What Is Ethical Leadership?

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

The leader’s good attitude and their role will be their ethics which is very important for organization development, and performance. i understand that characteristics , roles, and motivation are very important to develop an organization performance. Also, leadership is a process that consist of communication, motivation, help, ethical principle, and cooperate between leaders and follower to develop organization and gain common goal.

This paper will respond to three questions, “Are all managers leaders?” (Phillips & Gully, 2014, p. 425) “What are some common barriers preventing leaders from behaving ethically and how can these barriers be overcome?” (Phillips & Gully, 2014, p. 450) And “Is it possible for leadership substitutes to be effective?” (Phillips & Gully, 2014, p. 450)

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.

In my opinion the term leadership is a very broad and various definitions are given by authors. One definition of leadership is that it is

In generally, ethical leadership means that the leaders organized their company to a better performance ethically. Ethical leader need both knowledge and strong knowledge. Strong ethical leader must have the right kind of integrity and can make decision and lead ethically. Ethical leader is able to make the consideration and discussion of ethics or ethical questions and issues part of the culture of the group, organizations and initiative. Besides, ethical leader are ethical all the time, they’re ethical over time, proving again and again that ethics are an integral part of the

"The action of leading a group of people or an organization, or the ability to do this."

According to Business Dictionary.com, leadership is defined as the individuals who are the leaders in an organization, regarded collectively. It also can be define as the activity of leading a group of people or an organization or the ability to do this. Leadership involves the establishing of a clear vision, sharing the vision with other so that they will follow willingly, providing the needed information, knowledge, and methods to realize the vision and coordinating and balancing the conflicts interests of all members and stakeholders.

Ethical leadership encompasses the manner in which one leaders that respects the rights and dignity of other individuals. According to Preston (1996) “ethics is concerned about what is right, fair, just, or good; about what we ought to do, not just what is the case or what is most acceptable or expedient” (p.16). Ethical leadership calls for ethical leaders in the organization. However, although an organization’s beliefs, valves, customs and philosophies need to start from the chief executive, the managers and employees must be dedicated to the organization’s goals for a culture be shaped (Butts Ed.). In order for a strong organizational culture to be successful, components of key valves must be in place and followed. With the

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

Plato once asked whether you would rather be "an unethical person with a good reputation or an ethical person with a reputation for injustice." Ethical leadership has long been a debate in regards to its importance and place in the universal business world.

Ethical leadership is leadership that is involved in leading in a manner that respects the rights and dignity of others. As leaders are by nature in a position of social power, ethical leadership focuses on how leaders use their social power in the decisions they make, actions they engage in and ways they influence others. Leaders who are ethical demonstrate a level of integrity that is important for stimulating a sense of leader trustworthiness, which is important for followers to accept the vision of the leader.

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.

“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.”