Ethical Leadership

Leadership Ethics

o    Very little research has been published on the theoretical foundations of leadership ethics.

o    There has been many studies on leadership, but little has been related to leadership.

o    One of the first leadership ethics writings appeared in 1996 by W.K. Kellogg

 

Ethics defined

o    Development of ethics theory dates back to Plato and Aristotle.

o    It is concerned with the kinds of values and morals an individual or society finds desirable.

o    These are rules and principles that provide the basis for understanding what it means to be a morally decent human being.

o    The choices that leaders make and how they respond to a given circumstance are informed and directed by their ethics.

 

Ethical theories

Ethical leadership theories fall into two categories

o    Leader's conduct (Their actions)

                                    i.            Consequences (Theological theories) - Focus on what is right and what is wrong.

1.       Ethical Egoism - An individual should act to create the greatest good for themselves. A leaders should take a career that they would selfishly enjoy (Avolio & Locke, 2002). This is closely related to transactional leadership theories. For example, a middle-level manager who wants their team to be the best in the company is acting out of ethical egoism.

2.       Utilitarianism - We should act to create he greatest good for the greatest number. Maximize the social benefits while minimizing the social costs (Shumann, 2001). Example: when the US government allocates a large portion of the federal budget to the health care instead of catastrophic illness, it is acting out of the utilitarian ethics.

3.       Altruism -  This is the opposite of Ethical Egoism and is concerned with showing the best interest for others even when it runs contrary to self-interest. Authentic transformational leadership is based on altruistic behavior (Bass, Steidlmeier, 1999).

                                  ii.            Duty (Deontological Theories)

§  This is telling the truth, keeping promises, being fair, independent of the consequences.

§  Actions should not infringe on others' rights and should not further the moral rights of others.

               Leader's character (Who they are)

                     Virtue-based theories -

1.       These are not innate, but can be acquired.

2.       They are rooted in heart of the individual and in their disposition.

3.       It focuses on telling people  "what to be" as opposed of "what to do"

4.       Examples include courage, temperance, generosity, self-control, honesty, sociability, modesty, fairness, and justice.

5.       This theory is about being  and becoming a worthy human being.

 

Centrality of ethics to leadership

o    The influence dimension of a leader requires that they have an impact on the lives of those they lead. To make a change in other people carries with it an enormous amount of ethical burden and responsibility.

o    Leaders have an ethical responsibility to treat followers with dignity, respect, as a human being with unique identities.

o    The "respect for people" demands that a leader be sensitive to follower's own interests, needs, and conscientious concerns.

o    Leaders play an important role in establishing the ethical climate of the their organizations.

 

Heifetz's Perspective on Ethical leadership

o    A psychiatrist who observed world leaders.

o    His approach emphasizes how leaders help followers confront conflict and effect changes from conflict. It is about helping followers deal with conflicting values that emerge in rapidly changing work environments and social cultures.

o    His approach deals with values.

o    Leaders must utilize authority to immobilize people to face tough issues.

o    The leader provides the holding environment in which there is trust, nurturance, and empathy.

o    The leader's duty is to assist followers in struggling with change and personal growth.

 

Burns's Perspective on Ethical leadership

o    Transformational leadership places a strong emphasis on followers' needs, values, and  morals.

o    It involves attempts by leaders to move followers to higher standards of responsibility.

o    It is the responsibility of the leader to help followers assess their own values and needs in order to raise them to a higher level of functioning, to a level that will stress values such a liberty, justice, and equality.

 

Greenleaf's Perspective on Ethical leadership

o    He developed a paradoxical approach to leadership called "Servant leadership" in 1970s

o    It gained increased popularity in recent years.

o    It has a strong altruistic ethical overtone and emphasizes that leaders should be attentive to concerns or their followers.

o    He argued that leadership was bestowed on a person who is by nature a servant. The way an individual becomes a leader is by first being a servant.

o    A servant leader focuses on the needs of the followers and helps them become more knowledgeable, more free, more autonomous and more like servants themselves.

o    Servant leader has a social responsibility to be concerned with the have-nots and to recognize them as equal stakeholders in the organization.

o    Greenleaf places a great deal of emphasis on listening, empathy, and unconditional acceptance of others.

o    Many of these ethical theories emphasis that the relationship between leader-follower is an "ethical" one and it s related to the "caring principle"(Gilligan, 1982).

