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How to develop ethical leadership in South Africa, in the midst of high level of corruption?
Executive Summary
The Nedbank, Chairperson Reuel Khoza is a supporter of African leadership wrote in Nedbanks latest annual that “Our political leaderships moral quotient is degenerating and we are fast losing the checks and balances that are necessary to prevent a recurrence of the past,” Dr Khoza said. “SA is widely recognised for its liberal and enlightened constitution, yet we observe the emergence of a strange breed of leaders who are determined to undermine the rule of law and override the constitution.” “We have a duty to insist on strict adherence to the institutional forms that underpin our young democracy,” “The integrity, health, socioeconomic soundness and prosperity of SA is the collective responsibility of all citizens, corporate or individual”.
Introduction
Purpose
Problem Statement
Corruption in South Africa includes the private use of public resources, bribery and improper favoritism. The 2010 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index assigned South Africa an index of 4.8, ranking South Africa 54th out of 178 countries. The extend of corruption in our Country as we observe from Business and Political leaders is at an alarming level, citizens have got used to it and in fear of victimization have learned not to talk about it. Even scarier is that our children see perpetrators as their role models. The moral and ethics are a great concern in our Country.
In SA politics, they have even developed a term Tenderpreneur which been created to refer to individuals who enrich themselves through government tender contracts, mostly based on personal connections and corrupt relationships – although outright bribery might also take place – and sometimes involving an elected or politically-appointed official (or his or her family members) holding simultaneous business interests. This is often accompanied by overcharging and shoddy workmanship.
Purpose of the research
We will later in this paper show example of bad ethical leadership behavior, the aim of this paper is to assist our leaders, both in the business and Political landscape develop into ethical leaders.
Background of bad ethical challenges in leadership
Notable incidents of fraud and corruption
The South African Arms Deal, finalised in 1999, became mostly known for the bribery that was used to gain the contracts. The Schabir Shaik trial arose partly from this scandal.
The Travelgate scandal, in which 40 members of parliament were found to have illegally used parliamentary travel vouchers worth R18 million for personal use.
The Goodwood police station commander, Siphiwo Hewana, was found guilty of attempting to defeat the ends of justice for tampering with the docket for convicted fraudster Tony Yengenis arrest for drunken driving in 2007.
Former National Police Commissioner and ex-President of Interpol, Jackie Selebi, was convicted on corruption charges in July 2010, for receiving (at least) R120 000 from alleged crime-syndicate boss, Glenn Agliotti.
Whiles its not the intension of this paper to duel on politics, however Political leaders through immoral unethical behavior provide a better platform to illustrate our point, in any event information below is public information.
Their interests range across the economic spectrum and include property, resources, trade, mining, telecommunications and information technology.
Previous work on developing leadership ethics by scholars
A lot has been written by scholars on the subject of restoring ethical and moral behavior; however none of these does justice of the subject, for one to have an in-depth understanding of the subject they have to read a multi literate, each literate discusses a sentence, paragraph or chapter worth of the subject. Very few scholars make attempt in assisting leaders in developing themselves ethically, this also spread in small parts across few literate, this is particular vital when corporation faces challenges, as a result leaders make decision based on economical benefit of the organization which at time is opposite ethical consideration. It is also evident that business school, make little attempt even in educating leaders make moral judgment.
Research question
What is ethical leadership?
What characteristics do ethical leaders need to embody?
How to become an ethical leader.
What steps are important stets of making an ethical decision?
How do daily address daily problem ethical?
Objective of the Paper
Having highlighted disappointing unethical leadership in our Country (and the world at large), it is therefore objective of paper to offer solution to developing ethical leadership. For sake of completeness, it is fair to say South Africa has also generated good leaders, the following names come to mind: Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Marc Shuttleworth, Maria Ramos.
The paper commences by defining ethical leadership, cover preferred trait of ethical leadership, examples of good past leaders, takes you to process of developing ethical leadership, attributes of ethical leader, how to solve problems ethically.
Actual research
In simple terms Ethical leadership combines ethical decision-making and ethical behavior, and qualities that include having right values, beliefs, strong character and moral leadership tend have religious overtone. Gregory Gull (1995:20) described ethics as having “to do with that which is common to all of us. Thus, to speak of ethical behavior is to speak of behavior that is consistent with life-affirming values – values that are in harmony with the nature of all that is alive.”
A lot of people have a view that ethical leadership involves simply right values, strong character and doing right things. These are just basic component of ethics, there are more critical factors.
An ethical leader needs to have a good relationship with his followers, not to view as his followers but rather important partners with shared vision. They must have an open honest conversion with their followers understanding views, opinion and values. Encourage open