Chapter 13: Leadership, Ethics and Toxicity Flashcards
Hemphill provides three stages to the leadership process
ASE.
- attempted leadership - an act by which an individual intends to influence a group for the purpose of solving a mutual problem
- succesful leadership - an attempted leadership act that has been followed: that is; an individual has influenced the group towards solving a mutual problem
- effective leadership - has not only influenced the direction of the group but also contributed to the group’s solution to the problem
Ethical Leadership & 3 categories
It is an increasing societal concern that is unacceptable
for leaders in organisations to be unaware of moral and responsibility and unethical behaviour that
drives an interest in ethics and leadership or ethical leadership. They also suggest that effective
leadership is when behaviour and influence are consistent with ethical and moral values.
- Intentions - the ethics of leaders themselves, the intentions of leaders, their personal ethics
- relational - the ethics of how a leader leads or the ethics of the process of leadership; mean by which a leader get things done and or the relationship between the leader and other stakeholders
- the ends - The ethics of what a leader does, the ethics of the outcomes of the leader’s actions
Moral Luck
An aspect of how well one thinks through a decision and the extent to which this thought process turns out to be “right”- accepts extrinsic factors with less control over as bad weather, accidents etc.
Important for leadership studies as it helps us reconcile issues of decision-making, risk assessment and moral accountability.
Moral manager
In order to be seen as ethical by their followers, they need to be credible role models.
The moral managers suggests that ethical leadership is represented by a leader’s proactive efforts to influence followers’ ethical behaviour - a link to leaders developing followers along an ethical path. One issue is the tension between self-interest and collective good.
Altruism
Ethical leadership comes about when a leader fulfils obligations because of their moral principles as opposed to considerations of media impact and the leader fulfils these moral obligations because of virtue - essential for leaders to be altruistic.
Authentic Leadership
Three levels, Behavioural tendencies and critique
Three levels:
- Individual personal authenticity
- A leader’s authenticity as a leader
- Authentic leadership as a phenomenon in itself
- These are hierarchically ordered
Caza & Jackson defines A-leadership through their exhibiting certain behavioural tendencies:
- self-awareness
- relational transparency
- balanced processing
- internalised moral perspective
Critique:
- the viewpoint that is is wholly desirable and always has positive outcomes.
- It works everywhere
- The idea of authentic leadership is romanticised and a context can reinforce or diminish leader narratives of authenticity
Responsible leadership
- Multi-stakeholder concept and this perspective takes leadership theory away from the leader-follower.
Maak and Pless (2006) suggest that
responsible leaders undertakes certain roles to “weave” their network of inclusion such as being
steward, citizen, visionary, servant, coach, architect, change agent, storyteller and meaning enabler.
These responsible leader roles and relationship between them needs further research.
Caring Leadership
The link between leadership and a duty of care.
- leader’s role to take care of others, taking responsibility for them particurlarly in times of crises.
Followers expect leaders to be not only competent but also moral and that leaders tend to be judged more harshly on morality than others.
KOLLA igen
Narcissism
Narcissistic leader - exhibiting an uninhibited behaviour filles with self-righteousness and arrogance.
- selfish and individualistic outlook.
- want to heighten their own self-gain.
Corporate psychopath
Ruthless employees who get promoted within senior management - frequently found at the top of organisations.
Toxic leadership
Attracts and destroys followers.
Followers tolerance to toxic leaders - aid and add their behaviour due to psychological needs for leadership.
“The Hitler problem”
where the good leader is
- competent and efficient
- morally ethical
Toxic triangle - leaders are not only the root to destructive leadership but also conductive environments and susceptible followers.
Bad Leadership, 7 characteristics?
IRIC CIE
- incompetence
- rigidity (stelhet, stränghet)
- intemperance (omåttlighet)
- callousness (hjärtlöshet)
- corruptness
- insularity (ökaraktär)
- evilness
Kellerman highlights a relational perspective - leaders are no the only to blame as the followers also have a responsibility in moderating the behaviour of leaders.
Destructive Leadership
Behaviour such as
- abusive supervision
- petty and managerial tyranny
- personalised charismatic leadership
- strategic bullying
- pseudo-transformational behaviour
This area lacks definitions and theoretical framework.
Fuzzy (oklar) Toxicity
Edwards challenge the notion of toxic leadership being a static entity that one can prescribe without understanding the power and political aspects linked to organisations, cultures and communities.
- uses Batman: The Dark Knight to explore the fuzzy nature of toxicity
Ethics, leadership and community
Framework by Donaldsson and Dunfee - integrative and social contracts theory, blends community-based perspective and universal norms. What would a norm be?
Researchers want to develop - community perspective on ethical leadership
- “ethics is not only what we choose to do as individuals, but how we are in relation to others”
Norm would be:
- Created within a given community
- Generally accepted by members of that community
- Abided to by the majority of the group
- In line with universal indisputable ethical principles
- Subject priorisation by rules previously agreed upon.
Cunha criticise this model for being to functionalist in nature. Nations of ethics and leadership need to be developed along 5 motives:
- avoid “black and white” views of E leadership and appreciate the “grey areas” or “twilight zones” of ethics
- adopt a process/relational approach to E leadership
- avoid dispositional and situational deterministic explanations
- present ethical leadership as a social construction
- incorporate the role of ambiguity in the process of ethical leadership.
