1. Morality - Ethics and Leadership Despina Karakatsani Associate Professor Department of Social and Education

2. Leadership Ethics Description  Ethics  Is a derivative of the Greek word ethos, meaning customs, conduct, or character  Is concerned with the kinds of values and morals an individual or society ascribes as desirable or appropriate  Focuses on the virtuousness of individuals and their motives  Ethical Theory  Provides a system of rules or principles as a guide in making decisions about what is right/wrong and good/bad in a specific situation  Provides a basis for understanding what it means to be a morally decent human being

3. Principles of Ethical Leadership  Ethics - is central to leadership because of: – The process of influence – The need to engage followers to accomplish mutual goals – The impact leaders have on establishing the organization’s values  Leader shall:  Treat other people’s values and decisions with respect  Allow others to be themselves with creative wants and desires  Approach others with a sense of unconditional worth and value individual differences

4.  Applications  Because leadership has a moral dimension, being a leader demands awareness on our part of the way our ethics defines our leadership  Managers and leaders can use information on ethics to understand themselves and strengthen their own leadership  Leaders can use ethical principles as benchmarks for their own behavior  Leaders can learn that leader-follower relationship is central to ethical leadership

5. Principles of Ethical Leadership

6. Treating others as ends (their own goals) rather than as means (to leaders’ personal goals)  Leader behaviors: - Listens closely to subordinates  - Is empathic  - Is tolerant of opposing viewpoints

7. Principles of Ethical Leadership Follower-centered - Based on the altruistic principle of placing followers foremost in the leader’s plans  A duty to help others pursue their own legitimate interests and goals  To be stewards of the organization’s vision; in serving others they: clarify, nurture, and integrate the vision with, not for, organization members  An ethical responsibility to make decisions that are beneficial to their followers’ welfare  Leader behaviors Mentoring behaviors Empowerment behaviors Team building behaviors Citizenship behaviors

8. Ethics and Leadership  Has to do with what leaders do and who leaders are  It is concerned with the nature of the leaders’ behavior and their virtuousness  In any decision-making situation, ethical issues are either implicitly or explicitly involved  What choices leaders make and how they respond in a particular circumstance are informed and directed by their ethics

9. General statement  Why leaders can’t ignore ethics  Ethical issues often unwelcome in pursuit of economic success  Focus of dilemmas on whether cost of ethics damages profits  Is leadership ultimately a moral process?  Ethical behaviour vital dimension in understanding leadership process

10. Centrality of Ethics to Leadership  Influence dimension of leadership requires the leader to have an impact on the lives of followers  Power and control differences create enormous ethical responsibility for leader’s  Respect for persons – sensitive to followers’ own interests, and needs  Leaders help to establish and reinforce organizational values – an ethical climate

11. Platforms of Understanding  Where does ethics appear on personal leadership map?  Leadership literature largely ignores ethical dilemmas  Ciulla explores what is meant by ‘good’ leadership  MacGregor Burns and ethical implications of transformational leadership  Greenleaf’s ‘servant leadership’ explores ethical development of followers

12. DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES OF LEADERSHIP Heifetz’s Perspective  Emphasizes how leaders help followers to confront conflicting values & to effect change from conflict  Ethical perspective that speaks directly to –  Values of workers  Values of organizations and the communities in which they work  Leaders use authority to mobilize followers to  Get people focused on issues  Act as a reality test regarding information  Manage and frame issues  Orchestrate conflicting perspectives  Facilitate the decision-making process

13. BURN’S PERSPECTIVE  Theory of Transformational Leadership  Strong emphasis on followers’ needs, values & morals  Leaders help followers in their personal struggles concerning conflicting values  Stressing values such as:  Liberty  Justice  Equality

14. BURN’S PERSPECTIVE  Theory of Transformational Leadership, cont’d.  Connection between leader & follower  Raises level of morality of both  Leader’s Role  Assist followers in assessing their values & needs  Help followers to rise to a higher level of functioning

15. Greenleaf’s Perspective Diverse Perspectives of Leadership Greenleaf’s Perspective  Servant Leadership – has strong altruistic ethical overtones  Leaders –  focus on & attentive to needs of followers  empathize with followers  take care of and nurture followers  Leader has a social responsibility to be concerned with “have-nots” in the organization and:  Remove inequalities & social injustices  Uses less institutional power  Uses less control  Shifts authority to followers

16. Greenleaf’s Perspective  Servant Leadership Values:  Involvement  Respect  Trust  Individual strength  Follower Needs  Become more knowledgeable  More autonomous  Become more like servants

17. Ciulla’s Exploration of Ethical Leadership  Focuses on understanding how to confront moral dilemmas of leadership  Dilemma rests on beliefs about conduct and achievement  Ethical ‘tokenism’ – way ethics are integrated in leadership texts  Ethics seen as matter of practical knowledge not needing theoretical exploration

18. Significance of ‘Good’ Leadership  Broader implications of ethics for organization not understood  Simplistic notion that good leadership only associated with effectiveness of results  Focus on describing what leaders do rather than ethical consequences of leader’s actions  Ciulla’s good leadership addresses moral well-being & development of followers

19. Voices of Ethical Leadership  MacGregor Burns - Transformational Leadership places strong emphasis on followers’ needs, values & morals  Leader attempts to move followers to higher standards of moral responsibility  Leader differentiated from follower with more developed sense of ethical values  Leader engages with followers & helps in personal struggles regarding conflicting values & process  Addresses weaknesses of coercive authoritarian leader styles

20. Greenleaf – Servant Leadership  Leadership about attending to moral needs of followers  Good leadership – followers take on ethical values of leader  Followers developed into morally responsible and autonomous leaders  Ethics at the heart of leadership – treat others as you wish to be treated

21. The Manipulative Leader  Manipulation an influence process  Use implies relationships with low concern for moral issues  Manipulative leaders argue for ‘best’ interests of others  Leadership style can be highly effective and associated with integrity  Leader’s role to influence through non-coercive means  Strategies of seduction - When does manipulation become morally acceptable?

22. Ethical Dilemmas of Leadership  Good leadership means more than productive leadership  Should successful leadership styles that ignores well-being of followers be encouraged?  Ignoring ethical responsibilities removes dilemma  Concern with ethics as means to achieving ends (compliance) unable to deal with non-ethical and productive possibilities, or with ethical and unproductive possibilities

23. Summary (1)  Morality versus effectiveness of performance is the fundamental ethical dilemma  Dealing with dilemmas, leaders often seek pragmatic justification of actions (including tokenism, and ethical rhetoric)  Tension between commercial well-being and ethical probity increasingly ‘on the agenda’  Equating good leadership with short-term productivity can hide ethical dilemmas

24. Summary (2)  Attention to ethics aligned with business success  Ethical Imperative – maps of Burns & Greenleaf offer moral certainty for leaders  If leadership is a moral process then ethical dilemmas remain to be worked through in practice  As role models, leaders have an obligation to align values of followers to the ethical values of leadership  Morality of leaders then helps develop a moral as well as an economically sensitised culture