Ethics in Leadership Practice - Essay Example

Reflective Journal By Student’s Name Instructor’s Name Course + Code Date Reflective Journal Ethics in Leadership Practice Many scholars have tried to make a distinction between morals and ethics. Their definitions, however, converges near to the same point. Some of the simple definitions are those described by Welsh, Darcy, and Brown & Trevino. According to Welsh (2013, par 1), morals is “how you treat people we know” while ethics is “how you treat people we do not know.” Plato reasoned that, acting responsibly is the basis of being ethical. According to him, good people need no rules to act responsibly while bad people always find a way around the rules. Darcy (2010) defined ethical leadership as a state of being and making right choices. The leaders with this characteristic, therefore, are driven by their inward virtues in their relations and during the decision-making process for both personal and professional situations. Brown & Trevino (2014) described ethical leadership to be a component of two morals; personal morals and leadership morals. According to him, personal morals included people’s characteristics and traits, individual behavior, and ability to make ethical decisions. Leadership morals, on the other hand, encompasses the ability to act as a role model, communicate clearly and effectively, and have discipline. Successful leadership is value based. Leader’s vision determines the values they stresses in their service to others. The values should uphold the integrity of other people treating them in a respectful and honorable way. Leaders have the duty to communicate their intentions, and vision to other in order to encourage them to join in constructive and visional development. Leaders also need to uphold good characters and integrity. On doing this, they positively influence their values and beliefs. Following these virtues, a leader can make good and informed decision, or adopt a better and reliable decision-making process. In political or organizational leadership, the politician, manager, or CEO will in daily basis make decisions that will affect a lot of people that to them are just statistics. In such cases emphasis and importance of ethics surpasses that of molarity. The argument supports Welsh idea that ethics is the treatment to people of whom there is no personal connection. Every decision made for this congregation of strangers means that someone will gain while another will lose. The degree of loss or gain in such instance is what counts and the leaders, therefore, have to bear these consequences in mind. To make a better husband or wife, daughter or son, dad or mum require molarity. In this sense, molarity pertain to people you know personally, how you treat and relate to them. Good friends, workmates, and employees also gather their basis on molarity. For leaders and managers, molarity will enable them to be good leaders to those workers you know at personal level. Covey (1989, pp. 9-13) describes the types of situations that people get stuck while trying to ‘make things happen the way people expect them to’ and forget the uniqueness of each person and their character. It is their push change their son that they realized they were the ones who needed to change. Due to their nature, ethics becomes more important than the molarity. The unknown population is greater than the ones with personal interaction and more diverse in all aspects. A decision not well thought may be fatal to a part of the population. Normative decision making does not only view the lawfulness or unlawfulness of an action, but also ethicality of the judgment in the right course of action to take. The state laws where leadership is practiced determine its acceptability or unacceptability. An action may be lawful but unethical, or ethical but unlawful. With ethical considerations and reverence for the rule of law, managers need to make these decisions considering the effects of the outcome to the company and the society. A perception can fall in the like or dislike depending on the society setting and accepted behaviors. In a society, a negative perception in this case represents unethical behavior. Sets of unethical behavior include; fraud, corruption, misconduct among other unethical behaviors. An action with good perception is regarded as ethical and morally acceptable in a society. Entry 1 Coveys (1989) gives real life examples of the do and do not in people. He tries to prove that only words and actions are not enough to correct the situation. Change in the perception played an important role in acquiring these habits. While researching about success, Covey found out that leading a successful, and effective life while pursuing happiness required one to integrate certain principals and habits in their basic characters. A person’s character, habits, and physicality should not be compared to others. Their uniqueness should be the basis distinction and strength. He distinguishes inborn ‘primary’ and learned ‘secondary’ traits. He compares focus on learning a technique with cramming class content. Even when you pass and get good grades, while you never got good mastery of the content, then it will never turn into an educated mind. The seven primary habits possessed by highly effective people are either inborn or acquired and form the basis for success and enduring happiness. According to Covey “sow a thought, leap an action; sow an action, leap a habit; sow a habit, leap a character; sow a character, leap a destiny (Covey 1989, p. 22).” Being proactive is the first habit Covey puts forward to being an effective person. Under this habit, inner freedom is defined and mans’ ability to control it. The effects of a circumstance to the human state can thus be internally defined and can be changed. The second habit is ‘begin with the end in mind’ (Covey 1989, p. 45). You should have a criterion of examining all the happenings to evaluate how they were planned and how they have actually become. With things such as life and success, the preceding thing determines what follows and determining the end may be more vague than real. The futures dependence on the present enable planning to the end. Putting first things first is the next habit. It is actualizing what you mentally created in the second habit. Having a win-win thought of every situation. As a leader, making employees to think of win-win situation on work and reward is a duty. ‘Seek first to understand, and then to be understood’ (Covey 1989, p. 119). This applies mostly in communication with people giving advice without prior understanding the root course of the problem. The sixth habit is synergize. It means to be the path finder and lead others in adventuring. Finally, ‘sharpen the saw’ which is taking a break and renewing the energy and partaking a task faster. Taking a break allows you to see the same problem at a different perspective and evaluate the most effective way to handle it. Incorporated in a person’s character, the seven habits can mold an effective leader, morally and ethically upright. Entry 2 Leadership and Ethics of Nelson Mandela Archbishop Desmond Tutu talks of Mandela’s key qualities as a leader able to break the regime of racism and promote peace in his country. Mandela demonstrates good use of Covey’s seven habits of an effective person. Despite having been oppressed himself, he shows his value for forgiveness, togetherness, and working in every way to promote peace. He led while others followed. He was daring and adventurous in his undertaking. He had a