Morality - Ethics and

Leadership
Despina Karakatsani
Associate Professor Department of Social and
Education
 Leadership Ethics Description
 Ethics
 Is a derivative of the Greek word ethos, meaning customs, conduct,
or character
 Is concerned with the kinds of values and morals an individual or
society ascribes as desirable or appropriate
 Focuses on the virtuousness of individuals and their motives

 Ethical Theory
 Provides a system of rules or principles as a guide in making
decisions about what is right/wrong and good/bad in a specific
situation
 Provides a basis for understanding what it means to be a morally
decent human being
 Principles of Ethical Leadership
 Ethics - is central to leadership because of:
– The process of influence
– The need to engage followers to accomplish mutual goals
– The impact leaders have on establishing the organization’s
values
 Leader shall:
 Treat other people’s values and decisions with respect
 Allow others to be themselves with creative wants and
desires
 Approach others with a sense of unconditional worth and
value individual differences
 Applications

 Because leadership has a moral dimension, being a

leader demands awareness on our part of the way our
ethics defines our leadership
 Managers and leaders can use information on ethics to
understand themselves and strengthen their own
leadership
 Leaders can use ethical principles as benchmarks for
their own behavior
 Leaders can learn that leader-follower relationship is
central to ethical leadership
Principles of Ethical Leadership
Treating others as ends (their own goals)
rather than as means (to leaders’ personal
goals)
Leader behaviors:
- Listens closely to subordinates
- Is empathic
- Is tolerant of opposing viewpoints
Principles of Ethical Leadership
Follower-centered - Based on the altruistic
principle of placing followers foremost in
the leader’s plans
A duty to help others pursue their own legitimate
interests and goals
 To be stewards of the organization’s vision; in serving
others they: clarify, nurture, and integrate the vision
with, not for, organization members
 An ethical responsibility to make decisions that are
beneficial to their followers’ welfare
 Leader behaviors
• Mentoring behaviors
• Empowerment behaviors
• Team building behaviors
• Citizenship behaviors
 Ethics and Leadership
 Has to do with what leaders do and who leaders are
 Itis concerned with the nature of the leaders’
behavior and their virtuousness
 In any decision-making situation, ethical issues are
either implicitly or explicitly involved
 What choices leaders make and how they respond
in a particular circumstance are informed and
directed by their ethics
General statement
 Why leaders can’t ignore ethics
 Ethical issues often unwelcome in pursuit of
economic success
 Focus of dilemmas on whether cost of ethics
damages profits
 Is leadership ultimately a moral process?
 Ethical behaviour vital dimension in understanding
leadership process
Centrality of Ethics to Leadership
 Influence dimension of leadership requires the
leader to have an impact on the lives of followers

 Power and control differences create enormous

ethical responsibility for leader’s

 Respect for persons – sensitive to followers’ own

interests, and needs

 Leaders help to establish and reinforce organizational

values – an ethical climate
 Platforms of Understanding

 Where does ethics appear on personal leadership

map?
 Leadership literature largely ignores ethical
dilemmas
 Ciulla explores what is meant by ‘good’ leadership
 MacGregor Burns and ethical implications of
transformational leadership
 Greenleaf’s ‘servant leadership’ explores ethical
development of followers
DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES OF LEADERSHIP
Heifetz’s Perspective

 Emphasizes how leaders help followers to

confront conflicting values & to effect change
from conflict
 Ethical perspective that speaks directly to –
 Values of workers
 Values of organizations and the communities in which they work
 Leaders use authority to mobilize followers to
 Get people focused on issues
 Act as a reality test regarding information
 Manage and frame issues
 Orchestrate conflicting perspectives
 Facilitate the decision-making process
 BURN’S PERSPECTIVE
 Theory of Transformational Leadership
 Strong emphasis on followers’ needs, values &
morals
 Leaders help followers in their personal struggles
concerning conflicting values
 Stressing values such as:
Liberty

Justice

Equality
 BURN’S PERSPECTIVE
 Theory of Transformational Leadership, cont’d.
 Connection between leader & follower
Raises level of morality of both
 Leader’s Role
Assist followers in assessing their values &
needs
Help followers to rise to a higher level of
functioning
 Diverse Perspectives of Leadership
Greenleaf’s Perspective
 Servant Leadership – has strong altruistic ethical overtones
 Leaders –
 focus on & attentive to needs of followers
 empathize with followers
 take care of and nurture followers
 Leader has a social responsibility to be concerned with “have-nots” in the
organization and:
 Remove inequalities & social injustices
 Uses less institutional power
 Uses less control
 Shifts authority to followers
 Greenleaf’s Perspective
 Servant Leadership Values:
 Involvement

 Respect

 Trust

 Individual strength
 Follower Needs
 Become more knowledgeable
 More autonomous
 Become more like servants
Ciulla’s Exploration of Ethical Leadership

 Focuses on understanding how to confront

moral dilemmas of leadership
 Dilemma rests on beliefs about conduct and
achievement
 Ethical‘tokenism’ – way ethics are
integrated in leadership texts
 Ethicsseen as matter of practical knowledge
not needing theoretical exploration
 Significance of ‘Good’ Leadership

 Broader implications of ethics for organization not

understood
 Simplisticnotion that good leadership only associated with
effectiveness of results
 Focus on describing what leaders do rather than ethical
consequences of leader’s actions
 Ciulla’s
good leadership addresses moral well-being &
development of followers
 Voices of Ethical Leadership

 MacGregor Burns - Transformational Leadership places strong

emphasis on followers’ needs, values & morals
 Leader attempts to move followers to higher standards of moral
responsibility
 Leader differentiated from follower with more developed sense
of ethical values
 Leader engages with followers & helps in personal struggles
regarding conflicting values & process
 Addresses weaknesses of coercive authoritarian leader styles
 Greenleaf – Servant Leadership

 Leadership about attending to moral needs of

followers
 Good leadership – followers take on ethical values
of leader
 Followers
developed into morally responsible and
autonomous leaders
 Ethics
at the heart of leadership – treat others as
you wish to be treated
 The Manipulative Leader
 Manipulation an influence process
 Use implies relationships with low concern for moral issues
 Manipulative leaders argue for ‘best’ interests of others
 Leadership style can be highly effective and associated
with integrity
 Leader’s role to influence through non-coercive means
 Strategies of seduction - When does manipulation become
morally acceptable?
Ethical Dilemmas of Leadership

 Good leadership means more than productive leadership

 Should successful leadership styles that ignores well-being
of followers be encouraged?
 Ignoring ethical responsibilities removes dilemma
 Concern with ethics as means to achieving ends
(compliance) unable to deal with non-ethical and
productive possibilities, or with ethical and unproductive
possibilities
 Summary (1)

 Morality versus effectiveness of performance is the

fundamental ethical dilemma
 Dealing with dilemmas, leaders often seek pragmatic
justification of actions (including tokenism, and ethical
rhetoric)
 Tension between commercial well-being and ethical
probity increasingly ‘on the agenda’
 Equating good leadership with short-term productivity can
hide ethical dilemmas
 Summary (2)
 Attention to ethics aligned with business success
 Ethical Imperative – maps of Burns & Greenleaf offer moral
certainty for leaders
 If leadership is a moral process then ethical dilemmas remain to
be worked through in practice
 As role models, leaders have an obligation to align values of
followers to the ethical values of leadership
 Morality of leaders then helps develop a moral as well as an
economically sensitised culture