...A Discussion of Leadership and Ethics Grand Canyon University LDR 800 October 13, 2010 Leadership and Ethics 2 Abstract Recognizing the importance of ethical behavior in leadership requires leaders that understand its value. Leaders must have the ability to choose the ethical values that are most important to their organization. Generally speaking ethical behavior gains significance and becomes relevant when people must enforce the laws upon themselves because of the environmental or organizational setting of their workplace; consequently, in the everyday routine of those in an organizational setting, workers are exposed to many different situations and environments that require varying codes of ethics (Wyne, 2010). Leaders are expected to not only enforce those ethical codes of behavior but to live daily by those codes in an effort to gain the trust of those working with and for them. As a result, an organization that is strong in ethical standards is formed. Educational leadership is widely recognized as complex and challenging (Woods, 2009). Building teams that are motivated to exercise ethical behavior takes the fortitude and dedication of leaders whose leadership abilities expand merely talking about implementation of these standards but open the door to action in ethical and moral awareness. The intent and discussion in this paper involves a look into leadership and its connection with ethical models...
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...Ethics in Leadership Ethics, as defined by Richard daft, is “the code of principles and values that governs the behavior of a person or group with respect to what is right or wrong” (Daft, 2011, p.445). Ethics play the most important role in any business, and are the key to its success. Every company expects a standard pattern of behavior from their employees on some common grounds. In order to define ethics in leadership, we must first define leadership. Leadership is defined as “an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes and outcomes that reflect their shared purposes” (Daft, 2011, p.5). A dynamic leader operates with a high sense of ethics, integrity, and possesses high moral standards. True leaders have an appreciation for learning, take risks, and understand the importance of change and when it is necessary. Leadership, in a sense, is never a finished product, but rather, it is an ongoing process that continuously needs refinement. Leaders are aware of what they value and recognize the importance of ethical behavior. “Leaders come in all shapes and sizes but all good leaders possess leadership style and actions that exhibit both their values and their ethics” (Daft, 2011, p.6). Since we have defined leadership as the “influence relationship among leaders and followers, ethical leadership is about leaders trying to influence people to act in an ethical manner” (Daft, 2011, p.5). Some believe that ethical leadership is only a...
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...Organizational behavior is ones actions and attitude toward one another or the organization and its effect on the organization’s functioning and performance. Understanding organizational behavior can give managers an idea of what factors are necessary to create an effective and successful organization. Organizational behavior is a non-performance related set of practices which when implemented in organizations lend good credibility to the organization for its ethics.(Campbell) Ethics involves moral issues and choices and deal with right and wrong behavior.(Luthans) Businesses need people who have strong moral leadership skills and who are guided by clearly defined business ethics. Ethical standards have an important role not only in business decisions but also in a person’s everyday life. If a person is making unethical decisions others tend to not want to follow that person and the level of respect and trust are diminished, which can lead to a shift in employee organizational behavior. Even though there is not a published set of ethics to follow the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) has a code of ethical principles that include honesty, fairness, objectivity, and responsibility. The following responsibilities are standards in which all members should comply: Competence, Confidentiality, Integrity, Objectivity, and Resolution of Ethical Conflict. An effective leader should maintain a high level of confidence, integrity, and credibility by upholding his/her ethical responsibilities...
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...Leadership and Ethics Institution Name Date Leadership and Ethics Summary Since Coca-Cola’s first soda fountain sales in 1886, it has been a driver of marketplace innovation. However, it has been coupled by various ethical issues especially the discrimination of employees. In the 1980s, the brand was reported to have had various instances of employee discrimination. It has been alleged that the minority employees work in an environment of racial discrimination. It is an endemic racism culture that runs through the organization’s management at its New York bottling plans. It has been reported that its employees suffer from the worst of its ills regarding biased work assignments and allotment hours, retaliation, unfair discipline as well as a caustic work environment. It is further alleged that Hispanic and black employees have been assigned to the most undesirable and physically dangerous positions, as well as tasks outside their job descriptions (Sen, Johnson, Bhattacharya & Wang, 2015). Moreover, there have been claims that advancement and promotion opportunities within the organization are routinely biased against the minority employees. Finally, truck drivers in the organization have their hours limited unfairly and have been prevented from working overtime. The company, on the other hand, has issued statements to refute such claims, and have gone further to say that it has investigated and will continue investigating all the discrimination allegations...