strong believe against the possibility of leading alone, to him leaders need to join hands and work together with the people for success. To him, a saying for the leader is not enough, they must lead by example. Leaders are expected to show high regard for other people being ethical in their words, decisions, and actions. Entry 3 Chief Executive Office is the top post in the management and functionality of an organization. Impressive actions taken by the CEO Australia and New Zealand Banking group limited (ANZ). Mike Smith announced the intensions of his bank to withdraw as the majority holding company of the Cambodian bank. The bank had been involved in a scandal after funding a sugar cane plantation that used child labor. Despite the profits earned, the CEO considered other ethical factors and was concerned with the protection of rights of children. Smith talks of the importance of a strong banking sector and the values to uphold for the success (Sibillin 2009). The sugar plantation was to the bank a ‘cash cow’ but he choose to do away with it to protect the children from child labor. His companies’ withdrawal as the major shareholder would lead to a revision of the plantations operations to incorporate ethical practice. Other Chief executive officers embracing similar spirit and working with ethical principles are represented by Paul Bulke, CEO of Nestle. Following the high levels of corruption in Azerbaijan, he announces that the company will cease its operations in the country. The two CEOs act to uphold the values and integrity of other people. They broadly communicate their intensions and persuade other individuals and leaders to join them in standing firm against unethical practices. Social concern for the people comes first and their key interest in maximizing the profit follow. Entry 4 From the course content, an ethical leader can be defined as the one who has the courage to do that which is inconvenient, chooses the unpopular when choice for popular is available, and does in passion that which seems unprofitable but healthy and valuable in the long-run. Development of trust is a virtue of an ethical leader. They instill conditions favorable for empowering the workers, and considers other feasible solutions that are more effective in value and effects in the long-run. Effective communication is a critical leadership virtue possessed by ethical leaders. The decisions they make must be well thought and evaluated for both internal and external effects. These leaders make their values known and are elaborate in their styles of leadership and actions. Communicating information that is complete and accurate is one of the obligations required from an ethical leader on both personal and professional circumstances. According Edward (2006, p. 165), ethical practice from leaders help them become respected and are admired by the employees, which brings contentment in them knowing they make moral choices. Choices and actions that are not clear and elaborate to others signify mistrust. Entry 5 There are many leaders and politicians who stood firm to defend their morals and uphold ethical practice. President George Washington fought against slavery, which was morally acceptable by the Americans but ethically unacceptable. According to him, ‘depriving a man of his natural liberty was unjust and unwise, in the excuse that he may misuse it.’ President bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and Hillary Clinton have their foundation dedicated in changing global health to the better. They aim at strengthening economies, to promote health and wellness and protecting the work that Bill Clinton has built. Nelson Mandela, a noble African leader was ethical and selfless in promoting peace and eradicating racism. He was a leader of actions, creating the change that he needed to be. Mahatma, a leader in philosophy believed that effective leadership has the leaders lead by example. A leader must have a vision that he acts upon. Anita Roddick worked tirelessly in her campaign for production of sustainable products and a green environment. Her work was committed to courses and building of women’s self-esteem. Selfless actions by these leaders made them recognized as ethical and wise. Their leadership lives to be desired and emulated. Points to Note A leader should be a role model to the people they lead. Their actions and decisions therefore need to be reviewed thoroughly for their effectiveness and to harbor most benefits. Character and integrity of the leaders influence the values and beliefs to a great extent. The working relationship between leaders and workers determine the level of upward and downward communication. A decision coming from the workers require the leaders to be transparent, give guidelines, and provide action and support for the workers. Covey’s seven habits form the basis of both ethical and moral behavior. While incorporated in a person’s character, they mold leadership qualities within the individual. A character can be natural or acquired. Individuals have the ability to learn and unlearn characters and behaviors. With little consciousness, a natural character always overshadows a learnt behavior. Taking the example of Steinhafel, who became the CEO of Target Company during the years of Great Recession? Despite the continued decline in sales at the time, he did not plan to compromise the plan of giving 5% of the company’s earnings to charity. An article written in 2001 by Euro money publications, the reasons behind NAB getting to the list of most ethical companies in the world are discussed. Incorporation of society needs and acting toward environmental conservation were the key strengths. The world has no place to hide for unethical leaders. Being the top most executives, CEOs should exercise the highest level of ethics in decision making and corporate social responsibility. Bernard Ebbers, one of the CEO of Worldcom took advantage of the failure in human resource to enrich himself with the companies’ property (Cooper 2008). Involvement in this fraud and conspiracy greatly impacted his profession and career. In general, leaders’ behaviors have been conceptualized into positive and negative ethical behaviors. Virtues such as integrity, care, honesty and trust have been regarded as positive ethical behaviors. On the other hand, negative ethics comprise of misconduct, fraud and corruption among other illegal behaviors including racketeering and tax evasion. Conclusion Morality is the expected code of conduct from a person and by a given setting, culture, or society. Depending on the beliefs and practices, a morally upright person in one society may not be regarded as moral in another setting. There are universal codes from which a philosophy, culture, or religion basis their standards of molarity and code of conduct. Ethics are accepted codes of conduct in a certain area or profession. They are written down rules that the workers holding a position should observe. It is according to these roles that an action is taken as ethical, or unethical. As Covey displays it, it is important for every person, not just leaders, to be moral and ethical in both personal grounds and professional practice. Being morally upright makes you more human and acceptable in the society creating a favorable world of interaction. Observing work place ethics helps a worker to interact professionally, while undertaking tasks and communicating. To have effective leadership, leaders should lead by examples. This creates confidence in them with their subjects. Reference List Read More

