Ethical Leaders

Welcome to Topic 9: Ethical Leaders. In this topic, we will look at how to identify a leader in an organisation and how leaders make decisions. We will also discuss several decision making models.

In this topic, you will learn about: 

• Leading people and organisations 
• Behavioural approach to leadership 
• Contingency approaches to leadership 
• Globalisation and cross-cultural lessons.

These relate to the Subject Learning Outcomes:

1. Assess the key principles and theories underlying strategic people management and explain how their application enhances organisational and individual performance.
2. Evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches of leadership and the relationships between effective people management and organisational performance.
3. Demonstrate effective communication and practical problem-solving skills to effectively manage people in a range of organisational contexts.
4. Reflect on the roles and functions that managers perform in the context of the challenges and risks they experience in the changing environment.

Welcome to your pre-seminar learning tasks for this week. Please ensure you complete these prior to attending your scheduled seminar with your lecturer.

Click on each of the following headings to read more about what is required for each of your pre-seminar learning tasks.

Ethical leaders

Ethics can be defined as set of moral principles and values that people use to answer questions about what is right and wrong. Ethics and morals have become an integral part of any organisations decisions, from employment (equal opportunity and affirmative action) to truth in where clothing fabrics are sourced from.

Many organisations have developed a code of ethics that all employees use to make decisions. The standards of conduct or set of values and principles an individual or organisation applies to work is often the responsibility and is affected greatly by leaders. Codes of ethics help to remove the ‘guess work’ about what is right or wrong behaviour by members of organisations.

Check out this video on why good leaders make you feel safe.

 

So why is ethical leadership important to an organisation?

Bright et al (2019) states that it is an important first step towards identifying purpose and ethical values that are central to align with the organisation's, its stakeholders, market and internal environment.

Some of the world's most ethical organisations include:

Organisation	Industry	Country
3M Company	Industrial Manufacturing	USA
John Deere	Industrial Manufacturing	USA
illycaffè s.p.a.	Food, Beverage & Agriculture	Italy
L'Oréal	Health & Beauty	France
Apple	Technology	USA
Canon	Imaging Technology	USA
Pfizer Inc.	Pharmaceuticals	USA

Leaders must treat others with respect, handle all stakeholders fairly, work for the common good, develop community, and be honest.

Leading people and organisations

Leaders exist at all levels of an organisation. So, how do you identify a leader, and what makes leaders effective?

There are two (2) types of leaders, formal and informal. Some leaders hold a position of authority and may use the power that comes from their position; they are called formal leaders. Informal leaders are without a position of authority within the organisation but demonstrate leadership by influencing others through personal forms of power.

Let us take a look at the traits that show relatively strong relationships with leadership.

Intelligence

Apart from having a very high intelligence quotient (IQ), a leader needs to have emotional intelligence as well. It helps if leaders have self-awareness, empathy, motivation and well-developed social skills.

Self Esteem

Self-esteem describes a person’s overall sense of worth or value. This is not considered to be one (1) of the big five (5) personality traits but it is important for an individual to have self-esteem. It is important as a leader to have peace with themselves and have a positive assessment of themself.

Integrity

Leaders tend to have a moral compass and demonstrate honesty and integrity. If a leader’s integrity is questioned, they may lose their trustworthiness, and hurt their company’s business along the way (University of Minnesota 2015).

Empowerment

Empowerment is a technique used by participative leaders to share decision making authority with team members. Empowerment gives employees more control over their decisions, resources and work. As a result, employees feel a greater sense of ownership in, and responsibility for, organisational outcomes. The relationship between employees and the company is seen as more of a partnership when employees assume some control.

Behavioural approaches to leadership

There are two (2) broad categories of behaviours, these are:

1. Task-orientated 
2. People-orientated.

Task-oriented

Task-oriented leader behaviours involve structuring the roles of subordinates, providing them with instructions, leading to increasing the group's performance.

People-oriented

People-oriented leader behaviours include showing concern for employee feelings and treating employees with respect (House & Aditya 1997).

Have you ever thought about how leaders make decisions or what leads to their decisions?

Decision-making styles

Let us take a look at three (3) types of decision-making styles.

1.  Authoritarian decision making
2. Democratic decision making
3. Laissez-faire decision making.

Authoritarian decision making 

Authoritarian decision making, is done by leaders and it is not necessary to involve employees in the process.

Democratic decision making

When leaders use democratic decision making, employees participate in the making of the decision.

Laissez-faire decision making

Laissez-faire decision making involved minimum guidance provided by leaders and employees are left alone to make the decision.

Overall the behavioural approaches did not work well in organisations as it neglected the environment in which behaviours are demonstrated (House & Aditya 1997).

Contingency approaches to leadership

After the disappointing results of trait and behavioural approaches, several scholars developed leadership theories that specifically incorporated the role of the environment.

