The Ethical Considerations of Leadership - Essay Example

Discuss the Ethical Implications of Leadership. Citing Specific Examples, Identify Ethical/Unethical Practices You Feel Either Positively or Negatively Impact Followers. Suggest a Leadership Code of Ethics You Believe Would Support the Development of Ethical Leadership. The ethical considerations of leadership in any organization are what determine the future prospects of that organization. Ethics is not just limited to formulating good working environment and laws that run the organization on the basis of equality and preserving the integrity of moral values. For organizational leaders ethics, professional and personal, play a pivotal role in the over all work environment of the organization. Most of the leaders become overwhelmed with authority and power that they lose the sense of ethical requirements of the organization and lead themselves and the followers to chaos. However, there are certain other leaders although few in number that devote their lives and soul to the organizational success and set themselves as the examples towards ethical excellence leading the whole organizational standard to comply accordingly leading the organization to highest levels of success. Leaders are not just men who lead a group of people; in fact, leaders in modern terms are performers, benchmarkers and takers who take the whole team along each step they take towards organizational success. This is why, it is of vital importance that the leader set good ethical examples to get good returns (Gary Johns Alan M. Saks. Organizational Behaviour). A leader is the person who leads his team towards a pre-determined goal and with greater effectiveness and lower cost. Leadership ultimately means the ability to lead a group of people towards a goal by visualizing the targets, communicating them to his team and achieving the maximum efficiency. Leadership in terms of organization is on the other hand vague and always a incomplete term. It is because the role and type of leadership changes with the organization where the leadership comes in action. The requirements of organizational leadership change from organization to organization and hence it becomes difficult to dub a specific type or person as a leader that can suit to all organizations. Most of the organizational scientists include merely the interpersonal interaction between the leader and the follower as the essence of organizational leadership, however many other considerations need to be undertaken in the realm of the subject. Apart from cognitive relationship, the incognitive relation, moral and ethical obligations, social and cultural influences and the sense of mutual liability between the leader and the follower makes it difficult to understand and delineate the exact factors that are included in organizational leadership. These elements become difficult to understand even for a seasoned psychologist this is why no two organizational thinkers were able to develop a consensus on what organizational leadership really is. But one thing that is an established fact that the role of leadership is more than just organization on the followers and it is this that makes ethical implications of a leadership important for the organization. The followers are influenced by the actions of the leaders and depict those actions in their work as well. Negative actions would lead to negative results and positive actions with result in the buildup of the organization. “The quality of life and the very survival of a human society depend on the moral caliber of its members. However, the moral calibre of members is largely determined by people in leadership positions.” (Manuel; Kanungo, Ethical Leadership Pg. 6) Ethical leadership refers to how the leaders are ought to behave within the organizations and outside the organizations. Since childhood, almost every person has a perfect role model in his perception and it is the desire of every individual to be as perfect as him. Ideas are always perfect and therefore the image of the role model is also perfect. If one wants to be a sportsman he would have a top of the line sportsman as his role model or if someone wants to become a businessman he would have a businessman as his ideal vision icon. Speaking in scientific terms, ethically speaking, one would be evaluating the organizational behavior of that perfect icon, but human thought process go bit beyond just professionalism and bring in the non-professional roles in the screen as well. The actions what a leader undertakes even under his non-organizational activities also influence the professional activities developing loopholes in the perfect idea. The followers also take those actions as a part of their roles and the organizational structure begins to crumble. The personal characteristics deeply influence the ethical aspect of the leadership this is why the leaders are always thought be dependable, honest and committed to professional and moral excellence. There are two sides of the coin of ethical leadership. First it being genuinely morally inclined to moral excellence, with the actions, communications and character influenced by ethical considerations and being inherently committed to ethical leadership. Other is developing one’s own standards of moral standards by actions and managing the ethical leader’s poise with utmost dedication to attain best possible returns. The ethical leader depicts his commitment to moral values with his actions and also communicates them to spread the effect of ethical grounds across the organizations. The leader puts in his efforts to influence his followers of ethical and unethical values and actions and imbibes these values in them with rewards and other returns. Knowing that the behavior of leaders signifies the behave the followers, there are a lot of positive and negative ethical practices that are prevalent in organizations around the