 

Principles of ethical leadership

Northouse has listed five principles of ethical leadership. Actually the origins of these

can  be  traced  back  to Aristotle.    These  principles  provide  a  foundation  for  the  development  of

sound ethical leadership. According to these principles ethical leaders respect others, serve others,

are just,  are honest and  build community. To be  an  ethical  leader, we must  be  sensitive  to  the

needs of others, treat others in ways that are just and care for others.

 

 

1.       Ethical leaders respect others

o    Immanuel Kant argues that it is our duty to treat others with respect. One should treat others as ends in itself and never as means to an end.

o    Beauchamp and Bowie (1988) pointed out that "Persons must be treated as having their autonomously established goals and must never be treated purely as the means to another person's goals."

o    Leaders who respect also allow others to be themselves.  They approach others with a sense of unconditional worth and value individual differences (Kitchener, 1984)

o    Respect means giving credence to others' ideas and confirming them as human beings.

o    A leader should nurture followers in becoming aware of their own needs, values, and purposes.

o    Respect means that a leader listens closely to their subordinates, is empathetic, and tolerant to opposing views.

o    When a leader exhibits respect, subordinates feel competent about their work.

2.       Ethical leaders serve others

o    This is based on the concern for others (Ethical egoism)

o    This is an example of altruism.

o    An example of this is observed in mentoring, empowerment, behaviors, and team building.

o    Very similar concept to the "Beneficence" that is taught to health professionals.

o    Senge contended that one of the important tasks of leaders in learning organizations is to be a steward (servant) of the vision within the organization and highlights the importance of not being self-centered, but integrating one's self or vision with the vision of the organization.

3.       Ethical leaders are Just

o    Justice demands that leaders place the issue of just at the center of their decision making.

o    No one should be treated differently unless their particular situation demands it and if that is the case, then the rules for differential treatment should be made clear.

o    Good coaches are those who never have favorites and those who make a point of playing everyone in the team.

o    The golden rule (Rawls, 1971) is to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

o    The principles of distributive justice includes:

                                    i.            To each person, and equal share.

                                  ii.            According to individual needs

                                 iii.            According to that person's rights

                                iv.            According to individual efforts

                                  v.            According to societal contribution

                                vi.            According to merit.

4.       Ethical leaders are honest

o    Being honest is not just about telling the truth. It has to do with being open with others, representing reality as fully and a completely as possible.

o    There are times of course where telling the complete truth can be destructive and counter productive. The challenge is to strike a balance.

o    It is important for leaders to be authentic, but sensitive to the attitudes And feelings of others.

o    Dala Costa (1998) made a point in the Ethical Imperative book. "Do not promise what you can't deliver, do not misrepresent, do not hide behind spin-doctored evasions, do not suppress obligations, do not evade accountability, do not accept  the 'survival of the fittest' pressures"

5.       Ethical leaders build community

o    Leadership is often defined as the "process of influencing others to reach a common or communal goal." This definition has a clear ethical dimension.  The common goal implies that leaders and followers agree on the directions of the group.

o    Authentic transformation means that a leader cannot impose their will on other. They need to search for goals that are compatible with everyone.

o    Ethical leadership demands attention to civic virtue (Rost, 1991). This means that both leaders and followers need to attend to community goals and not just their mutually determined goals.

 

Maybe the most important thing is to realize that leadership involves values; one cannot be a leader

without being aware of and concerned about one’s own values.   We can say also that  rather than

telling people what to do, we should tell them what to be and help them to become more virtuous.

When practiced over time good values become habitual and a part of the persons themselves.

 

Strengths

o    It provides some direction in how to think about ethical leadership and how to practice it.

o    It reminds us that leadership is a moral process. Other than the transformational theory of Burns, no other theory considered or highlighted ethics.

o    It describes some basic principles that we can use in developing real-world ethical leadership. These ethics have bee present for over 2000 years.

