Leadership and Ethics

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The purpose of this blog is to understand what leadership is, what the theory explains about leadership and what role ethics play in leadership. 

Some say Leaders are born and some say leaders are created. Studies on the leadership theories have been in effect since 1800’s with constant evolution in leadership history. Leaders were seen as charismatic as a part of the Great Man Theory (the 1840’s) suggesting that leadership is intrinsic or inherited by birth and leaders only rise when confronted with certain situations. This theory revolutionized to a new theory called Trait Theory (1930 -1940) which suggested that Leaders can be born but also be created with certain personality traits. The study went on and new theories came as a reflection like Behavioural theory (1940 – 1950) suggesting leaders are either task oriented or people oriented, Contingency Theory (1960) suggesting that leaders reflect responsive followers. (Leadership-Central.com, 2017) Following the research, Directive, transactional and transformational leadership theories came into light. (Leadership-Central.com, 2017).

Interlinking Ethics and Leadership; ethics is a set of standards for norms and behaviors that people reflect upon in certain situations. It is about making the right decisions with high morality and defined values. (Bonde et al., 2017)

(Kfknowledgebank.kaplan, 2017)

In this era, most organizations have leaders who reflect Transformational Leadership which is more likely connected to the deontological theory of ethical leadership. Transformational leaders have traits that are influencing and inspiring followers, enhancing behaviors, empowering through motivation, building confidence etc. to attain higher success in achieving organizational goals. Interlinking Transformational leadership to the Deontological theory of ethical leadership, these leaders reflect morals obligations as their core values to an organization. This suggests that what morally right is what brings greatness and success to an organization (Aronson, 2001).

Apple CEO Tim Cook on Ethical Leadership

Considering an example; David Ossip, the CEO of technology company Ceridian used transformational leadership to save his company facing low employee engagement, high turnovers, low trust and high unsustainability.  He identified the core problem to be the organizational culture and restructured the culture to be value-focused in order to gain transparency, integrity and employee engagement to gain market shares. “If you have an organization that can’t change, you will become extinct,” Ossip insists. (Forbes.com, 2017)

Whereas, the Teleological theory of ethics is more connected to transactional leadership (Aronson, 2001) which focuses on command and control with morality believed to reflect the outcomes (Regis University, 2017).  Many organizations still see transactional leadership as a successful way to enhance their business performance. Bill Gates owner of Microsoft as an example has been leading his company successfully in the recent years and he represents himself as a powerful and a strict leader to his subordinates to maintain the company’s status and financial balance. In a highly stressed work environment, his focus has always been “Accomplishments” rather than comfort and wellbeing of the employees which for him worked out to run a successful business for years. (Dailymirror, 2017)

It is not always true that ethical leaders make ethical choices or successful leaders make ethical decisions. There exist successful companies with unethical leaders and there also exist unsuccessful companies with highly ethical leaders and vice versa. Have a look at the video below to understand this statement which talks about leaders (CEO’s) of Volkswagen, Theranos, Yahoo, Zappos etc. (Fortune, 2017)

I believe that if a person is ethical to himself, he/she is definitely ethical to his/her peers and organization but it cannot be always true. There are certain factors that highlight; if the leader/CEO of the company is ethical or unethical like freedom of expressing ideas, free decision-making, employee empowerment and motivational work without stress. Certain leaders are authoritative and directive others are not. Enron as an example, not only he got bankrupted but also destroyed Arthur Andersen (Forbes, 2017). There exist other companies like Google, Apple, Samsung whose leadership style has made them successful for years regardless of how ethical or unethical it has been.

In a business insider report, among 144 companies UK’s M&S, Northumbrian water group, Premier Farnell Plc and Ethical fruit company has made into the list of World’s most ethical companies. (Smith, 2017) This indicates that business run under the supervision of ethical leaders is always successful and rewarded.

I believe it is not always the chaos that needs to be managed by the leaders but the correction of morality and standards. Ethical leaders; in my opinion are born charismatic and possess the quality to lead in the global business environment. It impacts individuals in an organization in many ways like improved job performance, increased productivity, improved brain-storming and creative work environment, improved work-life balance which hence leads to improved company’s performance and global status.

References:

Kfknowledgebank.kaplan.co.uk. (2017). [online] Available at: http://kfknowledgebank.kaplan.co.uk/KFKB/Wiki%20Pages/Ethical%20theories.aspx [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].

Leadership-Central.com. (2017). Leadership Theories – In Chronological Order. [online] Available at: http://www.leadership-central.com/leadership-theories.html#axzz4XjwlzVDc [Accessed 4 Feb. 2017].

ARONSON, E., 2001. Integrating leadership styles and ethical perspectives. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 18(4), pp. 244-256.

Forbes.com. (2017). Forbes Welcome. [online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/louisefron/2016/07/06/how-transformational-leadership-saved-this-company-ceridians-story/#705bb10015f6 [Accessed 4 Feb. 2017].

Bonde, S., Firenze, P., Green, J., Grinberg, M., Korijn, J., Levoy, E., Naik, A., Ucik, L. and Weisberg, L. (2017). A Framework for Making Ethical Decisions | Science and Technology Studies. [online] Brown.edu. Available at: https://www.brown.edu/academics/science-and-technology-studies/framework-making-ethical-decisions [Accessed 4 Feb. 2017].

Rhchp.regis.edu. (2017). Deontologicial and Teleological Assumptions In Normative Ethics – Page 1. [online] Available at: http://rhchp.regis.edu/hce/ethicsataglance/DeontologicalTeleological/DeontologicalTeleological_01.html [Accessed 4 Feb. 2017].

Dailymirror.lk. (2017). Bill Gate’s transactional leadership style. [online] Available at: http://www.dailymirror.lk/75949/bill-gate-s-transactional-leadership-style [Accessed 4 Feb. 2017].

Fortune.com. (2017). The World’s 19 Most Disappointing Leaders. [online] Available at: http://fortune.com/2016/03/30/most-disappointing-leaders/ [Accessed 4 Feb. 2017].

Forbes.com. (2017). Forbes Welcome. [online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/investopedia/2013/02/05/5-most-publicized-ethics-violations-by-ceos/#2e801c7a2799 [Accessed 4 Feb. 2017].

Smith, J. (2017). The Most Ethical Companies In The World. [online] Business Insider. Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-ethical-companies-in-the-world-2014-3?IR=T[Accessed 4 Feb. 2017].