Research Paper On Ethical Leadership

Introduction

“Cowardice asks the question ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question ‘Is it popular?’ But, conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Ethics define the difference between right and wrong whereas leadership consists of acts that influence sub-ordinates. So, ethical leadership is a series of actions taken place to influence sub-ordinates in the possible right way. A leader is not only required to be good in intellectual capacity but a leader must incorporate morals and values customarily in acts and behaviors. Leader’s character is of supreme importance for two basic reasons: firstly it influences decisions made for the business and secondly it influences the characters of followers who consider their leader a role model, followers are found replicating their leader’s manner of decision making, interpersonal communication and ethical performance (Mendonca et al, 2006). The ethical leadership is usually transformational in nature associated very common perceptions of managerial ethical leadership with imperative outcomes such as improved employee commitment, decreased unethical behavior in the organization, and the principles orientation of the firm’s ethics agenda (Trevino et al, 1998).

Main Body

Ethics is an integral measure of a leader’s credibility and is exhibited through enhanced job performing characteristics. Leader in an organization acts as a representative of the organization itself. According to Brown et al. (2005), the critical component of leadership is to communicate about ethics to employees and reward them for showing compliance to ethical standards that yields organizational success. William Hitt (1990) in his book listed three qualities of leaders to be ethically active, which include achieving perception of ethics, acting as role model in decision making and generating and implementing plan of action for promoting ethical demeanor in followers. The foundations of ethical behavior are trust, honesty and respect to others. The employees a company hires go on to carry out the business in the future. They help steer the company in the right direction. This is the age of amplified corruption and in order to uproot it ethical leaders are needed. In the 21st century, business ethics has become an organisational priority and no organisation can omit it. The organizations like Enron experiencing ethical issues and their worst consequences have led to shift the focus from general leadership to ethical leadership, which involves moral values and principles. On the other hand, Cadbury Schweppes' good practice was recognized when it was voted one of the 'most admired companies for community and environmental responsibility' by Management Today magazine in 2003. The examples of organizations exhibiting unethical actions has caused businesses to revise their strategic track, serving them to discover that ethical leadership is the way to enhance profitability (Yukl, 2001).

Normative Ethical Theory

The normative ethical theory explains various types of moral theories, each differing from other in context and aids in the process of ethical decision making to describe what is right or wrong in different circumstances. These theories include utilitarianism, egoism, and deontology, theory of right, justice and care. There are only a few decision-making models that take these theories into consideration, one such example is the model of Hitt (1990). Ethical reasoning is done by ethical leaders prior to reaching any final decision and this reasoning involves the use of ethical theories.
Ethics formulate those standards that influences leader’s action and through which the behavior of people towards others can be judged. And as Darcy (2010) explained ethical leadership as a process of being and making the right choice, so it comes to person’s inner mortality of making right choices about business and co-workers in an organization.
Building up ethical character by a leader is a challenge in itself. Previous researches have defined the way in which personal ethically strong character can be achieved. One of such study is by Monahan (2012) in which he stated that ethical leadership is achieved by taking into account person’s own inner character especially in tough times because control and evaluation in such circumstances leads to affluent ethical leadership. The way to know one is through spirituality, without which a leader cannot peep into one’s own soul and hence ethical leadership cannot be achieved without it. Ethical leadership can be achieved by exercising those tasks that take a person closer to spirituality and inner morals can only be developed through practicing (Menduca et. al, 2005).

