Ethical behaviour is about knowing right from wrong and carrying out actions in accordance to those beliefs. Ethics in leadership is “concerned with the nature of leaders’ behavior and with their virtuousness” (Northouse, 2018, p. 336). It’s about intentions and motives. A leader holds influence over followers and with this comes power and great responsibility. Leaders set the moral tone for an organization (Van Buren, 2013, 45:24), so if a leader’s words do not match their actions or actions do not match their words, moral implications arise. This will then directly impact followers’ desire to engage in accomplishing mutual goals, render trust and commitment to organizational values (Northouse, 2018).
Authentic leadership as described by Avolio & Gardner (2005) encompassed an innate, moral element which through self-awareness an understanding of the consequences of one’s behavior, towards a person or organization, is recognized. The ability of a leader to both positively and negatively influence the lives of their followers through their behavior shows why ethical leadership is essential to how a leader conducts themselves and makes sound and just decisions. Maxwell (1993) says it best, “Everything rises and falls with leadership” (p.162).

Creating a strong ethical culture in an organization is about three key points. Those three are modeling the behavior you want encouraged, transparency in communication and equality. It’s about leaders and followers possessing ethics as a personal trait and leading by example. Van Buren (2013) provides multiple ideas to enable organizations to grow and flourish in ethical behavior that are as follows:

1.) Be visible – The moral tone of the organization is set by the leaders. Strong ethical leadership in an organization is modeled by doing what’s right in any given situation. It’s about having a commitment to integrity and modeling the behavior you want to see. Transformational and servant leadership approaches improve the ethical behavior in an organization.

2.) Communicate ethical expectations – Organizations can develop a code of ethics or set of values or ethical rules. Ensure that followers are included in the development process, perceive the ethical standards according to how the leader envisions them and are a part of integrating the code of ethics into workplace function.

3.) Promote effective financial management – Ensure cost effective methods are being carried out and use of resources are done in socially responsible ways.

4.) Provide ethical training/education – Embracing a cultural approach to ethical training over a program or isolated approach. Ensure integration to practice is evident, if using seminars and workshops as the training delivery method.

5.) Institutionalize and ethical culture – Integrate values in day to day decision making to foster an ethical culture. Measure performance against the organization’s code of ethics and focus on a “means” and an “end”.

6.) Provide protective mechanisms – Such as whistleblower policy, grievance procedures and ethical counselors.

Daneen

Question to group: What does leading with ethics mean to you?

References

Avolio, B. & Gardner, W. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 16, 315-338.

Maxwell, J. C. (1993). Develop the Leader Within. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and practice, Eighth Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Van Buren, J, A. [BuildingCapacity] (2013, March 29). What is Ethical Leadership? [Video File]. Retrieved fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks2QGoIq5nA