In such cases emphasis and importance of ethics surpasses that of molarity. The argument supports Welsh idea that ethics is the treatment to people of whom there is no personal connection. Every decision made for this congregation of strangers means that someone will gain while another will lose. The degree of loss or gain in such instance is what counts and the leaders, therefore, have to bear these consequences in mind. To make a better husband or wife, daughter or son, dad or mum require molarity.

In this sense, molarity pertain to people you know personally, how you treat and relate to them. Good friends, workmates, and employees also gather their basis on molarity. For leaders and managers, molarity will enable them to be good leaders to those workers you know at personal level. Covey (1989, pp. 9-13) describes the types of situations that people get stuck while trying to ‘make things happen the way people expect them to’ and forget the uniqueness of each person and their character.

It is their push change their son that they realized they were the ones who needed to change. Due to their nature, ethics becomes more important than the molarity. The unknown population is greater than the ones with personal interaction and more diverse in all aspects. A decision not well thought may be fatal to a part of the population. Normative decision making does not only view the lawfulness or unlawfulness of an action, but also ethicality of the judgment in the right course of action to take.

The state laws where leadership is practiced determine its acceptability or unacceptability. An action may be lawful but unethical, or ethical but unlawful. With ethical considerations and reverence for the rule of law, managers need to make these decisions considering the effects of the outcome to the company and the society. A perception can fall in the like or dislike depending on the society setting and accepted behaviors. In a society, a negative perception in this case represents unethical behavior.

Sets of unethical behavior include; fraud, corruption, misconduct among other unethical behaviors. An action with good perception is regarded as ethical and morally acceptable in a society. Entry 1 Coveys (1989) gives real life examples of the do and do not in people. He tries to prove that only words and actions are not enough to correct the situation. Change in the perception played an important role in acquiring these habits. While researching about success, Covey found out that leading a successful, and effective life while pursuing happiness required one to integrate certain principals and habits in their basic characters.

A person’s character, habits, and physicality should not be compared to others. Their uniqueness should be the basis distinction and strength. He distinguishes inborn ‘primary’ and learned ‘secondary’ traits. He compares focus on learning a technique with cramming class content. Even when you pass and get good grades, while you never got good mastery of the content, then it will never turn into an educated mind. The seven primary habits possessed by highly effective people are either inborn or acquired and form the basis for success and enduring happiness.

According to Covey “sow a thought, leap an action; sow an action, leap a habit; sow a habit, leap a character; sow a character, leap a destiny (Covey 1989, p. 22).” Being proactive is the first habit Covey puts forward to being an effective person. Under this habit, inner freedom is defined and mans’ ability to control it. The effects of a circumstance to the human state can thus be internally defined and can be changed. The second habit is ‘begin with the end in mind’ (Covey 1989, p. 45). You should have a criterion of examining all the happenings to evaluate how they were planned and how they have actually become.

With things such as life and success, the preceding thing determines what follows and determining the end may be more vague than real.

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