 

Weaknesses 

o     It is still in an early stage of development. It lacks a strong body of traditional research.

o    This area of research relies on the writing of a few individuals, whose work has been primarily descriptive and anecdotal.

 

Leadership instrument

Craig and Gustafson (1998) developed the Perceived Leader Integrity Scale (PLIS).  It is based on the Utilitarian ethical theory. It evaluates leaders' ethics by measuring the degree to which subordinates see them as acting in ways that produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Women and Leadership

Women and Leadership

 

o    Gender refers to way in which meaning and evaluations are associated with sex by members of a culture.

o    The degree with which Males and Females are expected to behave differently, treated differently, and are valued differently has little to do with sex (biology) and everything to do with gender (learned beliefs)

o    Learned beliefs can easily be misleading when there are only two categories in a set (female/male or masculine/feminine). There are three cognitive distortions with bi-polar categories.

·         People's thinking become simplified because of the belief  that everyone must fit into a specific category.

·         The categories also seem to imply that everyone within a category is identical.

·         Many people erroneously tend to value one category as more superior than the other.

o    Although many executives and managers refer to believe that organizations are objective about merit and gender neutral, the data from research shows that most work places use gender as the basis for many decisions (Hale, 1996).

o    Ongoing research has indicated continued dilemmas for women leaders who seek to balance work demands with personal life (Ensher, Murphy, Sullivan, 2002)

o    The application of this section has three benefits

·         Can help organizations that have experienced difficulties in retaining women.

·         It can inform women of what they need to do to develop as leaders.

·         It can inform men of the subtle patterns enacted everyday in the work place that impedes progress.

o    A study found that males did well under cooperative conditions while females did well under competitive conditions. The female participants were more concerned with the feelings of other participants than the males were. The females spent more time and effort to get to know the others in their groups and perhaps felt that those interpersonal relationships were more important than the game and its outcomes. But why, you might ask, did this make them less able to cooperate with each other. The answer lies in the nature of the game. Winning may be more important to males than to females, whether it is as a group over other groups or as an individual over others in the group. In order for the group to effectively cooperate it was necessary that uncooperative behavior be stopped quickly. When working together to solve a problem under time pressure, males are pretty good at suspending concern for feelings and focusing on the task. Females on the average are less willing or able to do that. There is a general belief that women are more likely than men to adopt a participative or democratic style of leadership. Women seem to prefer working in cooperative situations rather than competitive ones.

 

Overview of research trends

Researchers over the past 20 years, have focused on three main questions:

a.       Can women be leaders?

                     i.            The answer of course is, Yes. Some interesting demographics.

1.       135 Million people employed in the US. 46.6% are women (2001).

2.       Women  earned .76 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2001.

3.       Women filled `5.7% of corporate officer including 7.1% of CFO, 16.1 of general counsels.

4.       5.2% of top-earning corporate officers were filled by women.

5.       12.4% of seats held in Fortune 500 corporate directors.

6.       6 Female CEO for Fortune 500 companies and 11 female CEOs of Fortune 500 & 1000.

7.       44% of small businesses in US (20.4 million) are owned by women.

8.       5% of venture capitalist and 3% of government contracts are awarded to women owned businesses.

9.       12% of state governorship. 13% in US Senate. 14% of US House of representatives.

10.   In 1998, Fortune profiled 50 women leaders.

11.   African American women currently represent the largest group of color in management positions and are surpassing African American Men in Executive/Managerial positions.

12.   Women inclusion in leadership has increased over the last few decades, but does not reflect their overall proportion of labor force.

13.   Enhanced Productivity, competitive advantage, and financial performance, are three of the reasons why developing and promoting women leaders are in the best interest of employers. (Barney, 1997) - Capacity to optimize the use of the internal resources.

