Ethical Leadership-Personal and Professional Life

Ethical Leadership-Personal and Professional Life

Ethical Leadership Concept

Ethical leadership is a broad concept that can be interpreted based on a leader’s ability to uphold ethical standards. It is defined as a type of leadership in which the leader demonstrates conduct aimed at achieving a common good that is appropriate and acceptable in all aspects of life (Reddy & Kamesh, 2016). According to Perry (2018), ethical leadership can also be defined as the process of influencing followers through beliefs, principles, and values linked to society’s accepted norms. Applying ethical leadership in an organization brings out its role in energizing employees by ensuring their welfare is protected. The 4-V model of ethical leadership aligns a person’s internal values and beliefs with a leader’s external actions and behaviors for the common good. The model focuses on a person’s vision, values, virtue, and voice. It posits that vision, values, virtue, and voice help create a strong ethical leader because they are interconnected. For instance, ethical leadership requires the ability to give voice to vision and values. Virtue influences the relationship between the leader and the people involved in achieving the vision and applying the selected values and commitment to achieving a common good.

Based on the 4-V model, the main aim of an ethical leader is to develop a world in which the future is inclusive and positive and allows everyone to fulfill and pursue their needs and achieve their highest potential. Therefore, leaders must discover their personal values, develop a vision, communicate it to followers, and act as role models. The model also suggests considering renewal, polis, and service to improve ethical leadership. The role of service is to connect the vision and values, which implies that values are tested by being applied in services. Polis includes politics, suggesting that organizations are engaged in politics when communicating the vision. Renewal includes innovation to create consistency between vision and values. Ethical leadership also focuses on capacity building. According to Alshammari et al. (2015), the value creation model is a standardized dimension of ethical leadership. Ethical leaders emphasize building their followers’ capacity to increase sustainability by finding and developing the most talented employees based on the moral imperative to help improve organizational and employee value.

Characteristics and Practices of Ethical Leaders

According to Northouse (2019), ethical leaders’ main characteristics and practices include respect for others, justice for others, service to others, building community with others, and honesty towards others. Respect for others includes treating others with respect and dignity. Ethical leaders recognize that followers have ambitions and goals and are humans with value and worth to the organization, thus exercising active listening, empathy, and patience to accommodate their needs. Ethical leaders also ensure that everyone is treated fairly and justly. As such, they maintain transparency in decision-making to avoid creating an environment where some followers feel neglected or discriminated against. Service to others includes being humble and exercising servant leadership to support subordinates and create a friendly environment where everyone feels free to express themselves. Ethical leaders also build a community with their followers by motivating and helping them to achieve a shared goal. Therefore, they develop appropriate team or organizational goals for themselves and their followers and ensure everyone understands their role in achieving them. Lastly, honesty toward others includes developing trust between the leader and followers by exercising transparency in sharing information.

Are Ethical Leaders Born Or Developed?

I believe ethical leaders are developed, not born, because the moral sense that helps a person determine whether their actions are wrong or right is developed throughout a person’s life, creating the foundation for ethical conduct. The development of ethical leaders can also be understood by focusing on relativism and idealism. Relativism is the extent to which an individual ignores the generally accepted rules when making moral decisions. Conversely, idealism is the extent to which an individual believes that a desirable outcome will only be attained by doing the right thing. Therefore, ethical leaders can be developed by imposing punishments on leaders who ignore the generally accepted rules when making ethical decisions, thus encouraging ethical decision-making. For example, suppose an organization fires a leader who hires unqualified family members because of conflicts of interest. In that case, other leaders will refrain from doing the same thing, thus promoting justice for others, which is part of the characteristics of ethical leadership.

Consequently, if leaders know that acting ethically, such as following the organization’s policies and procedures when hiring and firing employees, will yield the desirable outcome, they will act ethically, thus promoting ethical leadership. According to Tushar et al. (2022), a person’s moral sense is developed with a person’s experiences and age. Therefore, ethical leaders can be developed through experiences that require them to act ethically. For example, a leader who constantly experiences situations where they face ethical dilemmas is likely to develop high ethical standards, thus promoting effective, ethical leadership. For instance, nurse leaders are likely to be more ethical because they often make ethical decisions relating to patient care and the welfare of other nurses, such as the decision to hold nurses accountable for medical errors, the decision to extend work shifts based on the number of patients that require nursing care, and the decision to withhold or terminate treatment based on the patient’s family’s wishes.

Ethical leaders can also be developed based on an organization’s culture. According to Tushar et al. (2022), organizations with a formal ethical system, including moral standards, practices, policies, and corporate ethics audits, encourage leaders to be ethical. Similarly, companies with a lot of unethical activity and low ethics standards promote unethical conduct, thus hindering ethical leadership development. Further, organizational culture also develops ethical leaders based on the organization’s vision and the expectations employees must meet. For example, if leaders are expected to act ethically, they will develop traits that enable them to uphold the required level of ethical conduct and the values expected from them. The work environment also plays a vital role in developing ethical leaders. Gilbert (2016) argues that an employee’s colleagues significantly impact a person’s sense of morality. For example, if an individual works around people who act unethically, they may be ignorant about ethical values and standards, leading to unethical behavior.

The role of colleagues in promoting unethical conduct is evident in organizations where employees discriminate against each other. An employee is likely to discriminate against another employee if most employees discriminate against each other to fit in. Consequently, in a work environment where employees’ colleagues act ethically, the employees will also act ethically because of the fear of being reported for unethical conduct and the drive to do the right thing to avoid conflicting with colleagues. Organizational culture also influences the choice of training programs, thus influencing the development of ethical leaders. According to Northouse (2019), ethical leadership skills are learned competencies that can be improved over time. Therefore, ethical leaders can be developed through training. The training programs may focus on enlightening the leader about moral values, principles, and standards and how to handle ethical dilemmas. The training programs may also equip leaders with active listening and critical thinking skills for effective, ethical decision-making.

 References

Alshammari, A., N. Almutairi, N., & Fahad Thuwaini, S. (2015). Ethical leadership: The effect on employees. International Journal of Business and Management, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.5539/ijbm.v10n3p108

Gilbert, J. (2016). Ethics for Managers: Philosophical Foundations and Business Realities. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory & practice. SAGE.

Perry, A. (2018). Ethics, leadership, and ethical leadership. Biblical Theology for Ethical Leadership, 23–43. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75043-9_2

Reddy, A. V., & Kamesh, A. V. (2016). Integrating servant leadership and ethical leadership. Ethical Leadership, 107–124. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60194-0_7

Tushar, H., Nargis, S., & Ahmed Waliullah, S. S. (2022). Factors that influence followers to be a future ethical leader. IUBAT Review, 77–88. https://doi.org/10.3329/

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One must explore their current understanding of ethical leadership practices before improvements can be made. How do you currently implement ethical practices in your personal and professional life?

Ethical Leadership-Personal and Professional Life

For this assignment, write a paper describing your understanding of ethical leadership as supported by the literature. Rooted in research to support your argument, evaluate the concept of ethical leadership, and then explain the characteristics and practices of ethical leaders. Determine whether ethical leaders are born or developed, including examples to support your findings. The goal of this assignment is to start solidifying your idea of ethical leadership.

Length: 4-6 pages, not including title or reference pages

References: Include a minimum of 5 scholarly resources.