Ethical leadership

The first term Ethics comes from ethos, a Greek word meaning character, conduct, or custom. The term Ethics relate to a person’s conception of what is right and what is wrong according to one’s upbringing, sensitivities, societal and familial outlook. Ethics helps us to decide what is right and good or wrong and bad in any given situation. With respect to leadership, ethics is about who the leaders are-their character and what they do, their actions and their behaviours.

Now the second term “leadership” which is a broad term and can be defined in many ways is basically a simple definition of leadership is that leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal. Leadership is an art and a science too since it involves practicing the art of it by using the science which in this case are the theories. So leadership is and art and a science both!

Many believe that ethical leadership is simply a matter of leaders having nice or ethical character. By having “the right values” or being a person of “strong character,” the ethical leader can set the example for others and withstand any temptations that may occur along the way. No doubt about the importance of good character and right values but the reality of ethical leadership is far more complex and the stakes are much higher.
In broader outlook an ethical leadership takes into account followers and key stake holders. The stake holders include the organization, its employees, the employers, customers, vendors, suppliers, owners, shareholders and the society.

In today’s world of business, ethics and values are present at a number of levels for executives and managers-leaders that devote their time and energy to leading the process of value creation. In today’s era of capitalism it’s tough to be ethical since the organizations are profit seeking and tend to ignore the ethics of business which means that the leadership practiced is rarely ethical. 

Ethical leadership is leadership that involves leading in a manner that respects the rights and dignity of others. “As leaders are by nature in a position of power in an organization, ethical leadership focuses on how leaders use their power within the organization in the decisions they make, actions they engage in and ways they influence other stakeholders”. Leaders who are ethical are likely to have high level of integrity. The character and integrity of the leader provide the basis for personal characteristics that direct a leader’s ethical beliefs, values and decisions. Individual values and beliefs impact the ethical decisions of leaders. In order to practice ethical leadership it is very important that the leader has the ethical values and behaviour as this will make him an ethical leader who will practice ethical leadership.

Ethical leadership takes into account everything that might be unethical as it involves “doing the right thing in a right way”! For example when practicing ethical leadership the leader will ensure that he is using all the ethical ways to get the job done! He will ensure that he does not use practice that is unethical or that may hurt other’s integrity and values.

In organizational communication, ethics in leadership are very important. Business leaders must make decisions that will not only benefit them, but also they must think about how the other people will be affected (Stansbury 33). The best leaders make known their values and their ethics and preach them in their leadership style and actions. It consists of communicating complete and accurate information, where there is a personal, professional, ethical, or legal obligation to do so (McQueeney 165). When practicing ethics, you gain the respect and admiration of employees, with the satisfaction of knowing you did the right thing. If you never make clear what you want, and expect, then it can cause mistrust.

Being unethical in the workplace can include anything from taking personal phone calls while at your desk, telling someone the "check is in the mail", when in fact it hasn't even been written yet, and even taking office supplies home for your personal use. Most organizations create an ethical code, which is usually a list of rules that tells you what behaviours are right and what are wrong in the company.

For your organization, you might want to let employees know your values right off the bat. Such values can be , teamwork, ambition, honesty, efficiency, accomplishment, and dedication.

Enron Corporation is a gas pipeline company that turned into a huge enterprise. In 2001, the company collapsed due to scandals and bad leadership. Basically, the reason why they failed was due to a set of values that employees had to agree to, but in fact executives were demonstrating a different set of values. Due to this miscommunication of values and other important facts, the company went bankrupt.

The conclusion to the Enron case, according to Wee Heesun, is that smart CEOs will realize that an honest, transparent, and trustworthy culture can also bolster employee morale and ultimately guard shareholder value.