14.   Underutilized women and people of color are major sources of untapped value that can enhance organization's creativity, change efforts, team work, and financial performance (Appold, Siengthai & Kasarda, 1998)

b.      Do male and females differ in their behavior and effectiveness in organizations?

                     i.            The purpose of this question shifted many times. Sometimes to research equality, other times is to understand impact of gender on leadership.

                   ii.            Recent research has used meta-analysis (set of statistical procedures that for analyzing all studies to determine the overall trends)

                  iii.            Meta-Analyses in the last 15 years indicate that assuming differences in behavior, cognition could lead to erroneous conclusions. A Meta-Analyses of 160 studies concluded that there is only one difference (Women used a more participative or democratic style and less autocratic or directive style than men did.)

                 iv.            Both Men and Women emphasized task accomplishment when the setting was numerically dominated by leaders of their own sex.

                   v.            82 studies did not found that females and males did not differ in effectiveness. (Dobbins & Platz, 1986; Donnell & Hall, 1980; Powel, 1993)

                 vi.            Another meta-analysis found that female and make leaders are evaluated differently (Eagly, Makhijani, & Klonsky, 1992) which affect the impact of management training.

1.       Both Female and Male leaders were evaluated equally favorably when they used a stereotypically feminine style (democratic )

2.       Only female leaders were evaluated unfavorably when they used a masculine leadership style (Autocratic or directive)

3.       Women were particularly devalued when they worked in a male dominated setting.

                vii.            Another study found that females and males leaders differ in:

1.       The length of time they need to go to get promoted

2.       The need to adapt their behavior at work

3.       Amount of support they tend to receive at work

4.       The impact of family variables on career development.

              viii.            A theory based on sex differences in social behavior (Eagly, 1987) proposes that people are generally expected to engage in activities and actions congruent with their culturally defined gender roles.

                 ix.            Comparison of leader roles favored men over women when three conditions were true:

1.       When the setting was male dominated (especially military)

2.       When a high percentage of subordinates were male.

3.       When the role was seen as more congenial to men in terms of self assessed competence, interest, low requirement for cooperation, high requirement for control.

                   x.            Comparison of leader roles favored women over men when these three conditions were reversed. In addition, women leaders were favored in middle management in business, education, and government or social services. Men were favored in entry level or supervisory positions especially in the military.

                 xi.            Eagly (1992) concluded that leadership roles maybe defined in a more masculine or feminine fashion depending on the organizational context of management. Across most sectors of the economy other than the military, women's effectiveness increased as they moved up the hierarchy and as cooperation rather than control was required.

                xii.            Three recent studies by Advanced Teamware, inc. conducted a study where 6000 people completed a questionnaire about 915 middle-upper managers. Of the 31 areas examines, women outperformed men in 28 including conflict resolution, work quality, adaptation to change, productivity, idea generation, and motivation of others. Men handled pressure and coped with frustration better than women did. Both groups scored equally on delegating authority.

              xiii.            Another study by (Saville & Holdsworth in New Zealand) conducted a study of 3000 managers. They found no differences on 30 attributes analyzed. However, they found that women emphasized planning and organizing work and an empathic approach.  They placed less emphasis on the need to win at all costs.

              xiv.            Generally speaking, women leaders tend to be more participative and less autocratic, more effective in middle management, and in situations requiring cooperation.

c.       Why do so few women leaders reach the top?

There are three common explanations.

1.       "Women absence from executive positions is a function of not having been in managerial positions long enough for natural career progression to occur.". There is data to support this.

2.       "Women lack general management or line experience" (Ragins et al, 1998). There is data to support this explanation. However, there are other studies that shows that top executives were not distinguished from middle management by their line experience, but by the breadth of positions and departments they worked in. The study also found that the longer managers served in line positions, the less likely they move into top management.

3.       "Women leaders are themselves the problem. They are either less suited for executive demands rather than men, unavailable because so few are sufficiently qualified, or lacking in self confidence. (Morris, 1998). This has been refuted by a large number of published research.

 

Recent studies have found that women's  slow progress to the top have been the focus of a "Glass Ceiling".  (Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995). There are three broad categories:

 

1.       Organizational barriers

1. Higher standards of Performance and efforts for women have been reported in many studies (Mainiero, 1994; Morris, 1998)

2. Inhospitable corporate culture (Ragins et al, 1998). The culture,

1. Discourages balancing high career aspirations wit non work obligations

2. Communicate that women don't belong in executive positions.

3. Require that women accomplish major tasks without sufficient resources.

A study found that a males only organizational hierarchy hindered women's promotions into lower and middle management while having female leaders fostered women's promotions.

