Ethical Leadership Essay

Ethics is the guiding force in any respectable organization. With a moral compass, especially in the leadership of organization, a company can become compromised and fall into a quagmire of legal issues, a tarnished reputation, and devaluation of company stock if it is a publically traded company. In pursuit of examine my own ethical lens I will analyze the ethical traits of an admired leader, my own traits as exhibited in the Ethical Lens Inventory, and how I make a decision concerning a particular ethical dilemma.

There has been increasing numbers of concerns with the ethical leadership of organizations due to historical problems with company’s downfalls due to management. The unethical conduct of leadership is typically found when the organization does not enforce the ethical climate once determined as important. The paper focuses on different approaches for strengthening the leadership for the organization and enforcing the ethical climate. In addition, the important factors for a strong ethical climate are derived based on a solid foundation for an the organization’s policies and procedures and code of conduct. Organizations can accomplish ethical leadership and behaviors by enforcing and practicing the code of conduct and having a high level or integrity in the leaders that run the organization.

An ethical audit is important to establish the company’s current weaknesses and strengths concerning how it conducts itself in an ethical manner. An ethics audit will involve evaluating the company’s standard of ethic, it ethic climate, and how well the company’s employees follow ethical standards. One of the first things to evaluate in an ethics audit is if a company has a written code of ethics and how comprehensive it is. Moreover, the written code of ethics should apply to everyone in the company from the top down with a clear zero tolerance policy in place for ethics violations. Included in a comprehensive ethics code should be a method for

Mostly, how ethics produce effective leaders will stress how good leadership is impossible without ethics. Throughout this paper, the reader will develop an understanding of what is personally required to

Leadership ethics by Lamar Odom that basically examines whether doing the right thing is enough in leadership. The author examines this issue given that the behavior of leaders has been one of the most intriguing issues in today’s society and in order to provide insights on ethics in leadership. The title of the book provokes deeper thoughts in the minds of leaders even before they open the book to commence reading. The author of this book is a leadership and ethic consultant who has not only taught numerous courses but also carried out several trainings on this intriguing topic. Professor Odom developed interest in examining this issue following the cliché answers he received from time to time on the question of what ethics is. Actually, Odom’s work in examining ethics in leadership was fueled by the concerns he had regarding the cliché answers he received from students and corporate executives.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on my thoughts on how I can utilize certain methods that will help shape the vision of the organization. I will explain how ethics play a role in leadership and decision making. This week I encountered multiple dilemmas which affected my actions at work, home, and school; in this paper I will exploit those dilemmas and how they are considered weakness that I incorporated in my IDP. Using last week 's assignment to start an IDP, I came up with certain actions (part 3) to take to further advance myself as a leader. The reasoning behind these actions will show how proper ethical actions define a leader, and the influence it holds with the organization’s culture.

I agree with what the videos say that ethical leaders have both individual as well as organizational responsibilities. As to individual responsibility, if an ethical leader acts ethically, he will inspirit other people to follow him as an example. If leaders act unethically, subordinates will copy these unethical actions. The videos show that personal examples set by firm leaders is the single factor that has the biggest impact on ethical culture of a firm. As to organizational responsibility, leaders should organize and manage the culture of their companies so that they can urge their subordinates to act ethically.

Ethical leaders espouse moral values, altruism, civic virtue, good citizenship behavior and conscientiousness both in their personal and professional lives. They imbibe the same core values in their followers. They demonstrate moral judgement in their decision making process, influenced by the long term interest of the stake holders. Also ethical leaders hold their followers accountable for their conduct and establish a reward and vicarious learning process for ethical conducts

It is only during moral lapses and corporate scandals that interest groups and the broader public ask themselves the fundamental ethical questions, who are the managers of the organization and were they acting with the ethical guidelines. For a long time, the issue of ethics was largely ignored, with organizations focusing on profit maximization. However, this has changed, and much attention is now focused on ethics management by researchers and leaders. The issue of ethics has arisen at a time when public trust on corporate governance is low, and the legitimacy of leadership is being questioned. Leaders are expected to be the source of moral development and ethical guidance to their employees.

A moral person refers to the characteristics of what a person should possess such as being a honest, committed and trustworthy worker. They are usually a people person, concerned for other peoples welfare and people find them approachable. Moral persons help out their co-workers, by listening to their needs and providing fair solutions and good decision making skills to any problems that may arise. They are principled and usually lead by example where they will accumulate respect and followers as they are seen as being consistent in being ethical in both their personal and private lives. Likewise in the same way a moral manager would possess the same set of skills and characteristics in their work life by promoting ethical conduct at work, following company policy and rewarding employees good performance, but at the same time they are not afraid to discipline unethical conduct at work either.

Leaders who are ethical are people-oriented, and also aware of how their decisions impact others, and use their social power to serve the greater good instead of self-serving interests.

In the past, the term “authentic leadership” is used to define ethical leadership. Researches examine authentic leadership as an attempt to discover more about ethical leadership. Researchers argue that authentic leadership is concerned with self-awareness, relational transparency, internalized moral perspective, and balanced processing (Gardner et al., 2005; Walumbwa et al., 2008). Although Authenticity is an important aspect of ethical leadership and the above definition creates a good list of behaviors, it doesn’t solely define all aspects of ethical leadership. It has also been argued that Influence processes used by leaders are driven by the underlying ethical values (Groves et al., 2011). Therefore, another approach to inspect ethical intent would be to examine the influence process used by leaders. Since leader’s influence processes are very much linked to her leadership styles, it’s appropriate to look at some leadership styles and the compatible influence processes.

Leadership is by all means a special talent that not all people possess. A leader must also have ethics to be effective for the long term in the corporate world. These leaders generally implement ethical programs in order to influence an organizations climate (Yukl, 2010). I will evaluate the importance of ethical leadership and the role it plays into today’s organizations. In addition, I will discuss the repercussions a company may have when its leadership allows and even rewards unethical business practices. Lastly, I will apply my personal leadership perspective. My perspective will include the path-goal theory and ethical practices that I find important to

behavior. Yet, we do not know whether having had ethical role models influences follower perceptions of one’s ethical leadership and, if so, what kinds of role models are

What was the definition of ‘ethical leadership’ adopted by the participants in the debate?What is the role of the directors as envisaged by Codes of Corporate Governance and wider society?Are these expectations consistent with the ideas of ethical leadership?