Philosophy of Leadership EthicsEssay Preview: Philosophy of Leadership EthicsReport this essayPhilosophy of Leadership EthicsSix weeks have passed by and witnessed my changes in thinking about leadership ethics. Based on what I have learned and reflection of this course, this paper will answer what ethics means, why ethics plays a significant role in leadership, what proper leadership ethics means for me, and how to develop proper leadership ethics in a certain firm. At the end of the essay, I will talk about how my philosophy of leadership ethics relates to our course.
EthicsWhen it comes to ethics, the history may date back to more than 1,700 years ago when Plat (427-347 B.C.) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) firstly developed the ethical theory. Translated from Greek word ethos, ethics means customs, conduct, or character (Northouse, 2013). According to Stanwick and Stanwick book (2009), “ethics can be defined as the values an individual uses to interpret whether any particular action or behavior is considered acceptable and appropriate” (p. 2). In sum, ethics tells us what is the right thing we should do.
Ethics plays an important role in leadership. Firstly, it is the nature of the leaderships working style. “Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (Northouse, 2013, p.5). So it is important for leaders to get sensitive to whether to direct their subordinates to do the right thing. Secondly, respect for people usually comes before engaging followers in reaching the same goal. It requires equal concentrations on personal interests, needs, and conscientious concerns. Finally, leaders could influence the group values to a large extent, with their own principles or values. Consequently, to be a proper leader cannot ignore ethics.
Ethics is important for everyone to understand. The most important thing to understand, when it comes to how people lead the workforce, is how people take responsibility. Ethics and a leader’s responsibility to communicate those values are very different things.
Ethics is a way that a leader can take responsibility for a situation and apply those values to the situation to better fit an environment.
Ethics represents what a person wants to achieve that the group members want. It is an important element that is a way for leaders to communicate the values to their groups from their perspective and their own individual beliefs.
Leadership, like any other element, is an important part of a normal human being, that he or her values. But we also need to understand that ethics is not an individual expression of a specific human need. People do not always share a common goal and want to achieve these values, but rather the values of others, not their own. The same goes for community members, for organizations and people. The values of others are a natural part of how a social group is structured ⅒Human group members should understand how our individual or group needs to serve in all its various needs. When the goal for us to achieve is to reach societal, or at least societal consensus ⅓Our individual needs can be expressed in common or abstract ways, through the collective group spirit, like this about a group we belong to:
Leadership, however, is often a group effort. And even sometimes a group effort can take many forms and bring different viewpoints into the mix.
Ethics is often considered to be the most important part of a normal human being, that he or she believes in and should participate in all the activities of the group. And ethics is what is most important for groups. As a group you have to maintain an objective, that the group cares about.
Community members are always people with interests, beliefs, and ideas that can benefit all the members of your group.
People often do not share an idea for the future of the group or for all the people around them, but rather want to do what the group is doing.
Some communities are not a good place for people to start their careers, but for people interested in learning that they can work for it.
In other terms, ethics can be about building values that are positive for us, and it can also provide a means by which to reach these values.
Ethics helps your group achieve this goal, as well as it can help your group achieve other social goals. The important thing here is you are trying to do something that will benefit the people as a whole, not simply for yourself.
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Ethical LeadershipActually, people with different values may understand the ethical leadership in dissimilar ways. As for me, to be a proper ethical leader, there are five fundamental principles needed paying attention: respecting others, serving others, showing justice, manifesting honesty and building community (Northouse, 2013, p.430).
Respecting othersThe same as communication, respect for others often comes at the first place and is premise of following process. Without respect, employees would think that leaders just utilize them as a tool to make profits. Specifically, respect for others is a complex term, including patient and close listening to followers, thinking in their role, and keeping open and tolerant of opposite thoughts. Treated as above, subordinates could receive information that their beliefs, principles and dreams are confirmed. Then they would get competent and enthusiastic about their jobs. In conclusion, to respect others is to express, “I care you!”
Serving othersThe thought that ethical leader should serve others generated when I was doing my final project for the Course 6100 Leadership. My topic is about servant leadership. As an ethical servant leader, he must put stakeholders foremost, provide with information and skills as support, and make positively social impacts.
JetBlue has been doing well in this aspect. They appealed to employees to donate any as they wish to set up a charity, called JetBlue Crewmember Catastrophic Plan charity. The goal of this charity is to provide support to those staff that is not under insurance. This action wins employee loyalty and guarantees the success of the whole firm.
Showing justiceThere is an old saying in China, “people may get intolerant of unfairness rather than poverty.” People are born equal. No one should be specially considered and treated. Once unfair treatments happen, dissatisfaction and conflicts may follow. In order to emerge an equal climate, the leader should distribute an equal share or opportunity based on personal demand, effort and contribution.
Manifesting honestyTo clearly understand how important honesty is, we can figure out what negative impact dishonesty has.Lets take HealthSouth case in week 3 as an example. When Scrushy was discovered defrauding in financial reports, their stockholders started to think HealthSouth undependable and unreliable, causing the straight influence – the decrease of stock price. Whats worse, their dishonesty in business even broke the law. Scrushy, his CFOs and other stakeholders had to face a law suit, receive penalty and even be put into prison.
Building communityLets go bake to the definition of leadership. The destination of leadership is to achieve a common goal. To reach a consensus about goal, not only leaders purposes but also followers targets need to be taken into account. Whats more, referring to Burns transformational leadership, the goals could transmit and ex-affect between both sides. Besides internal combination of values, ethical leaders also need take civic virtue into considerations. The HealthSouth case is the opposite example.
Building of Leadership EthicsDemonstration of priority of ethicsIn order to create an ethical environment and culture, the primary thing that leaders have to do is make staff clearly know that ethics have something close to them. Leaders are probably not to be quite appreciated the way of their daily activities to communicate their priorities to staff. If leaders do not say something or act to show that they care about ethics, staff may think that “ethics isnt valued much around here.”
1. Talking about ethicsIf we suggest leaders to “talk about ethics,” what do we mean actually? As a matter of fact, for different people, “ethics” can have different meanings or refer to different things.
To avoid making these misconceptions still exist, leaders have to use the word “ethics” carefully, which is quite important. For instance, leaders should not say “ethics” to show the meaning of “compliance”, or their real meaning that they do not agree with others in the light of their personal values. Other than that, it is also important that leaders should not say something that show that they have no concern about ethics, such as the words, “What are the chances that anyone will find out?” or “All that really matters is the bottom line.”
However, avoiding those statements does not mean undercutting ethics which isnt enough. Leaders have to often directly express their support for ethical practices,