leaders build strong organization culture by translating the Vision into Mission Statement which can align the strategy with the goals and aspirations of the stakeholders.

1. Clearly understand the Vision and the Values of the organization

2. Understand how the Vision and the value is translated into the Misson statement

3. Learn how to effectively align the strategy with the goals and aspirations of the stakeholders.

Creation of Objectives and Goals

An organization has Business, Product, Market, Customer and Profitability goals.

It the leader who has to prioritize and pursue all these goals based on what the organization demands.

1. Business, Product, Market, Customer and Profitability goals have to be realized in a sustainable manner.

2. Sustainability goals and ecology goals are thus required to be formulated in the implementation plan.

3. Set SMART goals (Paul Mayer) which are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and tangible.

Design of the Organization

Effective leaders structure their Organization for better Communication, Productivity and Innovation.

As the design evolves most organizations have elements of hierarchy, flexible and organic structures.

1. Understand the organizational strategy and structure will follow the strategy.

2. Ensure that the organization structure put in place is well accepted and understood by all.

Design of Organization

Effective leaders carefully choose Inputs/ Drivers for the organizational processes.

These inputs are based on Core Values, Duties and

Incorporate the various process improvement tools and techniques to increase the process efficiency and set world-class standards.

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Process

Responsibilities and Design and Development policies of the organization.

As a result, a framework of Organizational processes are evolved that involve New Product Development, Quality Control methodologies, Product Expansion and Growth and Creativity and Innovation.

Organizational Performance

Measurement

Involves various facets of performance measurement such as Revenue and Growth, Market Share and Capitalization, Return on Quality and Assets, Price/ Earnings Ratio, Order booking, Customer complaint .

An Effective leader is able to grasp the relevant information and create a yardstick for accessing the Performance of the organization as a whole.

1. Integrate (inter/intra) Customer review and Feedback mechanisms to various functional units of the Business.

2. Ensure to have a proper feedback mechanism and that all level in the organization work towards improving it.

3. This will help in maximising the performance by accessing the Gaps and addressing the weaknesses.

References

1. O'Malley, M. (2012). Every Leader Is an Artist. Harvard Business Review.

2. BOSCO, D. E. (2010). Achieving High Organization Performance through Servant Leadership. The Journal of Business Inquiry, 9, 74-88.

3. Fiedler, F. (1967). A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill.

4. Hahn, D. (2010). Leadership …Art Form or Science? Hahn Training, LLC , pp. 1-5.

5. Understanding the Leader in You. (n.d.). Sage Publications.

6. Vondey, M. (2010). The Relationships among Servant Leadership, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Person-Organization Fit, and Organizational Identification. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 6(1).

7. Zaccaro, S., Kemp, C., & Bader, P. (2008). Leader Traits and Attributes. In THE MAJOR SCHOOLS OF LEADERSHIP.

8. Leadership Qualities. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.nbsa.org.

9. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.forbes.com/leadership.

10. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/leadership.

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