Leader Centric Approaches versus Group-Centric Approaches - Essay Example

?Leader Centric Approaches versus Group Centric Approaches Introduction Different organizations use different leadership styles in relation to factors such as company's culture and the work situations. Leadership style refers to the manner of giving directions, executing plans, and motivating individuals. The question whether or not leaders are morally unique or require special treatment as regards moral issues is very old. Leadership ethics focus on the reasons that leaders provide for not following the set rules. Theorists have put forward several theories to describe the issue of morality in relation to leadership. The moral theories include relativism, amoralism, situation ethics, communitarism, cosmopolitan theories, egoism, as well as virtue ethics. This paper seeks to compare and contrast the four leader-centric approaches, which include relativism and exceptionalism, reason and amoralism, power and self-interest, traits and virtues, with the group-centric approaches, which include permission and consent, situations and circumstances, membership and moral particularity, the greater good as well as everyday leadership ethics. The paper also centres on what different theorists articulate about the different approaches. Employees expect corporate company leaders to be people of superior character and serve as role models to their employees. Trust and commitment are very important in ethical leadership. Ethical standards of leaders should not be diverse from those of the followers. Ethical behavior “…means that which is morally right, as opposed to that which is legally or procedurally right” (Kanungo, 2001, p. 258). Despite nurturing leaders out of morally imperfect humans, we still expect them to perform in an exemplary manner despite the challenges they face in their managerial endeavors. Appreciating the moral characteristics and challenges of leaders is elemental in understanding the nature of leaders. It is thus important to understand the ethical failures of leaders in order to understand the development of leadership (Burnes & By 2012; Ciulla, 2001; Paarlberg & Lavigna, 2010). Based on ethical values, motives, and assumptions, transformational and transactional leadership behaviors are considered ethical (Kanungo, 2001). Transformational leaders have moral philanthropic motives grounded in a deontological perspective. Transactional leaders, on the other hand, have atomistic mutually altruistic intentions based on a teleological perspective (Burnes & By 2012; Kanungo, 2001). Basically, “Transformational leadership appears to be most closely connected to deontology, while transactional leadership would seem to be related more to teleological ethics” (Aronson, 2001, p. 245). Certain leadership traits are important for effective leadership, most leaders, particularly American leaders, lack them. These traits include the ability to inspire; vision, supportiveness, self-sacrifice, genuineness, personal responsibility; being non-egalitarian, not discriminatory, honest, and selfless. These traits are crucial and require societal acceptance for the development of effective leadership (Bertsch, 2012). Leadership Ethics Leaders tend to act as if they have a different code of ethics from that of their followers. According to Guillen and Gonzalez (2001), “Leadership goes beyond the scope of formal power and involves a continuous exchange of influence and free acceptance.” Leaders tend to justify their actions and make it appear as if the rightfulness or the wrongfulness of an action is dependent on the person doing the action (Bertsch, 2012, p.176). The main difference between the leader-centric approach and the group-centric approach lies in considering leaders as special in the leader-centric approaches and considering them as equal with their followers in the group-centric approach. Leader-centric ethics approaches tend to justify the actions of the leaders since they consider leaders as special entities who deserve special treatment on moral issues (Ciulla, 2001).On the other hand, group-centric approaches stress that all people are equal and should obey the rules. Group-centric approach demands that leaders be the role models for their followers. Most leader-centric approaches are no longer applicable in modern management strategy due to the increasing need to address the significance of followers in the leadership process. To compare the leader-centric and the group-centric approaches, this paper will discuss the recommendations of the different theories in relation to both of the approaches (Price, 2008; Burnes & By, 2012; Price, 2008). Leader-Centric Approaches Leader-centric approach is a type of leadership where the chief executive officer consults other executives only in important issues, and directs implementation of major decisions. The CEO makes the most fundamental decisions and other executives demonstrate complete loyalty to the CEO. Organizations that greatly depend on the use of authority and a setting of stern deadlines to enhance organizational success exercise leader-centric styles. “Leadership Ethics uses moral theory, as well as empirical research in psychology, to evaluate the reasons everyday leaders give to justify breaking the rules” (Price, 2008, p. 3). Several theories support the leader-centric approach and include relativism and exceptionalism, reason and amoralism, power and self-interest, as well as traits and virtues (Price, 2008; Ciulla, 2001). Relativism and exceptionalism is the inclination to justify the actions of leaders based on