Ethical Leadership contributing in success of organization

Ethical leadership has to influence followers as well and therefore there should be no gap between what leader says and does. Otherwise it creates confusion in followers and gives rise to ethical dilemmas. Consistent ethical actions should be carried out. There are a number of challenges associated with adopting and implementing ethical way of action. Firstly it may go against the ego of leader himself, if the decision is ethically right and may be not in accordance with leader’s way of thinking. According to the text of book by Gini (1998), an ethical decision is the one that makes no harm or reduces harm and enhances benefit to most of the people.
Lewis (1944) put forward his statement in his book about getting proper knowledge of ethical values, such that values are kept in mind and actions are led by these values by following them by heart. So, mere knowing ethical values is not enough for a leader, a good ethical leadership is the one that while carrying out actions, take these morals into consideration.
According to Bandura (1986) the social theory explains the aspects of a leader’s personality which make that person so influential to be followed by others. Ethical leadership is associated with follower ethical decision making, employee pro-social behavior, reduced employee’s counterproductive behaviors and it adds to follower’s positive work attitudes. Ethical leadership contributes to employee commitment; they become more dedicated and find themselves making personal sacrifices for organization. Psychological empowerment is another outcome that is achieved by credible ethical leadership that can be adopted by followers as well. Ethical activities enhances investor’s trust, a strong relationship is seen between customer satisfaction and ethical behavior thus leading to higher revenues. All these factors combine together and make organization stronger, credible and trustworthy in view of its stakeholders that provide them an edge as compared to its competitors.

Psychological Empowerment

According to Brown et al (2005), the authentic/credible ethical behavior represents behaviors that are consistent and are linked with pure intentions of the leader. The intentions should not be concealed rather obvious and actions must be based on intentions. So, ethical leadership is a set of actions where head and heart combine to contribute in success of the organization. The success is precisely contributed to the leader himself because the number of followers’ increases and their integrity cannot be questioned for a long duration, during their stay in organization.
Ethical leadership is easy to be stated in words than to be implemented through actions. The corporate world can produce ethically vigilant leaders by stating their own code of ethics and formulating an ethical mission for the company processes. Moreover, practicing the written code and elaborating its need to sub-ordinates and followers is also necessary. Ethical decision making and reviews from the stakeholders should be present as well. The appointed leader must be credible enough to be acceptable by followers. An ethical leader should be good at developing personal beliefs to understand inner and outer self. Ethics act as a backbone to good leadership, without ethics, a leader cannot develop effective leadership. It means if a leader does not show empathy, compassion and concern for stakeholders who are going to be affected by the decision being taken, then effectiveness cannot be attained. In the absence of effectiveness, the followers will not consider their leader as a role model to be followed. Hence, ethical leadership is the main area of concern in today’s world to develop and maintain long lasting relationships within and outside organization.

Ethical Decision Making

Companies can do better if corporate executives and business owners realize that there can be no concession when it comes to ethics and there are no easy shortcuts to success. They need to start by communicating their values and lead by examples This means getting rid of the bad apples and declining opportunities that bring instant wealth at the cost of selling one’s soul. Ethical leadership is associated with follower ethical decision making, employee pro-social behavior, reduced employee’s counterproductive behaviors and it adds to follower’s positive work attitudes. Previous researches have accounted very less involvement of ethical leadership in businesses although it is a part and parcel for organizational success. In one national poll stated in the research work of Wagooner (2010), only 13% of respondents expressed the prevalence of ethical leadership in top rated companies. However other surveys have explained that ethical leadership is not rare. For example, 80% of respondents in a national survey in United States agreed to the importance of ethical leadership in yielding fruitful results (Brown & Trevino, 2006).

Conclusion

Concluding the above mentioned discussion, the background of ethical leadership indicates that it is not a rare phenomenon. Moreover, with the ever increasing ethical issues in big corporate it is required to enforce ethics in business environment. Huge failures due to unethical functioning in organizations has made this issue worthy of notice and corporate world now want to select or otherwise develop ethical leaders. Ethics bring effectiveness to the performance and thus it is now taught as a subject in business schools, opted by organizations in their working environments and an area of immense interest for academicians. Apart of existing literature on this topic, there are many undefined areas as well that need to be explored. Most of the literature describes ethical challenges and dilemmas with very few offering solutions to these problems. Although, ethical theories exist but, seldom followed in real and there are very few models for ethical decision making as well.
With the rise of complexity in business world, the lack of ethics is becoming a huge challenge and hence ethical leadership is a topic of major interest for the management and researchers as well. It is suggested that instead of viewing ethical leadership as one of the type of leadership, it should be taken as the first step in the development of leaders in any environment.

Reference

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