There are a number of contingency leadership approaches. We will analyse the two (2) approaches most commonly looked at.

1. Fiedler’s contingency theory
2. Path-Goal Theory of Leadership

 

Fiedler’s Contingency Theory 

In this theory, a leader’s style is measured by a scale called Least Preferred Coworker (LPC) scale. Individuals who are taking part in the survey are asked to think of a person who is their least preferred coworker. Then, they rate this person in terms of how friendly, nice, and cooperative this person is. According to this theory, different people can be effective in different situations. The LPC score is akin to a personality trait and is not likely to change (Peter et al. 1985).

Path-Goal Theory of Leadership 

In this theory of leadership, the leader’s main job is to make sure that all three (3) of the following conditions exist (House 1971).

1. Lead to high performance
2. High performance will be rewarded
3. The rewards they will receive are valuable to them.

It is believed those leaders will create satisfied and high-performing employees by making sure that employee effort leads to performance, and their performance is rewarded. The leader removes any obstacles along the way and creates an environment that subordinates find motivational.

This topic looked at ethical leadership and it is evident that ethical leadership can affect the performance of organisations. An ethical leader, in particular, plays an important role in bringing to life the goals and objectives of the organisation and laying the foundation for policies, strategies and procedures for leadership. Managers that exhibit ethical leadership skills can powerfully influence the actions of others.

 

Welcome to your seminar for this topic. Your lecturer will start a video stream during your scheduled class time. You can access your scheduled class by clicking on ‘Live Sessions’ found within your navigation bar and locating the relevant day/class or by clicking on the following link and then clicking 'Join' to enter the class.

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The learning tasks are listed below. These will be completed during the seminar with your lecturer. Should you be unable to attend, you will be able to watch the recording, which can be found via the following link or by navigating to the class through ‘Live Sessions’ via your navigation bar.

Click here to access the recording. ((Please note: this will be available shortly after the live session has ended.)

In-seminar learning tasks

The in-seminar learning tasks identified below will be completed during the scheduled seminar. Your lecturer will guide you through these tasks. Click on each of the following headings to read more about the requirements for each of your in-seminar learning tasks.

Welcome to your post-seminar learning tasks for this week. Please ensure you complete these after attending your scheduled seminar with your lecturer. Your lecturer will advise you if any of these are to be completed during your consultation session. Click on each of the following headings to read more about the requirements for each of your post-seminar learning tasks.

Each week you will have a consultation session, which will be facilitated by your lecturer. You can join in and work with your peers on activities relating to this subject. These session times and activities will be communicated to you by your lecturer each week. Your lecturer will start a video stream during your scheduled class time. You can access your scheduled class by clicking on ‘Live Sessions’ found within your navigation bar and locating the relevant day/class or by clicking on the following link and then clicking 'Join' to enter the class.

Click here to access your consultation session.

Should you be unable to attend, you will be able to watch the recording, which can be found via the following link or by navigating to the class through ‘Live Sessions’ via your navigation bar.

Click here to access the recording. (Please note: this will be available shortly after the live session has ended.)

• Blackman, A 2018, What is ethical leadership? How to be a more ethical leader, envato.
• Guerrero, B & Hanson, A 2017, 'Managing up and down: 5 Strategies to Excel in Middle Management', NACE Journal, 77(4):48-52.
• Johnston, J 2017, Ethical leadership matters, Linkedin.

References

• Bright, DS, Cortes, AH, Hartmann, E, Parboteeah, P, Pierce, JL, Reece, M, Shah, A, Terjesen, S, Weiss, JW, White, MA, Gardner, DG, Lambert, J, Parks-Leduc, L, Leopold, J, Muldoon, J, O'Rourke, JS & OpenStax College 2019, Principles of management, Openstax.
• Gregersen, HB, Morrison, AJ & Black, JS 1998, Developing leaders for the global frontier, Sloan Management Review, 21–32, http://www.gmacglobalrelocation.com
• House, RJ & Aditya, RN 1997, 'The social scientific study of leadership: Quo Vadis?', Journal of Management, 23(3):409-473.
• Judge, TA, Bono, JE, Ilies, R & Gerhardt, MW 2002, ‘Personality and leadership: A qualitative and quantitative review’, Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4):765-780.
• Javidan, M, Dorfman, PW, de Luque, MS & House, RJ 2006, 'In the eye of the beholder: Cross cultural lessons in leadership from Project GLOBE', Academy of Management Perspectives, 20:67-90.
• Peters, LH, Hartke, DD & Pohlmann, JT 1985, ‘Fiedler’s contingency theory of leadership: An application of the meta-analysis procedures of Schmidt and Hunter’, Psychological Bulletin, 97(2):274-285.
• University of Minnesota 2015, Principles of management, University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing Edition, http://open.lib.umn.edu/principlesmanagement/