Code of ethics of the National Association of Social Workers.
Due Thursday April 2 by 7pm Central Standard
DQ
What does it mean to be an ethical leader? How is ethical leadership demonstrated in social work practice? As a leader in the social work profession, you have to achieve a balance between your professional and personal ethics. At times, these may be aligned with each other, but there may be situations in which they conflict. Because leadership includes value and moral dimensions, your character, actions, and goals as a social work administrator should reflect ethical leadership.
Required Reading
1. Northouse, P. G. (2018). Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Sage.
Chapter 12, “Addressing Ethics in Leadership” (pp. 273-300) Attached Document
Websites
https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss1/art34/
Website NASW Code of Ethics
For this Discussion, consider the characteristics of ethical leadership and the challenges associated with practicing ethical leadership.
Discussion Question
Post 1 page pager your definition of ethical leadership as it relates to the social work profession. Explain what it means to be an ethical leader and describe the challenges of being an ethical leader.
APA format intext citations and references from reading.
12 Addressing Ethics in Leadership
Introduction
Leadership has a moral dimension because leaders influence the lives of others. Because of this influential dimension, leadership carries with it an enormous ethical responsibility. Hand in hand with the authority to make decisions is the obligation a leader has to use his or her authority for the common good. Because the leader usually has more power and control than followers have, leaders have to be particularly sensitive to how their leadership affects the well-being of others.
What is Ethical Leadership and Why is it Relevant?
In recent years, there have been an overwhelming number of scandals in the public and private sectors. Accounting and financial scandals have occurred at some of the largest companies in the world, including Adelphia, Enron, Tyco International, and WorldCom. In addition, there have been stories of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, sexual assaults within the U.S. military, and a multitude of sexual scandals in the lives of public figures including governors, U.S. senators, and mayors, to name but a few. As a result of such high-profile scandals, people are becoming suspicious of public figures and what they do. The public strongly seeks moral leadership.
As mentioned in Chapter 1, “Understanding Leadership,” the overriding purpose of this book is to discover “what it takes to be a leader.” Closely related to this question, and perhaps even more important, is “what it takes to be an ethical leader.” That query is the focus of this chapter. This means our emphasis will be on describing how people act when they show ethical leadership. While it is always intriguing to know whether one is or is not perceived by others to be ethical, our emphasis will not be directed toward whether you are or are not ethical, but rather we will focus on the properties and characteristics of ethical leadership. The assumption we are making is that if you understand the nature of ethical leadership, you will be better equipped to engage in ethical leadership.
Before we discuss the factors that account for ethical leadership, you may want to go to the end of the chapter and take the Ethical Leadership Style Questionnaire (12.2). It will help you understand your own ethical leadership style and at the same time introduce you to the ideas we will be discussing in this chapter.
Leadership Ethics Explained
To begin, it is important to first define ethical leadership. In the simplest terms, ethical leadership is the influence of a moral person who moves others to do the right thing in the right way for the right reasons (Ciulla, 2003). Put another way, ethical leadership is a process by which a good person rightly influences others to accomplish a common good: to make the world better, fairer, and more humane.
Defining Ethical Leadership
Ethics is concerned with the kind of values and morals an individual or society finds desirable or appropriate. In leadership, ethics has to do with what leaders do and the nature of leaders’ behavior, including their motives. Because leaders often have control, power, and influence over others, their leadership affects other individuals and organizations. Because of this, it is the leader’s ethics—through his or her behavior, decisions, and interactions—that establish the ethical climate for an organization.
Leadership Ethics in Practice
Leadership ethics is a complex phenomenon with multiple parts that overlap and are interconnected. When trying to practice ethical leadership, there are six factors (Figure 12.1) that should be of special importance to leaders. Each of these factors plays a role in who leaders are and what they do when they are engaged in ethical leadership.
Figure 12.1 Factors Related to Ethical Leadership
1. The character of the leader
2. The actions of the leader
3. The goals of the leader
4. The honesty of the leader
5. The power of the leader
6. The values of the leader
1. The Character of the Leader
The character of the leader is a fundamental aspect of ethical leadership. When it is said that a leader has strong character, that leader is seen as a good and honorable human being. The leader’s character refers to the qualities, disposition, and core values of the leader. More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle argued that a moral person demonstrates the virtues of courage, generosity, self-control, honesty, sociability, modesty, fairness, and justice (Velasquez, 1992). Today, all these qualities still contribute to a strong character.
The Philosopher Leader
Character is something that is developed. In recent years, the nation’s schools have seen a growing interest in character education. Misbehavior of public figures has led to mistrust of public figures, which has led to the public demanding that educators do a better job of training children to be good citizens. As a result, most schools today teach character education as part of their normal curriculum. A model for many of these programs was developed by the Josephson Institute (2008) in California, which frames instruction around six dimensions of character: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship (see Table 12.1). Based on these and similar character dimensions, schools are emphasizing the importance of character and how core values influence an individual’s ethical decision making.
Although character is clearly at the core of who you are as a person, it is also something you can learn to strengthen and develop. A leader can learn good values. When practiced over time, from youth to adulthood, good values become habitual, and a part of people themselves. By telling the truth, people become truthful; by giving to the poor, people become charitable; and by being fair to others, people become just. Your virtues, and hence your character, are derived from your actions.
