Ethical Leadership Flashcards
Leadership Ethics
Is a derivative of the Greek word ethos, meaning customs, conduct, or character.
• Is concerned with the kinds of values and morals an individual or society ascribes as desirable or appropriate.
• Focuses on the virtuousness of individuals and their motives.
• Ethical Theory
• Provides a system of rules or principles as a guide in making decisions about what is right/wrong and good/bad in a specific situation.
• Provides a basis for understanding what it means to be a morally decent human being
Go to frames of what u need to make as a leader…whether it is implicit or explicit
Conduct
• Has to do with what leaders do and who leaders are.
• It is concerned with the nature of the leaders’ behaviour and their virtuousness.
• In any decision making situation, ethical issues are either implicitly or explicitly involved.
• What choices leaders make and how they respond in a particular circumstance are informed and directed by their ethics.
2 broad domains of Ethical Theories
• Two broad domains: Theories about leaders’ conduct and about leaders’ character.
Ethical Theories - Conduct (Teleological Theories : goal oriented)
Teleological Theories : goal oriented
• Focus on consequences of leaders’ actions.
• Three different approaches to making decisions regarding moral conduct:
1. Ethical egoism (create greatest good for the leader)
• Closely related to transactional leadership theories
• Example: Leader takes a political stand on an issue for no other reason than to get re-elected.
Not all leaders are driven
- Utilitarianism (create greatest good for greatest number)
• Example: Leader distributes scarce resources so as to maximise benefit to everyone, while hurting the fewest; preventive healthcare vs. catastrophic illnesses.
Trolley problem
- Altruism (show concern for best interests of others)
• Authentic transformational leadership is based on altruistic principles.
• Example: The work of Mother Theresa who gave her entire life to help the poor.
Ethical theories based on self-interest vs. interest for others
Ethical Theories - Conduct (Deontological Theories)
Deontological Theories
• Duty driven, relates not only to consequences but also to whether action itself is good.
• Focus on the actions of the leader and his/her moral obligation and responsibilities to do the right thing.
• Example: Telling the truth, keeping promises, being fair.
• Virtue of selfishness?
Ethical Theories - Character
Virtue-based Theories
• About the leaders’ character
• Focus on who people are as people
• Rather than tell people what to do, tell people what to be.
• Help people become more virtuous through training and development.
• Virtues present within person’s disposition, and practice makes good values habitual.
• Examples: Courage, honesty, fairness, justice, integrity, humility.
Centrality of Ethics to Leadership
• Influence dimension of leadership requires the leader to have an impact on the lives of followers
• Power and control differences create enormous ethical responsibility for leader’s
• Respect for persons – sensitive to followers’ own interests and needs.
• Leaders help to establish and reinforce organizational values – an ethical climate
Cryptocurrency, about altruism…was the person doing it for himself
How about the pressure
Ethics are for the rich…can make decisions better
How someone leadswith ethics
Perspectives of Leadership
(Heifetz’s perspective)
• Emphasizes how leaders help followers to confront conflicting values and to effect change from conflict.
Go to principle to use when facing conflict
• Ethical perspective that speaks directly to:
• Values of workers
• Values of organisations and the communities in which they work
• Leaders use authority to mobilise followers to:
• Get people focused on issues
• Act as a reality test regarding information
• Manage and frame issues
• Orchestrate conflicting perspectives
• Facilitate the decision making process
• Leader provides a holding environment, a supportive context in which there is trust, nurturance, and empathy.
• Leaders’ duties to assist the follower in struggling with change and personal growth
Burn’s perspective
• Theory of Transformational Leadership
• Strong emphasis on followers’ needs, values and morals.
• Leaders help followers in their personal struggles concerning conflicting values.
• Stressing values such as liberty, justice, equality.
• Connection between leader and follower raises level of morality in both.
• Leaders’ role
• Assist followers in assessing their values and needs.
• Help followers to rise to a higher level of functioning.
Principles of Ethical Leadership
Respect others
Serves others
Show justice
Manifest honesty
Builds community
Respects Others
• Treating others as ends (their own goals) rather than as means (to leaders’ personal goals).
• Leaders shall:
• Treat other people’s values and decisions with respect.
• Allow others to be themselves with creative wants and desires.
• Approach others with a sense of unconditional worth and value individual differences.
• Leader behaviours: listen closely to subordinates, is empathic, is tolerant of opposing viewpoints.
Serves Others
• Follower-centred – based on the altruistic principle of placing followers foremost in the leaders’ plans.
• Leaders have:
• A duty to help others pursue their own legitimate interests and goals.
• To be steward of the organisation’s visions; in serving others, they clarify, nurture, and integrate the vision with, not for, organisation members.
• An ethical responsibility to make decisions that are beneficial to their followers’ welfare.
• Leaders’ behaviours: Mentoring, empowering, team building
Shows Justice
• Ethical leaders are concerned with issues of fairness and justice; they place issues of fairness at the centre of their decision making.
• Leaders shall adhere to principles of distributive justice.
• Leader behaviours:
• All subordinates are treated in an equal manner.
• In special treatment/special consideration situations, grounds for differential treatment are clear, reasonable, and based on sound moral values.
- equal share
- individual need
- person’s rights
- individual effort
- societal contribution
- merit
Manifests Honesty
Honest leaders are authentic but also sensitive to the feelings and attitudes of others.
• Leader behaviours:
• Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.
• Don’t suppress obligations.
• Don’t evade accountability.
• Don’t accept “survival of the fittest” pressures.
• Acknowledge and reward honest behaviour in the organisation.
• Leaders are not deceptive, and tell the truth with a balance of openness while monitoring what is appropriate to disclose.
Builds Community
• Concern for common good means leaders cannot impose their will on others; they search for goals that are compatible with everyone.
• Leader behaviours:
• Take into account purposes of everyone in the group.
• Is attentive to interest of the community and culture.
• Does not force others or ignore intentions of others.
Strengths
• Provides a body of timely research on ethical issues.
• Provides a direction on how to think about ethical leadership and how to practice it.
• Suggests that leadership is not an amoral phenomenon and that ethics should be considered as integral to the broader domain of leadership.
• Highlights principles and virtues that are important in ethical leadership development.
