Unethical Leadership

Defining Unethical leadership

The dark side research have not yet classified destructive and abusive leadership as unethical leadership.
Unethical leadership is a distinctive form of leadership from the other forms of leadership because it e
encompasses leaser behavior which is morally unsound, illegal, and deviant from organizational
principles. Deviant work behavior is defined as leaders’ behavior which does not align with the
organizational rules and principles. The dark side research has uncovered the acts of unethical leaders
such as financial misreporting, corruption and corporate scandals.

Unethical leadership goes beyond the personal behavior of the leader. Leaders are people who lead
followers towards organizational goals. Achieving the goals in an ethical way can be a challenge to the
leaders since goals have a set time frame. As a result leaders then promote unethical acts such as false
financial reports and corruption trying to reach organizational goals. This resembles unethical leadership
since corruption is illegal and can cause reputational degradation of the organization.

Leaders can foster unethical acts within their followers without getting involved in the unethical acts
themselves. They do so by rewarding unethical behavior, condoning followers who do not conform and
ignoring some unethical behavior within followers. When legal actions arise within against then
organization, the followers act as insulators to the leaders. Research shows that, unethical leaders
award short term results produced by followers, they do not punish those who behave unethically and
promote likeminded individuals. Leaders who benefit from the unethical behavior of their followers and
do not expose unethical acts within followers display unethical leadership. In summary, unethical
leadership can be defined as “as behaviors conducted and decisions made by organizational leaders that
are illegal and/or violate moral standards, and those that impose processes and structures that promote
unethical conduct by followers”.

Unethical Leadership and Related Concepts

The thin line between unethical leadership and related leadership such as abusive leadership and
destructive leadership has led to the obstruction of the real meaning of unethical leadership. The author
conducted some research through literature review to try to differentiate unethical leadership from the
other forms of leadership which are related to unethical leadership.

Unethical Leadership and Abusive Supervision

Individuals led by abusive leaders can confuse abusive supervision with unethical leadership since the
conduct presented by the leaders such as demeaning language and tight supervision negatively impact
them. Abusive leadership has some elements of unethical leadership such as behavior which is
immorally inappropriate but it cannot be classified as unethical leadership because only the followers
are not happy about this form of leadership. Under unethical leadership the deviant behavior of the
leaders negatively affects both the followers and the organization. Unethical leadership can be seen as a
passive form of leadership which entails illegal acts and violation of organizational principles opposed to
the public criticism and ridicule behavior presented by abusive leaders. Other forms of leadership such
as petty tyranny, toxic leadership and despotic leadership are subsets of abusive leadership, therefore
they cannot be classified as unethical leadership.
Unethical Leadership and Destructive Leadership

Destructive leaders are leaders who cause obstruction to their followers in the long run. Unethical
leadership and destructive leadership share some immoral similarities but a fine line separates these
two. Destructive leadership encompasses leadership behavior such as leader undermining, leader
incivility, micromanaging and failure to communicate with followers. Unethical leadership is mainly
compliance based which means is sticking to the ethical code of the organization, breaking this ethical
codes results to regulatory violations which results to unethical form of leadership. Destructive leaders
can override follower interests and followers’ while satisfying the organizational interests. The deviant
behavior of unethical leaders violates the organizational principles and destroys the organizations’
reputation which differentiates it from abusive leadership.