An example of a leader with strong character is Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela (see page 27). Mandela was a deeply moral man with a strong conscience. When fighting to abolish apartheid in South Africa, he was unyielding in his pursuit of justice and equality for all. When he was in prison and was offered the chance to leave early in exchange for denouncing his viewpoint, he chose to remain incarcerated rather than compromise his position. In addition to being deeply concerned for others, Mandela was a courageous, patient, humble, and compassionate man. He was an ethical leader who ardently believed in the common good.
Mandela clearly illustrates that character is an essential component of moral leadership. Character enables a leader to maintain his or her core ethical values even in times of immense adversity. Character forms the centerpiece of a person’s values, and is fundamental to ethical leadership.
2. The Actions of the Leader
In addition to being about a leader’s character, ethical leadership is about the actions of a leader. Actions refer to the ways a leader goes about accomplishing goals. Ethical leaders use moral means to achieve their goals. The way a leader goes about his or her work is a critical determinant of whether he or she is an ethical leader. We may all be familiar with the Machiavellian phrase “the ends justify the means,” but an ethical leader keeps in mind a different version of this and turns it into a question: “Do the ends justify the means?” In other words, the actions a leader takes to accomplish a goal need to be ethical. They cannot be justified by the necessity or importance of the leader’s goals. Ethical leadership involves using morally appropriate actions to achieve goals.
Source: © 2008 Josephson Institute. The definitions of the Six Pillars of Character are reprinted with permission. www.charactercounts.org
To illustrate the importance of ethical actions, consider what happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004. Because of the atrocities on 9/11, national security and intelligence gathering became a high priority. Rules and standards of interrogation were expanded, and harsh interrogation methods were approved. The government’s goal was to obtain information for purposes of national security.
Problems at the prison became evident when the media reported that prisoners were being sexually abused, humiliated, and tortured by prison personnel and civilian contract employees. Gruesome photographs of demeaning actions to prisoners appeared in the media and on the Internet. To obtain intelligence information, some U.S. Army soldiers used means that violated military regulations and internationally held rules on the humane treatment of prisoners of war established by the Geneva Convention in 1948.
In the case of the Abu Ghraib prison, the goal of maintaining national security and intelligence gathering was legitimate and worthwhile. However, the means that were used by some at the prison were considered by many to be unjustified and even ruled to be criminal. Many believe that the goals did not justify the means.
In everyday situations, a leader can act in many different ways to accomplish goals; each of these actions has ethical implications. For example, when a leader rewards some employees and not others, it raises questions of fairness. If a leader fails to take into consideration an employee’s major health problems and instead demands that a job be completed on short notice, it raises questions about the leader’s compassion for others. Even a simple task such as scheduling people’s workload or continually giving more favorable assignments to one person over another reflects the ethics of the leader. In reality, almost everything a leader does has ethical overtones.
Given the importance of a leader’s actions, what ethical principles should guide how a leader acts toward others? Ethical principles for leaders have been described by many scholars (Beauchamp & Bowie, 1988; Ciulla, 2003; Johnson, 2005; Kanungo, 2001; Kanungo & Mendonca, 1996). These writings highlight the importance of many ethical standards. In addition, there are three principles that have particular relevance to our discussion of the actions of ethical leaders: (1) showing respect, (2) serving others, and (3) showing justice.
1. Showing respect. To show respect means to treat others as unique human beings and never as means to an end. It requires treating others’ decisions and values with respect. It also requires valuing others’ ideas and affirming these individuals as unique human beings. When a leader shows respect to followers, followers become more confident and believe their contributions have value.
Ethical Principles
2. Serving others. Clearly, serving others is an example of altruism, an approach that suggests that actions are ethical if their primary purpose is to promote the best interest of others. From this perspective, a leader may be called on to act in the interest of others, even when it may run contrary to his or her self-interests (Bowie, 1991). In the workplace, serving others can be observed in activities such as mentoring, empowering others, team building, and citizenship behaviors (Kanungo & Mendonca, 1996). In practicing the principle of service, an ethical leader must be willing to be follower centered. That is, the leader tries to place others’ interests foremost in his or her work, and act in ways that will benefit others.
3. Showing justice. Ethical leaders make it a top priority to treat all of their followers in an equal manner. Justice demands that a leader place the issue of fairness at the center of decision making. As a rule, no one should receive special treatment or special consideration except when a particular situation demands it. When individuals are treated differently, the grounds for different treatment must be clear, reasonable, and based on sound moral values.
In addition, justice is concerned with the Golden Rule: Treat others as you would like to be treated. If you expect fair treatment from others, then you should treat others fairly. Issues of fairness become problematic because there is always a limit on goods and resources. As a result, there is often competition for scarce resources. Because of the real or perceived scarcity of resources, conflicts often occur between individuals about fair methods of distribution. It is important for a leader to establish clearly the rules for distributing rewards. The nature of these rules says a lot about the ethical underpinnings of the leader and the organization.
The challenge of treating everyone fairly is illustrated in what happened to Richard Lee when he coached his son’s Little League baseball team. His son, Eric, was an outstanding pitcher with a lot of natural ability. During one of the games, Eric became frustrated with his performance and began acting very immaturely, throwing his bat and kicking helmets. When Richard saw Eric’s inappropriate behavior, he immediately took his son out of the game and sat him on the bench. The player who replaced Eric in the lineup was not as good a pitcher, and the team lost the game.