globe. The most important of the traits of an ethical leader is his commitment to professionalism and dedication to work. This not only determines the priorities of the leaders but also helps the leader take the charge and lead the team on his footsteps. If the leader himself is target oriented and result oriented, the results are bound to come. The professionalism and commitment of the leader to his work and keenness to develop his quality of work is a trait that every professional must possess and all know it. It is not just sufficient that the leader be committed to his work, after setting the example with his actions, it is vital for him to communicate the same in his followers. A team of dedicated personnel is the biggest asset that an organization can posses. Another ethical practice that an organization adheres to is cultural and traditional values of each other. This practice transcends from the leader and then spreads in the followers. Today, the globalization of the world has made the world a hetrocultural but a single society. The sense of nationalism and culturalism is indeed on the verge of significance and insignificance in many of the organizations of the world. Time and the search of opportunities by the people in the global markets has made the organizations into one cultural horizon, but the cultural disparity, no matter how small still lives. It is considered unethical and racial discrimination if this cultural disparity is brought into the workplace. Man, however is tempted to retain his truthfulness and it is the responsibility of the leader to develop a work environment that stands above this all. The leader must blend the entire class of followers into one whole but also retain the individuality of every person. This results in the uplift of the morality and respect for others at the work place, which is very important for the overall growth of the organization (Manuel; Kanungo, Ethical Leadership). One of the value that many organizations around the world having international ventures possess is ethics. They firmly believe in quality and commitment to excellence is what they have learnt to develop customer loyalty and a brand name that everyone recognizes. It is ethics that makes the most of the organizations promise claims on quality and service. Take a car for instance. All the car makers in the world provide warranties and services to their customers. Referring to internal ethical leadership excellence, there is no better example than the late Steve Jobs. His dedication to his organization and every design the company ever launched is a sparkling example of the results of ethical leadership. Modern online business ventures Google and Facebook have developed an ethical organizational leadership such that the employees just do not want to leave the job site. This has resulted both to be the highly ranked internet services at the moment. There is no hard and fast set of rules that the prospective ethical leaders need to adhere to be a true mentor of leadership excellence in any organization. The first thing that needs to be developed in a leader is the “character” that takes charge and delivers what he commits. The character is nothing that develops overnight, it is a blend of excellence, hard work, honesty and truthfulness. The character is what defines the person’s integrity and value and inspires the followers to follow the trek. Another thing that needs to be developed in ethical leaders is “expertise”. The leader has to know what he is talking about because he has put his energies, time and dedication into it and is well aware of the dimensions of the task he is dedicated to. This develops an immediate sense of authority in the followers for the leader. The leaders who really make a difference in the ethical perspective are those who are “committed”. Commitment not only brings about results but also inspires the followers to have the joy in what they do and the inner need to accomplish tasks and watch the results as they come to the fore (Manuel; Kanungo, Ethical Leadership). The organizations exist in various sizes and starting right from the house. A house is a primitive but an organization and in my house, the leader of the family is my father. Being a businessperson, he professes ethical qualities that he applies in his office and in the house as well. Being a Muslim the source of our ethical code is The Quran and this applies to our professional and personal lives. Our father being the leader of two organizations is the source of ethical guidelines for us and the staff he leads in his office. My mother is a schoolteacher and leads her class and the students. As a teacher, she is not only assists my father to sustain our family ethical values of her own family but she commits to the development of ethical mindset for the each and every student that she leads and mentors. If my father would defy the basic ethical values by his actions, the impact will be on his business and his family as well. If my mother is not able to provide ethical leadership, the affected will not only be our family and the young easily corruptible minds she teaches in the school. I derive the ethical values from my parents and my religious values and adhere to them because the role models are in front of me. In addition being the elder brother, I also act as an ethical leader for my siblings and ensure that they follow what my parents have imbibed in me and train them on the same guidelines. With my personal experience, I have learned that every person is an ethical leader in some capacity but the source is always the leader superior to him whether the organization is of any size and type. Works Cited Manuel Mendonca; Rabindra Nath Kanungo. Ethical Leadership. Maidenhead; New York: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press, 2007 Gary Johns Alan M. Saks. Organizational Behaviour. Toronto: Addison Wesley Longman, 2001 Read More