INTERINO, LORENEL S.

SPIRITUALITY PERSONAL LEADERSHIP AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

ACTIVITY # 2

WHAT A TRUE ETHICAL LEADER MEANS IN A WORK PLACE

John Maxwell once said, “People buy into leaders before they buy the vision”. The history is replete
with names of leaders who have inspired obedience from people who may or may not understood fully their
goals and intensions, even to the point of fanaticism. Although some names in our historical annals include
really inspiring characters like Gandhi or Luther King, we cannot deny the fact that there are also personalities
who have brought nothing but atrocities and devastation in the lives of many, like Hitler.

The parts they played in our society have proven all the more how influential a leader is in carving the
sense of what is right or wrong, moral and unacceptable in the practices in the community, or in its very
microcosm, in the smallest of organization within the society; and how crucial the parts they played in making
or breaking of an organization. Employees would always have the perceived standards of their leaders as the
norm in the organization. By standards, one does not only mean the quality of work but even the set of values
practiced or neglected, and beliefs adhered to or discarded, actions held in high regard and the ones deemed
iniquitous.

Gonul Kaya Ozbag, in a study conducted about relationship between the five factors of personality
traits and ethical leadership revealed that the three personality traits-- Openness to Experience,
Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, are positively related to the employees’ perception of ethical
leadership; while Extraversion posed no significant effect; Neuroticism, however has proven to have negative
effect on the employees’ perception of their leaders.

The study is a proof of what a lot of people consider to be essential, not just in organizational
operations but in actual human relationship building being the foundation of success in every organization.
The sense of humanness, parity, kindness, understanding are real values that people need to thrive. These
same qualities are the ones ideal for every leader to possess to ensure that each employee will be happy to
serve and deliver whatever is expected of him in an organization.

On the other hand, a leader’s neuroticism may extract obedience and generate fear among its
subordinate. This could mean productivity as people would be wary not to do anything that would bring them
trouble at work. But it could also mean being reduced to mere automatons doing everything mechanically and
with less and less enthusiasm and joy. This set up is bound to make unhappy employees who would either
consider leaving the organization or perform less than what they are capable of.

The needs of employees remain the same through the years. Though people may claim that their job is
their source of living, very few would understand that a leader should provide not only the means for people to
live (i.e. their salaries and benefits) but more important than this, is they find life, a meaningful one, out of their
work. This would only be possible if the one on top, the one they are looking up to as model in their jobs, the
one setting the standard of action in the organization, is one true provenance of values they admire, and
actions that would inspire admiration, loyalty, motivation and hardwork. Such is a true ethical leader.