Leadership Snapshot: Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates, Founders, The Giving Pledge
© Getty image 71299964 by Spencer Platt.
It started with three billionaires promising to give away half their fortune during their lifetimes and now encompasses more than 150 other super-rich families from around the world promising to do the same thing (Giving Pledge, 2016).
The Giving Pledge was spearheaded in 2010 by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, Nos. 1 and 2 respectively on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people, to encourage a new era in philanthropy. Instead of waiting until they die to give away their money, billionaires are encouraged by the Giving Pledge to make donations earlier in their lives while they can still choose how to spend it.
“I don’t know anyone who can’t live on $500 million,” Buffet has said (Frank, 2011).
The pledge is simple: The signers have to be billionaires, and they have to promise to give away at least half of their fortunes during their lifetimes. There are no constraints on where the money goes; causes supported by the pledge thus far have ranged from helping farmers in Appalachia to developing a major drug used to treat breast cancer to funding Jewish schools.
The pledge is less about the financial promise than it is about a public statement meant to inspire others, say the organizers. The pledge has also created a de facto “club” of sorts, where the signers get together on a regular basis to compare notes and share ideas.
“The goal is to raise the visibility of philanthropy and the great things it can do,” says Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. Through these gatherings, billionaires swap experiences and frustrations and debate strategies for how to give away their wealth. “People are collaborating more than they would have otherwise,” Gates says (Fowler, 2012).
The pledge is just that: a nonbinding promise to give away at least half of one’s fortune while alive or in a will. It doesn’t impose any penalties for failing to give it away. The Giving Pledge is coordinated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but the foundation doesn’t keep track of signatories’ donations.
Gates, however, doesn’t think the pledge will have a problem with signatories keeping their promises. “They are making a commitment in the court of public opinion,” he says (Fowler, 2012).
For some critics, the pledge has raised questions about the power of the super-wealthy using these donations to shape issues of public concern like education and health care. Some have said that the pledge is a reminder of the economic disparities between the haves and have-nots and that if you have money you can control things, including charities.
“There is already a wide financial disparity between large and small nonprofits and between those institutions that serve disadvantaged populations and those that cater to more established constituencies,” writes Pablo Eisenberg of the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership. “The pledges will invariably increase that gap, broadening the inequities in our nonprofit and charitable system” (Eisenberg, 2011).
But one young billionaire, 28-year-old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, signed the pledge and immediately made good on it by donating $100 million to Newark, New Jersey’s public schools.
“There’s so much that needs to be done, it would be better to start now,” he says (Guth & Fowler, 2010).
Fellow billionaire and Giving Pledge signer Nicolas Berggruen agrees. “Wealth is an advantage, but it also is frankly a responsibility” (Guth & Fowler, 2010).
After the game, Richard received a lot of criticism. In addition to Eric being mad at him, the parents of the other players were very angry. Some of the parents came to Richard and told him that he should not have pulled his son out of the game because it caused the team to lose.
In this example, the other players’ parents failed to recognize what Richard was doing as a coach. Richard made a strong effort to be fair to all the players by treating his son the way he would treat any player who acted out. He set a standard of good sportsmanship; when his own son violated the rules, he was disciplined. Richard’s actions were ethical, but coaching the team as he did was not easy. He did the right thing, but there were repercussions.
This example underscores the importance of the actions of a leader. A leader’s actions play a significant role in determining whether that leader is ethical or unethical.
3. The Goals of the Leader
The goals that a leader establishes are the third factor related to ethical leadership. How a leader uses goals to influence others says a lot about the leader’s ethics. For example, Adolf Hitler was able to convince millions of people that the eradication of the Jews was justified. It was an evil goal, and he was an immoral leader. The al-Qaeda terrorists’ attack on targets in the United States was motivated by a goal to seek retribution for the United States’ stance on Middle East affairs. On the positive side, Mother Teresa’s goal to help the poor and disenfranchised was moral. Similarly, Habitat for Humanity’s goal to build houses for the disadvantaged is moral. All of these examples highlight the significant role that goals play in determining whether leadership is ethical. The goals a leader selects are a reflection of the leader’s ethics.
Goals and Unethical Leadership
Identifying and pursuing just and worthy goals are the most important steps an ethical leader will undertake. In choosing goals, an ethical leader must assess the relative value and worth of his or her goals. In the process, it is important for the leader to take into account the interests of others in the group or organization and, in some cases, the interests of the community and larger culture in which he or she works. An ethical leader tries to establish goals on which all parties can mutually agree. An ethical leader with ethical goals will not impose his or her will on others.
Jacob Heckert, president of a regional health insurance company, is an example of a leader who used his leadership for worthwhile goals. Jacob believed in community service and advocated, but did not demand, that his employees engage in community service as well. Because he had several friends with diabetes and two of his employees had died of end-stage renal disease, Jacob was particularly interested in supporting the National Kidney Foundation. To promote his cause, he urged his entire company of 4,000 employees to join him in raising money for the National Kidney Foundation’s 5K. Each employee who signed up was responsible for raising $100. Everyone who participated received a free water bottle and T-shirt.
