Running head: ETHICAL LEADERSHIP 1

Ethical Leadership

Gerardo Farley

South Texas College

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Abstract

Ethical leadership has proven to be a successful leadership trait and behavior to

positively impacting organizations, especially in times of uncertainty. The ethical

approaches associated with leadership allows leaders to make ethical and objective

decisions in a crisis. Additionally, ethical leadership has been proven to greatly impact

organizations in a multitude of ways. It has been proven to positively affect employee

performance, intrinsic value, and motivation as well as sparking innovation and

creativity. Furthermore, the role of ethical leadership displayed by the leaders in the

organization establishes and creates an environment of ethical inclinations which causes

the employees to view the leaders as ethical role models and therefore creating a domino

effect in the organization to engage and inspire them to display the same ethical behavior.

Ultimately, the role of ethical leadership in the organization establishes trust between the

leaders and subordinates which is a crucial and essential relationship to have, not only in

positively impacting organizations intrinsic values, motivation and job performances but

also providing trust, clarity and transparency. Ethical leadership during this coronavirus

pandemic enables and encourages leaders in today’s organization to be ethical remodel’s

in todays businesses. The importance of ethical leadership during this pandemic is in its

ability to gain trust of the employees to thrive under this situation.

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Leadership is an important key factor and role that is prominent and necessary to

instill intrinsic value, mission and vision in organizations. Leadership decisions affect all

sectors in an organization that require ethical decisions and strategies. COVID- 19 has

tremendously impacted the leaders of organizations and businesses globally. This new

circumstance calls for new unorthodox strategies and leadership behaviors that are

necessary in times of economic downturns and crisis. In our current situation, leaders

need to quickly adapt to this new circumstance to develop and engage in leadership traits

that are vital in times like these. COVID-19 has presented many economic and personal

difficulties that require today's organizational leaders to be ethical and understand the

complications workers are facing daily to facilitate decisions and change accordingly. It

is important for leaders of organizations to engage in ethical leadership to build trust

among the employees.

To get a closer look into how leaders are engaging in ethical leadership behaviors

and strategizing in such matters, I interviewed Omar Rivera. Omar Rivera is a leader in

the Code Compliance Department at the City of McAllen. With many years of

experience, Omar Rivera has developed and engaged in ethical leadership behaviors and

strategies the City of McAllen is incorporating into this new global circumstance. When

asked " what ethical strategies and leadership traits he has engaged in due to COVID-

19?" He replied “Making the right decisions and strategies due to COVID-19 has

required ethical decisions and strategies that benefit the employees of the department and

our city to help against personal hardships that are caused due to COVID-19. Some
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strategies that we are currently developing as leaders to guide our department and city in

times of uncertainty is letting the citizens know what they can do in this situation to

protect themselves and also notifying the importance of wearing masks, washing your

hands, and informing the public about testing sites in our city.” When asked "how has

your department developed the strategies to address the coronavirus?" He replied " the

way we formulated our strategy to address this situation is by answering their primary

concern. People are primarily and mainly concerned about preventing this virus and

methods of limiting the chances in getting it. Since this is a main concern from the

people, we informed and educated the public on ways to help them to protect themselves

on preventing and decreasing the chances of getting COVID-19. We pushed the

enforcement of wearing masks when leaving your house and informed the public to

engage in social distancing." When I asked, "How are you communicating and

implementing those strategies?" He replied " we are communicating and implementing

those strategies through our city webpage. On our city webpage we have information on

how to stop the spread of germs and how to manage these stressful situations caused by

this virus. We also are updating our webpage daily to inform the public about new

developments on coronavirus cases and business re-opening dates".

I would agree with how they are proceeding in their strategies. Educating and

informing the public on how to stop the spread of the virus while simultaneously keeping

the citizens updated on the status of our current situation is the best, effective and most

efficient way of keeping the public educated and informed on the latest developments

and preventing the spread of COVID-19. When asked about challenges they have faced?"
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He replied " The challenge we have faced is spreading the information and status

of coronavirus updates to our elderly citizens who are not internet proficient or do not

have a TV. We urge family members to let their elderly relatives know about our current

status as well as what they can do on their part to limit the chances of contracting the

virus." When I asked him about "What can the citizens learn from your city and

department during this pandemic?" He replied " I want the citizens to learn and know that

we care about them, and that they can trust and count on us for reliable news and

updates."

Trust, in situations like we are currently experiencing, is a luxury and necessary

leadership trait to be successful in these new circumstances by providing clarity,

transparency, in the organization. The need for ethical leadership, especially now, greatly

impacts an organization. The hypothesis is that there is a relationship between ethical

leadership and performance, creativity, intrinsic value and motivation.

Literature Review

Bauman (2011) explains there are three ethical approaches leaders can utilize in a

time of crisis. These three ethical approaches are virtue ethics, ethic of justice and ethic

of care. The virtue ethical approach is primarily fixated upon how a leader's character

and qualities guide decision making. A person's character and qualities supersede and

take priority over ethical morality while ignoring the consequence of his/her actions.

Notably, the ethical approach of virtue ethics emphasizes that a leader's character is

important for guiding the organization to make decisions. The next ethical approach is the

ethics of justice. The ethics of justice approach is primarily focused on individualistic

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rights, equality and fairness. The ethics of justice approach puts aside personal feelings of

oneself and others to display fairness among all parties involved. Essentially, leaders can

utilize this approach by applying objective standards, making unprejudiced decisions and

reconciling conflicting rights. The last ethical approach is the ethic of care. The ethic of

care approach is accentuated on increasing and improving relationships. Leaders can

utilize this approach to create trust within the organization which is a key factor of

organizational success in a time of crisis. These are three ethical approaches that leaders

can utilize in a time of crisis and economic downturn much like we are facing in our

current situation. Furthermore, ethical leadership and approaches are extremely valued

and key factors to impacting an organization during a crisis.

