Increasing Citizenship Behavior in the Organization

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.

This paper will first discuss briefly what ethics are and provide the definition for an ethical issue. An ethical leadership issue is identified and explained for this author’s practice area. We will then identify and discuss key strategies for leadership that are pertinent to the ethical issue. Next, empirical evidence which supports the strategies discussed will be analyzed. Then, the impact and importance of the strategies will be stated. The final step will be to provide a conclusion to the reader that summarizes the content and strategies.

Ethical leadership is commonly connected with characteristics like fairness and honesty, that can enable a person within an organization to do the right thing. In responding to the lack of attention to the ethical dimensions of positive leadership Brown and colleagues designed a definition for ethical leadership. They would define it as “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such

Leaders are expected to act consistently with their vision and the values they advocate to their team. If a leader’s words or actions are contrary to the values they expect in others, they will be faced with cynicism and contempt. Followers expect their leader to act in their best interests, putting their welfare before their own. An ethical leader is honest, open and truthful to their followers. When leaders lose this trust, their followers will quickly disregard them.

The shared themes discussed in these articles aligned with my thesis – caring for the least able, service before leading. Liden, Wayne, Chenwei, and Meuser (2014) suggest a servant leader must guide followers to emulate the leader’s behaviors by prioritizing the needs of others above the leaders'needs. Liden et al. (2014) further attest that servant leaders cultivate servant leadership attributes among those they lead, creating a serving culture which influences performance and enhances followers’ traits and skills through mediating influence of personal identification. For leaders to operate under ethical leadership framework, the leader must possess character, competence, and commitment. The leader must also lead by example, thrive on the

This special behavior has become a lively research field investigated by organizational sociologists, psychologists, and management researchers. However, whereas most of the studies appear to deal with the phenomenon from a behavioral/functional perspective the natural orientation of citizenship to the political science arena is overlooked. Whereas altruism appears representing the help to specific persons. Generalized compliance is a factor defined by a more impersonal sort of conscientiousness. It implies more of a "good soldier" or "good citizen" syndrome of doing things that are "right and proper", but doing them for the sake of the system rather than for specific persons. In the view of Smith et al. (1983), the two elements represent distinct classes of citizenship. The political aspect of citizenship consists of three elements:

Leadership is a crucial aspect in any organisation whose goals include succeeding in the target market or industry against its competitors, as well as facilitating an ethical work environment and effective management to achieve those goals. The five articles provided in this analysis address the key issues when organisations fail to acknowledge the importance of ethical and effective leadership practices; including various opinions from significant parties involved. With the support of quantitative research statistics and case study results, these peer reviewed scholarly articles support the importance of leadership. This analysis is focused on the topic of leadership to emphasize the strengths and weaknesses of companies that choose to implement

A leader that choses to do the right thing even if it has consequences is a leader that a team will want to follow, trust and have confidence in. Setting up sound ethical behavior guarantees that your company maintains a reputation for sound expert requirements and values within the enterprise business task. The more education and assets you provide, and the extra emphasis you place on being ethical and performing accordingly, the team will know what you expect of them.

Leaders are responsible for influencing followers to perform actions, complete tasks, and behave in certain manners. Effective leaders also influence processes, stimulate change in attitudes and values, and amplify empowerment and self-efficacy of their followers, as they foster the internalization of corporate vision. The nurturing aspect of leadership can also raise an organization’s culture and employee’s values to higher levels of ethical behavior. By demonstrating ethical leadership we promote a high level of integrity that stimulates a sense of trustworthiness, and encourages subordinates to accept and follow our vision (Mickey, 2013).

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

This broader concept of ethical leadership empowers leaders to incorporate and be explicit about their own values and ethics. The following list provides a framework for developing ethical leadership. It is based on the observations of and conversations with a host of executives and students over the past 25 years, and on readings of both popular and scholarly business literature. Written from the perspective of the leader, these ten facets of ethical leaders offer a way to understand ethical leadership that is more complex and more useful than just a matter of “good character and values.”

“Ethical leadership is leadership that is directed by respect for ethical beliefs and values and for the dignity and rights of others. It is thus related to concepts such as trust, honesty, consideration, charisma and fairness.”

In order to be a successful ethical leader there are many activities that can be promoted to encourage ethical behavior in one’s organization. An ethical leader will create programs that endorse integrity in business. Programs can include setting guidelines for dealing with ethical issues, open discussion on ethical issues, and establish a protocol for people to get advice (Yukl, 2010). By establishing programs an ethical leader is really changing and encouraging moral behavior which can affect an organizations work environment and improve moral. By empowering your employees to know how to handle ethical dilemmas you create a new found trust.

Organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) are defined as a group of behaviours that individuals in an organization or group, practice to achieve the goals of the organization, these behaviours promote the general well being of the social and psychological environment (Organ, D. W. 1988). OCB is studied in many disciplines and a wide variety of domains (e.g.marketing, economics, human resource management). One of the main reasons OCB is studied in a plethora of disciplines and domains, is the matter of OCB leading to improved effectiveness and efficiency in an organization (Podsakoff, Ahearne, & Mackenzie, 1997).

I will examine the importance of personal ethics in leadership and how ethics produce effective leaders in organizations today. The importance of understanding ethics, motivation to act as a role model and developing a plan of action for an organization are discussed because of their importance regarding development of good leadership. These key points suggest personal ethics positively affect leadership and when made a priority for leaders will produce ethical and effective leadership. With so many definitions of leadership, the question evolved from “what is the definition of leadership?” to “what is good leadership” (Ciulla, 2004, p. 13). To develop a system of values one must compile a list of the most important instrumental values and terminal values. These lists are unique to every individual because they are determined by personal importance. Instrumental values, such as honest, helpful, ambitious, responsible, etc. should reinforce terminal values. Once a leader’s means are consistent with desired goals, their value system is unified and they have climbed the staircase from the lobby to the first level of values. The climb from the first floor to the second floor results in a person incorporating principles into their newly developed values. Although values act as the bedrock of ethics, principles are required because alone, “values are far too vague to have much meaning in ethical analysis” (Cooper, 1998, p. 12). Morals are ideals that help us decipher between right