On the day of the rally, Jacob was surprised when more than 1,800 employees from his company showed up to participate. The rally was a great success, raising more than $180,000 for the National Kidney Foundation. The employees felt good about being able to contribute to a worthy cause, and they enjoyed the community spirit that surrounded the event. Jacob was extremely pleased that his goals had been realized.
4. The Honesty of the Leader
Another major factor that contributes to ethical leadership is honesty. More than any other quality, people want their leaders to be honest. In fact, it could be said that being honest is synonymous with being ethical.
When we were children, we were frequently told by grown-ups to “never tell a lie.” To be good meant telling the truth. For leaders, the lesson is the same. To be an ethical leader, a leader needs to be honest.
Dishonesty is a form of lying, a way of misrepresenting reality. Dishonesty may bring with it many negative outcomes, the foremost of which is that it creates distrust. When a leader is not honest, others come to see that leader as undependable and unreliable. They lose faith in what the leader says and stands for, and their respect for this individual is diminished. As a result, the leader’s impact is compromised because others no longer trust and believe what he or she says.
Dishonesty also has a negative effect on a leader’s interpersonal relationships. It puts a strain on how the leader and followers are connected to each other. When a leader lies to others, the leader in essence is saying that manipulation of others is acceptable. For example, when a boss does not come forth with a raise he promised, an employee will begin to distrust the boss. The long-term effect of this type of behavior, if ongoing, is a weakened relationship. Dishonesty, even when used with good intentions, contributes to the breakdown of relationships.
Emerging From Scandal
But being honest is not just about the leader telling the truth. It also has to do with being open with others and representing reality as fully and completely as possible. This is not an easy task because there are times when telling the complete truth can be destructive or counterproductive. The challenge for a leader is to strike a balance between being open and candid, and at the same time monitoring what is appropriate to disclose in a particular situation.
An example of this delicate balance can be seen in a story about Dan Johnson. Dan was hired to work as an executive with a large manufacturing company. The new job required Dan and his family to leave the small Michigan community they lived in, giving up jobs and friends, to move to Chicago. The family put its house on the market and began looking for a new home and jobs in Chicago. A few days after Dan started, his boss, Justin Godfrey, took him aside and told him that he should not sell his Michigan house at that time. Justin suggested that Dan postpone his move by using his wife’s job as an excuse when people inquired why the family had not moved to Chicago. Justin could not tell him any more, but Dan knew something major was about to happen. It did. The company announced a merger a few months later, and Dan’s job in Chicago was eliminated. Justin was required to keep the merger news quiet, but if he had not confided the little information that he did, members of Dan’s family would have uprooted their lives only to have them uprooted again. They would have experienced not only financial losses but emotional ones as well.
This example illustrates that it is important for a leader to be authentic. At the same time, it is essential that leaders be sensitive to the attitudes and feelings of others. Honest leadership involves a wide set of behaviors, which includes being truthful in appropriate ways.
5. The Power of the Leader
Another factor that plays a role in ethical leadership is power. Power is the capacity to influence or affect others. A leader has power because he or she has the ability to affect others’ beliefs, attitudes, and courses of action. Religious leaders, managers, coaches, and teachers are all people who have the potential to influence others. When they use their potential, they are using their power as a resource to effect change in others.
The most widely cited research on power is French and Raven’s (1959) work on the bases of social power. French and Raven identified five common and important bases of power: referent power, expert power, legitimate power, reward power, and coercive power (see Table 12.2). Each of these types of power increases a leader’s capacity to have an impact on others, and each has the potential to be abused.
Power and Ethics
Since power can be used in positive ways to benefit others or in destructive ways to hurt others, a leader needs to be aware of and sensitive to how he or she uses power. How a leader uses power says a great deal about that leader’s ethics. Power is not inherently bad, but it can be used in negative ways.
As discussed in Chapter 1, “Understanding Leadership,” there is dark side of leadership where a leader uses his or her influence or power for personal ends. Unfortunately, there are many examples in the world of such leaders. One example was Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq from 1979 to 2003. Recognized widely as a brutal dictator, Hussein was a Sunni Muslim (a minority in Iraq), a sect of Islam that has a centuries-old conflict with the country’s majority Shi’a Muslims and ethnic Kurds. When Hussein assumed power, he used his security forces to systematically murder anyone who opposed him. Many of these were genocidal massacres of innocent Iraqi citizens who were Shi’a Muslims and ethnic Kurds. The number of Iraqis murdered by Hussein’s forces is unknown, but it is believed to be more than 250,000. Another example of a leader using power in unethical and destructive ways is Jim Jones, an American who set up a religious cult in the country of Guyana, and who led more than 900 of his followers to commit suicide by drinking cyanide-laced punch. While these are extreme examples, power can also be abused in everyday leadership. For example, a supervisor who forces an employee to work every weekend by threatening to fire the worker if she or he does not comply is being unethical in the use of power. Another example is a high school cross-country track coach who is highly admired by his runners, but who requires them to take costly health food supplements even though the supplements are not proven effective by standard medical guidelines. There are many ways that power can be abused by a leader. From the smallest to the largest forms of influence, a leader needs to try to be fair and caring in his or her leadership.
Source: Based on French and Raven (1959).