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...Ethics in Leadership Why is Ethical Leadership a Social Responsibility? * Enron * Wells Fargo * Penn State * Lehman Bros. * MF Global Does the general public have a positive impression of the organizations listed above? Now we know, on average, that there are ethical employees at these firms. However, the employees did not lead them to their corporate demise or negative public perception. It was leadership culture without social responsibility as a cornerstone. And the results can be devastating. It can destroy a schools reputation. Destroy a company’s financial footing by eroding the confidence of the investors. In short, the lack of ethical leadership will almost always end badly for all concerned. Five Ethical Leadership Behaviors Ethics are what you do while values are what you say. Ethical leadership means that people look at your behavior and what you do, not just what you say. Unethical behavior kills leadership. According to Andrew Dubin, there are five ethical leadership behaviors. These include: * Be honest and trustworthy. This will build creditabilty * Pay attention to all stakeholders. This enhances the team concept * Build community. This lead to having a culture that is goal oriented * Respect the individual. The golden rule. * Accomplish silent victories. Let others receive praise and recognition What NOT to do: There are three behaviors that leaders must be aware of that can kill ethical leadership...
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...Ethics Paper On Leadership October 13, 2011 Larry B. Seabrook, former New York Councilman, was the first African-American to hold office in three legislative branches: New York State Assembly, New York State Senate and New York City Council. A transformational leader, Seabrook had a strong advocacy for community service, public safety, workplace equality, youth services, and economic development. He led an investigation that resulted in a significant legislation and barred employment discrimination, increased penalties for civil rights violations, and also pioneered a program that freed Bronx neighborhoods from drugs and drug-related crimes and violence. Despite his hard work and positive attributions to his community, Seabrook actions had several ethical lapses that resulted in a 13-count indictment from the City of New York. These charges included using city council’s discretionary funds to finance varies non-profit groups that Seabrook had close ties with; using funds as salaries or consulting fees to hire staff that included his companion, sibling and other relatives. In addition, Seabrook also assisted a friend in winning a bid for a fee and actively partook in overstating expenses for reimbursement from the City Council. This article addresses both ethical and illegal issues faced by the councilman. Looking at the ethical lapses, Seabrook's leadership was faced with decision biased related to conflict of interest and...
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...Leadership and Ethics Student’s Name Affiliation Institution Leadership Ethics Introduction Immigration is a situation where people move to other countries where they are not natives in search of a good life. The growth of undocumented immigration population has been explosive in the United States today. The current U.S. inhabitants include 11.2 million unregistered immigrants who potentially impact American society. These unregistered immigrants live, eat, shop, and work in American society and, therefore, they directly influence the trade and industry, and cultural state of the United States. Ethical concerns The ethics factors that can affect undocumented immigration include those of rights, justice, and utilitarianism. In the U.S. the illegal immigrant does not have a lawful right to be employed. Majority of unregistered migrants came to U.S mainly for the employment purposes that have contributed to their mass movement into U.S. Since the legal rights of the real citizen surpass that of the immigrants, lawmakers across the country are taking necessary action to stop illegal immigration. Utilitarianism tends to sustain what is acceptable as being useful. Business owners in the United States see illegal immigrants as helpful in the corporate sector, they argue that Aliens take jobs that the citizens won’t do and their employment results in affordable prices for consumers. This has led in an increased entry of illegal immigrants. Existing citizen rights should...
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...“Leadership is an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes and outcomes that reflect their shared purposes” (Daft, 2008, p. 5). Leadership is a required element of our daily lives. From our homes to our jobs, and communities leaders influence others and promote changes necessary for a specific goal. “The best leaders recognize and hone their strengths, while trusting and collaborating with others to make up their weak points” (Daft, 2008, p. 38). Every person has a limited capacity, including leaders, so it is important to know your strengths, weakness, and limits while having the ability to focus on key strengths that will make a difference in the outcome of the goal being obtained. Strengths including passion, knowledge, optimism, self-confidence, honesty, sociability, responsibility, cooperativeness, and education are all characteristic of a leader. Some leaders may be better at things than others; one may work better on the financial end of the spectrum, dealing with finances and bookkeeping, while another may be better at interactions with others including presenting materials and teaching. Some leaders may be more power driven (autocratic), where others would rather delegate responsibilities to others (democratic). Either way, leaders can be challenged beyond their own capabilities, which is why it is important to know their own abilities, both positive and negative, while working with others to help reach their goals. Daft, R.L....