According to Jaehyung, Soojin & Seokhwa, (2018), Ethical leadership improves

social relations with subordinates. Additionally, Ethical leadership influences and

inclines employees to trust their leaders and increase in-role/ extra role performances.

Shareef and Atan (2019), suggests ethical leadership support communication throughout

the organization which allows and encourages employees to voice concerns about their

opinions in times of need. Ethical leadership heavily contributes to organizational change

behavior within the organization. The power of ethical leadership is in its significance to

influence and persuade ethical behaviors and ideological focus on equality, and fairness

to others. This inspires others within the organization to illustratively display the same

behavior. Ethical leadership is positively correlated to innovative work behavior

(Jaeyung, et al., 2018).

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When ethical leaders let employees and subordinates know the impact their work

is having, the organization and employees embed their meaning and role in the job.

Jayung, et al, (2018), theorize the concept of ethical leadership causes intrinsic and group

motivation. Jie, Yucheng, Xinmei, Long and Xiao (2018), explain that the effect of

ethical leadership can promote others in the organization to increase creativity through

daily interactions. The Authors also suggest that employees see ethical leaders as role

models and that ethical leaders clarify that their work can benefit the community which

will result in employees recognizing their social worth. Jie, et al, (2018), explains that

the context of being ethical is prioritized and valued in organizations today because it

clarifies and leads employees to make the right decisions, choices and impacts behaviors

such as commitment. Furthermore, the authors suggest that there are two ethical

frameworks that derive from ethical leadership; these frameworks are the social learning

theory and social exchange theory.

Social learning theory refers to the theory that individuals are influenced and can

acquire new behaviors by imitating and observing other people. Social exchange theory

refers to the theory that proposes individual behavior is based upon the exchange process.

Ethical leaders internalize ethical behaviors while simultaneously dissuading unethical

and wrong choices among employees. Additionally, it may result in aiding the

organizations formulate common ideology and concept of ethics. An ethical leader

illustrating high standards of morality and ethical behaviors will inevitably be visualized

as an ethical role model within the company which influences the subordinates to be

more inclined to participate in such behaviors. Furthermore, as defined by the social

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exchange process, when employees are treated ethically and equally, they will more

likely mimic the attitudes and behaviors displayed by their leaders. Additionally,

employees in the organization will contribute in the acceptance of a correlative ethical

environment in the organization. As a result, an ethical established background

strengthens ethical leadership by establishing followers to participate in ethical actions

and impacting organizational prosperity. (Jaeyhung et al, 2018)

Findings

Eva, Newman, & Zhou (2019) concluded that ethical leadership cultivated and

strengthened subordinate prosocial motivation. (Jie et al,2018) concluded that the results

indicated ethical leadership did in fact influence the creativity of the employees.

Yindong & Xinxin, (2012) stated “The results revealed that both perception of ethical

leadership and group ethical leadership were positively related to individual innovative

work behavior, while individual intrinsic motivation partially mediated the relationship

between perception of ethical leadership and innovative work behavior and fully extant

researches have proved the role of intrinsic motivation in predicting and facilitating

innovation and innovative behavior. Our work extended the literature in the sense that we

explored and affirmed the motivational aspect of ethical leadership” (p.451)

The authors also concluded employees displayed more excitement, joy,

enthusiasm and concentration while on the job. Jaeyhung et al, (2018) concluded ethical

leadership did in fact influence positive behavior and job performance among employees

as well as in-role and extra-role performance. Furthermore, the authors findings through
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the studies conducted also reinforced the theory of social exchange. The authors found

the effect of the social exchange theory in the correspondence between ethical leadership

and employee work performance. The leading effects of ethical leadership in the study

illustrated that the extent of the effect of ethical leadership is reliant on employees'

exchange ideology. This conclusion is expected due to the prior research on exchange

ideology indicating that subordinates possessing a strong exchange ideology are more

inclined to increase and apply extra effort into their job performance if they possess a

high-quality social exchange bond with their superiors.

Conclusion

Organizational crises can arise at a moment’s notice and leaders must be able to

adapt to different circumstances and situations. Ethical leadership in our current situation

is an important asset that leaders can incorporate and implement in organizations during

this coronavirus pandemic. Relating to our current situation, I have presented three

ethical approaches that leaders across organizations can utilize to address employees

during this coronavirus. These approaches were virtue ethics, ethics of justice and ethics

of care. These approaches will help leaders make ethical choices, decisions and help

improve organizational morality during this COVID-19 pandemic.

The findings and results of the various studies conducted reinforced my

hypothesis that ethical leadership greatly impacts an organization through various ways.

The research concluded ethical leadership increases not only group motivation, but

individualistically as well. Additionally, the results found that ethical leadership sparks

innovation and creativity. Furthermore, the results linked the role of ethical leadership to
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increase in-role/extra-role performance which in turn increased overall job performance.

More importantly the research found that the role of ethical leadership displayed by the

leaders in the organizations inspired the employees to engage in the same ethical

behavior as well. Ultimately, ethical leadership creates, establishes and strengthens a

relationship of trust, intrinsic value, motivation and creativity, all of which is essential to

thrive under times of crisis.

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