3.       Homophily - The tendency to prefer to work and interact with people who are similar demographically and attitudinally. Homophily can ease the initial interactions in a group, but can restrict creative thinking and balanced decision making (Cox, 1993). Since women of color differ in two demographic from European American men, they are more likely to experience marginalization at work (Bell et al, 1993).

4.       Organizations have limited the challenge of assignments given to women . In a study of 507 managers, both men and women were given opportunities to start new ventures and turn around businesses n trouble, but men were given higher levels of responsibilities. This reduced the potential of promotions for women.

5.       Another study of 2431 white collar employees, showed that both men and women promotions to middle management were fostered by enhancing human capital variables (education, training, and challenging work). Women's promotions were fostered by the presence of a woman in the hierarchy and hindered by the lack of one.  Their promotions to upper management were fostered by career encouragement. Men's promotions were unaffected by these variables.

2.       Interpersonal barriers

1. Refer to the obstacles that occur primarily in the context of a working relationship. Supportive relationships are especially important in women's leadership advancement.

2. Gender prejudice can take many forms and usually not conscious. The most basic preconceptions is that a good manager is inherently masculine.

3. Preconceptions that women are less competent means that women have to prove themselves repeatedly in each new situations.

4. Women must identify ad explicitly ask for challenging assignments rather than simply having such assignments offered to them.

5. Women perceived that a need to adapt their behavioral style so that men could avoid feeling intimidated. (Ragin et al, 1998)

6. Male leaders were positively evaluated when they behaved either cooperatively or autocratically. Women leaders were evaluated positively only when they behaved cooperatively. (Eagly et al. 1992).

7. Several studies documented that women experienced lower support in their careers than similarly employed men.

8. Informal networks are very important and yet studies shown that women leaders have either tended to be excluded or had to work harder to be included.

9. A critical relationship is mentoring. Studies in mentoring had pointed out that there is  dramatic impact on salaries of employees and that European American men were most likely to be the protégé.

10.   Women and men were likely to be mentors, but women were more likely to have same sex protégés.

11.   Bad mentoring can be worse than none at all (Ragins, Cotton, & Miller, 2000)

3.       Personal

1. Women leaders themselves have reported naïveté and lower political savvy as a barrier.

2. To mature organizationally, black women have adopted perseverance, willingness to change employers, and self generated developmental opportunities.

3. The most serious challenge for women leaders are the non-work obligations that they remain primarily responsible for in a household. Some studies found that the multiple roles that women play in work and non-work actually enhances their leadership skills.

4. The ability to balance the "have it all" need has been a frequent theme in women leaders. Some women have coped by purchasing domestic services, supportive or non-employed husband, or scaling back their families.

 

Strengths

o    Research on gender dynamics have made a roader impact on leadership. Improvements in the work places and in society occur only when unconscious patterns and beliefs are uncovered and recognized.

o    Considering the sex of leaders and employees can yield insights within the major theoretical traditions. There are many examples of this discussed in the various theories about situations and acceptable/non-acceptable behaviors.

o    Research in this area has contributed to the broader conversation in the US society about values and questions like this:

·         Do we prefer a work place that rewards talents or demographic characteristics?

·         Does profit matter more than people's well being?

·         Does work matter more than personal relationships?

·         Is merit consistently applied if one sex have to consistently work harder and received less pay and recognition?

 

Weaknesses 

o    The disadvantage of focusing on the individual's sex can become the only or the primary attribute identifying them rather than  one of the many attributes.

o    A serious issue in the research on sex and gender is the assumption that members of each category are identical in race, sexual orientation, age, etc. In fact most of the respondents to the surveys were European American Women.

 

Leadership instrument

The BSRI developed by Bem in 1974 has often been used to measure the self perceptions of gender role.   Another instrument that was developed by  Yost & Herbert in 1985 measures the attitudes toward women as managers (ATWAM)