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...TOM. 348 HUMANIORA Essays on Business and Leadership Ethics Tuomo Takala TURUN YLIOPISTO UNIVERSITY OF TURKU Turku 2012 ISBN 978-951-29-5010-2 (PRINT) ISBN 978-951-29-5011-9 (PDF) ISSN 0082-6987 Painosalama Oy – Turku, Finland 2012 A note from the writer I was born in 1955 and am a professor of management and leadership at the University of Jyväskylä, with a solid academic track record. My main academic work has been research in the area of business ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Based on my research I have written around a hundred publications, of which about fifty can be seen as scientifically significant, in one way or another. I started as a business leadership major at the University of Jyväskylä in 1977. General studies sparked my interest in philosophy, and in time I became more and more interested in it. I graduated as a Master of Economics in 1982, at which point I had already done Advanced studies in Philosophy. Nevertheless, I did my postgraduate studies in economics and began to study corporate societal responsibility in 1983. At the same time I continued my studies in philosophy and graduated as a M.Sc (Philosophy) in 1986, the same year when I finished my licentiate’s work on societal responsibility for the Business Studies program in the University of Jyväskylä (Ph.D in Economics 1991). At that time, I was already also interested in the thematic of business ethics. These fields were not popular in economics at...
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...Ethics and leadership Brad Kern HSM/230 11-11-2012 University of Phoenix Ethics and leadership When thinking about what field of human services that I would like to go into, I thought about looking more into a psychiatrist. This means you will be working to diagnosis and treat the mental disorders. You can help a lot of people with in this field. Anything from finding out if someone is capable of stand trial for the crime that they committed, or help them find out what is wrong with a person. This way the person can figure out what is wrong with them so they do not feel like a burden. When you look at the some of the moral responsibilities that a psychiatrist is that they can be told all kinds of things and have to keep it between themselves and their clients. This could be a problem if the person is suffering from these problems. This can be a moral issue, because, of what may come up during this session. If a person has committed a crime or something they cannot go to the police with this info. That is one of the moral issues that can come up when dealing with some of the clients out there. As leader in this field, you must keep all of this in mind, when dealing with people and their mental disorders. When dealing with one’s mental disorders you must make light of them, without making them feel uncomfortable, but also get them to talk about what is wrong with them. Sometimes these mental disorders can be locked inside someone for years before they come out and...
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...Leadership Ethics As children we are taught the difference between right and wrong very early in life. Knowing the difference doesn’t change in the business world. A lot of times in business, leaders find themselves in situations where they have to choose an ethical or unethical way out. The Ethical Behavior and Social Responsibility slide says, “If it looks, smells, or acts illegal, it probably IS.” I believe in most ethical cases, the individual knows when they are doing something illegal or wrong. Unethical decisions not only ruin careers, but also ruin the reputation of companies, brands, and stakeholders. These leaders’ often make these horrible decisions without thinking things through, and end up losing their job. Is it really worth it? When I was the Culinary Manager at Red Lobster my goal was to always be consistent and keep food cost percent down. The company food cost percent goal was to be between three and five percent. My restaurant was consistently below two percent each month, which made others wonder how that was happening. I had nothing to hide, and at the time I loved the attention, so I was always eager to talk about our success. This was very early in my career, and I was a little naïve and didn’t realize that the numbers we were producing were thought of as unethical. We went through audits just like all of the other restaurants and the mainly, we had the paperwork to support everything. We had created different ways to spot check things and made...