The key to not misusing power is to be constantly vigilant and aware of the way one’s leadership affects others. An ethical leader does not wield power or dominate, but instead takes into account the will of the followers, as well as the leader’s own will. An ethical leader uses power to work with followers to accomplish their mutual goals.
6. The Values of the Leader
A final factor that contributes to understanding ethical leadership is values. Values are the ideas, beliefs, and modes of action that people find worthwhile or desirable. Some examples of values are peace, justice, integrity, fairness, and community. A leader’s ethical values are demonstrated in everyday leadership.
Values and Leadership
Scholar James MacGregor Burns suggested that there are three kinds of leadership values: ethical values, such as kindness and altruism; modal values, such as responsibility and accountability; and end values, such as justice and community (Ciulla, 2003). Ethical values are similar to the notion of character discussed earlier in this chapter. Modal values are concerned with the means or actions a leader takes. End values describe the outcomes or goals a leader seeks to achieve. End values are present when a person addresses broad issues such as liberty and justice. These three kinds of values are interrelated in ethical leadership.
In leadership situations, both the leader and the follower have values, and these values are seldom the same. A leader brings his or her own unique values to leadership situations, and followers do the same. The challenge for the ethical leader is to be faithful to his or her own leadership values while being sensitive to the followers’ values.
For example, a leader in an organization may value community and encourage his or her employees to work together and seek consensus in planning. However, the leader’s followers may value individuality and self-expression. This creates a problem because these values are seemingly in conflict. In this situation, an ethical leader needs to find a way to advance his or her own interests in creating community without destroying the followers’ interests in individuality. There is a tension between these different values; an ethical leader needs to negotiate through these differences to find the best outcome for everyone involved. While the list of possible conflicts of values is infinite, finding common ground between a leader and followers is usually possible, and is essential to ethical leadership.
In the social services sector, where there are often too few resources and too many people in need, leaders constantly struggle with decisions that test their values. Because resources are scarce, a leader has to decide where to allocate the resources; these decisions communicate a lot about the leader’s values. For example, in mentoring programs such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, the list of children in need is often much longer than the list of available mentors. How do administrators decide which child is going to be assigned a mentor? They decide based on their values and the values of the people with whom they work. If they believe that children from single-parent households should have higher priority, then those children will be put at the top of the list. As this example illustrates, making ethical decisions is challenging for a leader, especially in situations where resources are scarce.
Culture and Leadership Ethics
The world today is globally connected in ways it never has been before. Through your lifetime, you will undoubtedly be exposed to and work with individuals from cultures very different than your own. As a leader, it is important to recognize that not every culture shares the same ethical ideals as yours. Different cultures have different rules of conduct, and as a result, leadership behaviors that one culture deems ethical may not be viewed the same way by another culture.
Culture and Ethics
For example, Resick, Hanges, Dickson, and Mitchelson (2006) found that Nordic European cultures such as Denmark and Sweden place more importance on a leader’s character and integrity—defined as a leader behaving in a manner that is just, honest, sincere, and trustworthy—than Middle Eastern cultures such as those in Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar.
Another example is the use of bribery in business practices. Bribery (offering money or gifts in exchange for favorable treatment or influence) to obtain business is forbidden for U.S. companies, no matter where on the globe they are doing business, and offenders can face jail terms and large fines. However, in some countries, bribery is a norm, and business can’t be transacted without it. In China, for example, it is expected in business relationships that there will be the giving of carefully chosen gifts to convey respect and that the business relationship is valued by the giver. It is considered a matter of business etiquette (Pitta, Fung, & Isberg, 1999). And, until 1999, bribes were tax deductible and seen as a necessary part of conducting business in Germany.
Summary
There is a strong demand for ethical leaders in our society today. This chapter answers the question “What does it take to be an ethical leader?” Ethical leadership is defined as a process in which a good person acts in the right ways to accomplish worthy goals. There are six factors related to ethical leadership.
First, character is fundamental to ethical leadership. A leader’s character refers to who the leader is as a person and his or her core values. The Six Pillars of Character are trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship.
Second, ethical leadership is explained by the actions of the leader—the means a leader uses to accomplish goals. An ethical leader engages in showing respect, serving others, and showing justice.
Third, ethical leadership is about the goals of the leader. The goals a leader selects reflect his or her values. Selecting goals that are meaningful and worthwhile is one of the most important decisions an ethical leader needs to make.
Fourth, ethical leadership is concerned with the honesty of the leader. Without honesty, a leader cannot be ethical. In telling the truth, a leader needs to strike a balance between openness and sensitivity to others.
Fifth, power plays a role in ethical leadership. A leader has an ethical obligation to use power for the influence of the common good of others. The interests of followers need to be taken into account, and the leader needs to work with followers to accomplish mutual ends.
Finally, ethical leadership is concerned with the values of the leader. An ethical leader has strong values and promotes positive values within his or her organization. Because leaders and followers often have conflicting values, a leader needs to be able to express his or her values and integrate these values with others’ values.
In summary, ethical leadership has many dimensions. To be an ethical leader, you need to pay attention to who you are, what you do, what goals you seek, your honesty, the way you use power, and your values.
