Ethical Leadership

Ethical leadership

Is a behaviour that a leader in a business should practice in order to promote certain behaviours in his employees which will help him to build trust amongst his employees. Moreover, Ethical leadership sets the lights on managing practices within the organization "ethically”.

So what is "ethical" leadership? And what dimensions does it cover?

Ethical leadership is: A form of leadership in which individuals demonstrate conduct for the common good that is acceptable and appropriate in every area of their life. (source: Villanova University)

The dimensions ethical leadership covers are

• Respecting others
• Serves others
• Shows justice
• Manifests honesty
• Builds community

"Many organizations tend to rely on systems to ensure right behaviours are delivered whilst other organizations focus on leaderships being clear about what they want done in an organisation then embedding it and later on practicing it on day to day bases" (source : Durham University)

Although i am certain the right practices of a leadership can ensure change success i have come across some concerns myself that i will try to find answers for through research

Let's see if the same questions arised to you as they did to me

Question# 1:

Isn't it better to have systems that will get tasks done rather than consuming time trying to prepare staff for change? (e. g. Implementing a new system)

Question# 2:

How often do humans commit mistakes compared to systems? Is it less or more?

Indeed, systems will save more time and will be more accurate getting assigned tasks done. However, employees can show better efforts when they are aware of the consequences and benefits of change in the organization, employees on the contrary can think of developing better and new ideas and systems to ensure better change processes and results are attained.

Humans work with feelings unlike systems, hence they have more options to think off if issues arised during the change process thus alerting the team and the organization about an occurred issue before it develops and lead to definite failure is crucial.

Since the ethical dimentions explain themselves let me set the lights on the ways of dealing with UN-ethical issues that may arise within an organization

Identify issue

Separating ethical issues from simple disagreement is important For example: When an employee doesn’t attend a meeting this can be seen as bad manner but it doesn’t make the employee right or wrong therefore this will not be considered as an ethical problem. However, when you make someone's job more redundant because you don’t like them is considered an ethical problem

Determine who’s responsible

When an ethical issue is determined it is important to know who is the right person to address it

Gather relevant facts

Once a decision is made to suspend a specific employee who is being rude or aggressive when proposing a new system for example it is important to discuss this with different departments, managers, the team and the person whom the issue is happening with to understand before a final decision is made.

Review right and wrong issues

Taking out time to think wether the decision made is right or wrong? Is it going to cause a negative reaction?

Applying ethical standards

If your organization have an ethical code of conduct it is important to apply these standards.

Make the decision & Reflect

Is revising the decisions made by going through the whole scenario as it will give you a chance to see the picture broadly.

To summarise , Ethical behaviour is not a formula that needs to be acquired through training or research, rather it is something that should be there and part of your day to day practice. When a new decision or change is made within an organization a leader should look at things from the perspective of how he wants to be treated and how this decision will impact them and then apply it to others as well hence beside the decisions the importance of building trust and establishing an open dialogue with all parties listening and being prepared to act on feedback are essential.

By Wessam Tariq

sources : Durham University , Villanova University