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...Midterm Leadership, Ethics & Decision Making Case Study 2 (Pages 2 – 4) Case Study 3 (Pages 5 – 7) Case Study 6 (Pages 8 – 10) By: Alexandra Janicek Case Study 2 – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Page 63 Q1: What do you think Bill and Melinda Gates’s personality traits are for each of the Big Five dimensions? Compare the two. When considering the Big Five dimensions, which include traits of surgency, agreeableness, adjustment, conscientiousness and openness, both Bill and Melinda share some of these traits. I believe both Bill and Melinda exhibit traits of agreeableness. The agreeable personality dimension includes having enjoyable social relationships, and displaying sensitivity towards other’s needs. Another huge aspect of agreeableness is having a high emotional intelligence. What makes up emotional intelligence is self-awareness, social awareness, self-management and relationship management. Bill and Melinda focus their time working towards helping all people to lead healthy, productive lives throughout the world. With centers in the United States, India, China and the UK, they have donated $24.81 billion dollars. This is an example of sensitivity – “Sensitivity means not focusing on putting yourself first and remembering that the more you help others, the more you get in return.” (Pg. 38). Their sensitivity towards others needs also ties into their emotional intelligence, more specifically, their social awareness. Empathy...
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...How do health leaders foster a culture of ethics, morality and social responsibility? Ethics is the adherence to a set of values that an organization establishes. This process services as an instrument for facilities to address ethical issues regarding management and relationship decisions. It is the leader’s responsibility to drive the culture of the organization. Leader’s personal values and standards will drive the goals, policies and practices of an organization. Leaders must has a set of personal values that reflect the mission of the organization. How they set the example in responding morally to challenges within the organization will establish values and therefore norms and social relationships. Their views backed by actions will foster a culture of ethics, sense of social responsibility and morality for others to follow. Is morality a legal issue or leader issue? Morality is both a legal issue and leader issue. I asked one of my young six year old neighbors to tell me what it means to be moral. Her response was “do what is right.” This sounds very simple in concept. However, in legal context, it is not so much “black and white.” There are several examples of moral dilemmas relevant to the health care setting. End-of-life issues have been the topic of debate over countless years. Other more current examples involve the balance of service quality at the expense of business productivity and sustainability. Morality therefore becomes subjective, which...
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...Name: Mahmud bin yunus ID: 111091416 (Serial-4) The role of leadership style in developing ethical practice 1) The coercive leader demands instantaneous obedience and focuses on achievement, initiative, and self control. Although this style can be very effective during times of crisis or during a turnaround, it otherwise creates negative climate for organizational performance. (It can be used in time of urgency) 2) The authoritative leader- considered to be one of the most effective styles- inspires employees to follow a vision, facilitates change, and creates a strongly positive performance climate.(It can be used when a new vision and direction is needed) 3) The affiliative leader values people, their emotions, and their needs and relies on friendship and trust to promote flexibility, innovation, and risk taking. (Best for getting out of stressful time) 4) The democratic leader relies on participation and teamwork to reach collaborative decisions. This style focuses on communication and creates a positive climate for achieving results. (It can be used to gain valuable inputs and information from employees if there is time available) 5) The pacesetting leader can create a negative climate because of high standards that he or she sets. This style works best for attaining quick results from highly motivated individuals who value achievement and take initiative. (It can be used if the team is motivated and competent) 6) The coaching leader builds a...
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...11/26/03 5:38 PM Page 302 CHAPTER 13 Ethics and Leadership Effectiveness Joanne B. Ciulla T he moral triumphs and failures of leaders carry a greater weight and volume than those of nonleaders (Ciulla, 2003b). In leadership we see morality magnified, and that is why the study of ethics is fundamental to our understanding of leadership. The study of ethics is about human relationships. It is about what we should do and what we should be like as human beings, as members of a group or society, and in the different roles that we play in life. It is about right and wrong and good and evil. Leadership is a particular type of human relationship. Some hallmarks of this relationship are power and/or influence, vision, obligation, and responsibility. By understanding the ethics of this relationship, we gain a better understanding of leadership, because some of the central issues in ethics are also the central issues of leadership. They include the personal challenges of authenticity, self-interest, and self-discipline, and moral obligations related to justice, duty, competence, and the greatest good. Some of the most perceptive work on leadership and ethics comes from old texts and is out there waiting to be rediscovered and reapplied. History is filled with wisdom and case studies on the morality of leaders and leadership. Ancient scholars from the East and West offer insights that enable us to understand leadership and Author’s Note: A special thanks goes...
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