Glossary Terms
· actions 276
· character 275
· end values 285
· ethical leadership 274
· ethical values 285
· goals 282
· honesty 282
· modal values 285
· power 284
· values 285
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Application
12.1 Case Study: The Write Choice
Each semester, community college professor Julia Ramirez requires her students to do a 10-hour community service project at a nonprofit agency of their choice and write a paper about the experience. In the paper, they are to discuss their volunteer experience and incorporate concepts presented in class into this reflection. This is the sixth semester that Professor Ramirez has used this assignment, and she has always received positive feedback about the benefits of the assignment from her students and the nonprofits.
The community college that Professor Ramirez works at is making an effort to be “green” and, in order to cut down on paper usage, requests that faculty and staff utilize online tools for giving and receiving assignments and providing feedback to students. Professor Ramirez takes advantage of these green initiatives, requiring her community learning papers to all be turned in electronically at noon on the last Friday before exams. She likes having the papers turned in electronically because it has significantly cut down on late papers and it is now very easy to check student work for plagiarism.
That day has arrived, and Professor Ramirez downloads her student papers from the class webpage and begins to grade them. The papers are informal in nature, written in first-person narrative as if the students were talking directly to Professor Ramirez. After grading a number of papers, Professor Ramirez comes to the paper written by student Kelly Declan. Kelly’s paper reads less like a personal narrative and more like a brochure for the organization where she volunteered. At first, Professor Ramirez is impressed with the amount of detail that Kelly retained from volunteering, but after reading part of the paper, she becomes suspicious. To be safe, Professor Ramirez decides to copy a passage from Kelly’s paper into her Internet search engine to see if it matches any other published sources. It does; in fact, it is a direct match for an online brochure of a similar organization in a neighboring state. Professor Ramirez tests a few more sections from Kelly’s paper and finds that 90% of it was plagiarized from this one source on the Internet.
Plagiarism is taken very seriously at the college. Students accused of plagiarism are reported to the student review board, and if the board confirms that a student’s work is not his or her own, the student is dismissed from the college. Students who have been dismissed for plagiarism are able to reapply to the college after waiting one semester, and if they are readmitted, they are placed on academic probation for a year.
Despite the college’s policy, Professor Ramirez is conflicted about how to deal with this situation. She knows that Kelly had a very difficult semester. Her mother is ill with cancer, and during the semester, Kelly drove twice a week to her hometown two hours away to take her mother to doctor’s appointments and chemotherapy. Knowing this, Professor Ramirez accommodated Kelly’s schedule during the semester so that she did not have to drop the course. This is also Kelly’s last semester before graduation, and she will be the first person in her family to graduate from college. Kelly also has a job lined up after graduation, for which Professor Ramirez wrote her a letter of recommendation, and if she does not graduate, she will most likely lose the job. Losing the job will be certain if Kelly is ejected from the college.
Professor Ramirez decides not to report the incident of plagiarism to the review board right away. She chooses instead to approach Kelly one-on-one and will proceed based on what Kelly has to say. During their meeting, it is apparent to Professor Ramirez that Kelly did complete the required service hours but was overwhelmed when it came to writing the paper. Kelly had let the assignment go until the very end and then when she had to write it, she could only come up with one page rather than the three pages required. She added the plagiarized information to make the paper reach the required length. Kelly is genuinely remorseful and admits she is terrified of the consequences.
In the end, Professor Ramirez gave Kelly a zero for the assignment, but she still passed the class with a grade of a B. She did not feel that having Kelly kicked out of school would benefit the college or Kelly. Despite going against college policy, Professor Ramirez believes her behavior is consistent with her personal values of acknowledging that people make mistakes and deserve second chances. She personally felt that this behavior was out of character for Kelly and, had Kelly not been under tremendous personal and academic stress, she wouldn’t have acted in this way.
Questions
1. Even though Professor Ramirez deviated from the college’s policy regarding plagiarism, do you feel that she acted ethically?
2. If you were a student in this class and learned Professor Ramirez made an exception for this student, would you think she acted ethically? Explain.
3. In Table 12.1, the Six Pillars of Character are detailed. Which of these six pillars did Professor Ramirez display in consideration for her student, and how?
4. Professor Ramirez’s actions ultimately brought into question whether or not the ends justify the means. Do you feel that her leniency in this case made her a stronger or more ethical leader? Explain.
12.2 Sample Items From the Ethical Leadership Style Questionnaire
Purpose
1. To develop an understanding of your ethical leadership style
2. To understand how your preferred ethical leadership style relates to other ethical leadership styles
Directions
1. Please read the following 10 hypothetical situations in which a leader is confronted with an ethical dilemma.
2. Place yourself in the role of the leader or manager in the situation.
3. For each situation, indicate with an “X” your most preferred response. Your most preferred response is the response that best describes why you would do what you would do in that particular situation. Choose only one response. There are no right or wrong answers.
Response alternatives explained:
· I would do what is right: this option means you follow a set of moral rules and do what is expected of you when facing an ethical dilemma. You focus on fulfilling your moral obligations and doing your duty.
· I would do what benefits the most people: this option means you try to do what is best for the most people overall when facing an ethical dilemma. You focus on what will result in happiness for the largest number of individuals.
· I would do what a good person would do: this option means that you pull from who you are (your character) when facing an ethical dilemma. You act out of integrity and you are faithful to your own principles.
· I would do what shows that I care about my close relationships: this option means that you give attention to your relationships when facing an ethical dilemma. You may give special consideration to those with whom you share a personal bond or commitment.
· I would do what benefits me the most: this option means that you do what is best for accomplishing your personal goals and objectives when facing an ethical dilemma. You are not afraid to assert your own interests when resolving problems.
· I would do what is fair: this option means that you focus on treating others fairly when facing an ethical dilemma. You try to make sure the benefits and burdens of decisions are shared equitably between everyone concerned.
Situations
1. You are the leader of a manufacturing team and learn that your employees are falsifying product quality results to sell more products. If you report the matter, most of them will lose their jobs, you may lose yours, and your company will take a significant hit to its reputation. What would you do in this situation?
· □ A. I would do what is right.
· □ B. I would do what benefits the most people.
· □ C. I would do what a good person would do.
· □ D. I would do what shows that I care about my relationships.
· □ E. I would do what benefits me the most.
· □ F. I would do what is fair.
2. You have an employee who has been having performance problems, which is making it hard for your group to meet its work quota. This person was recommended to you as a solid performer. You now believe the person’s former manager had problems with the employee and just wanted to get rid of the person. If you give the underperforming employee a good recommendation, leaving out the performance problems, you will have an opportunity to pass the employee off to another group. What would you do in this situation?
· □ A. I would do what is right.
· □ B. I would do what benefits the most people.
· □ C. I would do what a good person would do.
· □ D. I would do what shows that I care about my relationships.
· □ E. I would do what benefits me the most.
· □ F. I would do what is fair.
3. Your team is hard-pressed to complete a critical project. You hear about a job opening that would be much better for one of your key employees’ career. If this individual leaves the team, it would put the project in danger. What would you do in this situation?
· □ A. I would do what is right.
· □ B. I would do what benefits the most people.
· □ C. I would do what a good person would do.
· □ D. I would do what shows that I care about my relationships.
· □ E. I would do what benefits me the most.
· □ F. I would do what is fair.
4. An employee of yours has a child with a serious illness and is having trouble fulfilling obligations at work. You learn from your administrative assistant that this employee claimed 40 hours on a timesheet for a week when the employee actually only worked 30 hours. What would you do in this situation?
· □ A. I would do what is right.
· □ B. I would do what benefits the most people.
· □ C. I would do what a good person would do.
· □ D. I would do what shows that I care about my relationships.
· □ E. I would do what benefits me the most.
· □ F. I would do what is fair.
5. You are a manager, and some of your employees can finish their quotas in much less than the allotted time to do so. If upper management becomes aware of this, they will want you to increase the quotas. Some of your employees are unable to meet their current quotas. What would you do in this situation?
· □ A. I would do what is right.
· □ B. I would do what benefits the most people.
· □ C. I would do what a good person would do.
· □ D. I would do what shows that I care about my relationships.
· □ E. I would do what benefits me the most.
· □ F. I would do what is fair.
6. You are an organization’s chief financial officer, and you are aware that the chief executive officer and other members of the senior leadership team want to provide exaggerated financial information to keep the company’s stock price high. The entire senior management team holds significant stock positions. What would you do in this situation?
· □ A. I would do what is right.
· □ B. I would do what benefits the most people.
· □ C. I would do what a good person would do.
· □ D. I would do what shows that I care about my relationships.
· □ E. I would do what benefits me the most.
· □ F. I would do what is fair.
7. Two new employees have joined your accounting team right out of school. They are regularly found surfing the Internet or texting on their phones. Your accounting work regularly requires overtime at the end of the month to get the financial reports completed. These employees refuse to do any overtime, which shifts work to other team members. The other team members are getting resentful and upset. What would you do in this situation?
· □ A. I would do what is right.
· □ B. I would do what benefits the most people.
· □ C. I would do what a good person would do.
· □ D. I would do what shows that I care about my relationships.
· □ E. I would do what benefits me the most.
· □ F. I would do what is fair.
8. You are the director of a neighborhood food cooperative. A member—a single parent with four children—is caught shoplifting $30 in groceries from the co-op. You suspect this person has been stealing for years. You consider pressing charges. What would you do in this situation?
· □ A. I would do what is right.
· □ B. I would do what benefits the most people.
· □ C. I would do what a good person would do.
· □ D. I would do what shows that I care about my relationships.
· □ E. I would do what benefits me the most.
· □ F. I would do what is fair.
9. You have been accused of discriminating against a particular gender in your hiring practices. A new position opens up, and you could hire a candidate of the gender you’ve been accused of discriminating against over a candidate of another gender, even though the latter candidate has slightly better qualifications. Hiring the former candidate would let you address this accusation and improve your reputation in the company. What would you do in this situation?
· □ A. I would do what is right.
· □ B. I would do what benefits the most people.
· □ C. I would do what a good person would do.
· □ D. I would do what shows that I care about my relationships.
· □ E. I would do what benefits me the most.
· □ F. I would do what is fair.
10. You are a professor. One of your best students buys an essay online and turns it in for a grade. Later in the term, the student begins to feel guilty and confesses to you that the paper was purchased. It is the norm at the university to fail a student guilty of plagiarism. You must decide if you will flunk the student. What would you do in this situation?
· □ A. I would do what is right.
· □ B. I would do what benefits the most people.
· □ C. I would do what a good person would do.
· □ D. I would do what shows that I care about my relationships.
· □ E. I would do what benefits me the most.
· □ F. I would do what is fair.
Scoring
To score the questionnaire, sum the number of times you selected items A, B, C, D, E, or F. The sum of A responses represents your preference for Duty Ethics, the sum of B responses represents your preference for Utilitarian Ethics, the sum of C responses represents your preference for Virtue Ethics, the sum of D responses represents your preference for Caring Ethics, the sum of E responses represents your preference for Egoism Ethics, and the sum of F responses represents your preference for Justice Ethics. Place these sums in the Total Scores section that follows.
Total Scores
1. Duty Ethics: ______________
2. Utilitarian Ethics: __________
3. Virtue Ethics: ______________
4. Caring Ethics: ____________
5. Egoism Ethics: ____________
6. Justice Ethics: ____________
Scoring Interpretation
The scores you received on this questionnaire provide information about your ethical leadership style; they represent your preferred way of addressing ethical dilemmas. Given a situation with an ethical dilemma, this questionnaire points to what ethical perspective is behind the choices you would make to resolve the dilemma. As you look at your total scores, your highest score represents your primary or dominant ethical leadership style, your second-highest score is the next most important, and so on. If you scored 0 for a category, it means that you put lower priority on that particular ethical approach to guide your decision making when facing ethical dilemmas.
· If you scored higher on Duty Ethics, This option means you follow a set of moral rules and do what is expected of you when facing an ethical dilemma. You focus on fulfilling your moral obligations and doing your duty.
· If you scored higher on Utilitarian Ethics, you try to do what is best for the most people overall when facing an ethical dilemma. You focus on what will result in happiness for the largest number of individuals.
· If you scored higher on Virtue Ethics, that you pull from who you are (your character) when facing an ethical dilemma. You act out of integrity and you are faithful to your own principles.
· If you scored higher on Caring Ethics, that you pull from who you are (your character) when facing an ethical dilemma. You act out of integrity and you are faithful to your own principles.
· If you scored higher on Egoism Ethics, that you do what is best for accomplishing your personal goals and objectives when facing an ethical dilemma. You are not afraid to assert your own interests when resolving problems.
· If you scored higher on Justice Ethics, that you focus on treating others fairly when facing an ethical dilemma. You try to make sure the benefits and burdens of decisions are shared equitably between everyone concerned.
By comparing your scores regarding each of these ethical perspectives, you can get a sense of what is important to you when addressing an ethical concern. Obviously, if you scored low on in any of these categories, it suggests that you give less priority to that ethical perspective. All of the ethical perspectives have merit, so there is no “best” perspective to maintain.
This questionnaire is intended as a self-assessment exercise. Although each ethical approach is presented as a discrete category, it is possible that one category may overlap with another category. It is also possible that you may have an ethical leadership style that is not fully captured in this questionnaire. Since this questionnaire is an abridged version of an expanded questionnaire, you may wish to take the entire questionnaire to gain a more accurate reflection of your ethical approach. It can be taken at www.leaderdecisionmakingsurvey.com.
12.3 Observational Exercise
Ethical Leadership
Purpose
1. To become aware of the dimensions of ethical leadership
2. To assess how actual leaders exhibit ethical leadership
Directions
1. For this exercise, you must observe a public presentation of a leader in your community. This can be a pastor, a college president, a mayor, a city commissioner, the head of a social service agency, or some other community leader.
2. Record what you observe about the leader’s ethics in the categories that follow. Try to be thorough in your descriptions of the leader’s presentation.
Questions
1. What is your overall assessment of this leader’s ethics?
2. What specific examples in the leader’s presentation were particularly revealing of the leader’s ethics?
3. Which factors of ethical leadership (character, actions, goals, honesty, power, and values) were most apparent in the leader’s presentation? Discuss.
4. On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you describe this speaker’s ethical leadership? Defend your answer.
12.4 Reflection and Action Worksheet
Ethical Leadership
Reflection
1. This chapter suggests that leadership has a moral dimension and that leaders have a responsibility to use their authority for the common good. Do you agree? Discuss.
2. When you consider the character of a leader and what a leader does (the leader’s actions), which of these two factors is more important with regard to ethical leadership? Can a person with bad character be an ethical leader? Discuss your answers.
3. In this chapter, the circumstances at Abu Ghraib prison are used as an example of unethical leadership. Do you agree with this assessment? How do you view what happened at Abu Ghraib? What factors explain the leadership ethics in this situation?
4. This chapter includes a story about Richard Lee, the father who coached his son’s Little League baseball team. What was your reaction to the story? Do you think Richard was an ethical leader? How would you have responded in this situation?
Action
1. Based on your responses to the Ethical Leadership Styles Questionnaire, what are your core values? Do you think other people know your core values? Are you comfortable talking about these values with others? In your planning for the future (e.g., next five years), how will your values influence what you do? Discuss.
2. Character is a fundamental aspect of ethical leadership. What are your character strengths and weaknesses? List three specific actions you could take to strengthen your character.
3. In the Observational Exercise (12.3), you observed and analyzed the ethical leadership of a specific leader. If you were to apply the same analysis to your own leadership, how would you describe yourself? What factors best explain the ethics of your own leadership? If you were to try to become a more ethical leader, what specific changes should you make in your leadership? Discuss.
References
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