their culture irrespective of whether the followers disagree with such actions. Moral relativism posits that moral beliefs of leaders or the moral beliefs of society justify the habit of rule breaking several leaders exhibit. This is because people have differing morality and personal code of moral principles. Leaders may consider as wrong such actions which many individuals consider as right (Price, 2008; Guillen & Gonzalez, 2001). Moral relativism is thus the view that the wrongness or rightness of any action differs from person to person and from one culture to another. In leadership ethics, relativism rationalizes actions of a leader based on his or her culture and considers them as right accordingly (Lewis, 2011; Shukurat, 2012). Personal relativism consents that beliefs of individuals justify their actions. A good example is justification of an action such as lying if the person doing it considers it as right or comes from a culture that does not prohibit lying. In essence, moral relativism is the principle that determines whether leader’s actions are right or wrong “depending on the leaders’ personal beliefs as well as their culture” (Lewis, 2011, p. 20) Reason and amoralism approach attempts to determine the universality of reasons for justifying an action as either right or wrong. The approach disputes the belief that an action is either wrong or right depending on the outcome. Instead, amoralism claims that the features of an action make it right or wrong, but not the consequences. However, reason and amoralism agree that all people including leaders must play by rules. Universality of reason hypothesizes that there are certain ways in which everyone including leaders should act, and acting against the rules is equivalent to being unreasonable. Reason and amoralism hypothesizes that the law applies to everyone, irrespective of their social, economic or leadership status. The approach has its basis in deontological ethics, which maintains that all people must adhere to morality or moral ethics. According to this approach, leaders expect no special treatment and should act in the ways they expect their followers to act (Price, 2008; Aronson, 2001). Power and self-interest is a belief that what is best for the leaders might not be best for everyone else, so leaders must serve the interests of other people to prevent occurrence of conflicts. Abiding by the moral rules is the best strategy to prevent occurrence of conflicts or resolve conflicts when they occur. According to power and self-interest approach, leaders should be ready to admit and take responsibility for any form of immorality they may engage in. The approach also posits that moral codes should dictate our behaviours and that leaders should never prefer their own interests for whatever reasons (Price, 2008; Conger & Hollenbeck, 2010; Guillen & Gonzalez, 2001; Paarlberg & Lavigna, 2010; Shukurat, 2012). Traits and virtues approach argues that individual efforts dictate duties to universalise their actions. The approach agrees that it is virtually impossible to have the entire world doing things the right or the wrong way. It is thus intelligent to conceive that, in a world where some people will be orally upright, others will engage in activities such as lying and breaking promises to achieve their ends (Aronson, 2001; Bertsch, 2012). Group-Centric Approaches The group-centric approaches encourage development of followers to enable organizational growth. Organizations that consider employees as important assets and, consequently, invest in them usually opt for group-centric approaches. Organizations that follow group-centric approaches lack hierarchical structures and focus on “equal treatment of both the leaders and the followers or group members” (Bandow, 2001, p. 42). A group-centric approach is effective since it enables followers or group members to develop cooperative responsibility, as they are not dependent on a leader. The members also develop collaborative and inter-dependence tendencies since each of the members contribute to the decision-making process. Members start to respect each other’s opinions. Leaders should encourage such approach by regular meetings, encouragement of members’ participation, appreciation of the contribution of others, believing in the capability of each and every group member and giving opportunities to members to participate in the decision making. Person-centric approaches include permission and consent approach, situations and circumstances approach, membership and moral particularity, as well as the greater good and everyday leadership ethics approach (Price, 2008; Bandow, 2001). Permission and Consent argue that if leaders have unique moral status, it is impossible to attain status from the virtues of the leaders themselves, but it is possible to derive them from the relationship between leaders and their followers. Therefore, leaders should not exaggerate their uniqueness based on individual attributes. It is important to note that group-centric approach condemns any tendency to justify rule-breaking behaviour based on the leader’s personal traits, particularly by permission and consent codes. The approach focuses on the need of leaders to seek the followers’ consent on the governance strategies. The strategy places emphasis on the need for leaders to recognize that leadership is an intricate phenomenon that entails more than just the leader’s personal characteristics (Price, 2008; Bandow, 2001; Chappell, 2011). Situations and circumstances approach stresses that the best leadership strategy determines the situation at hand. The approach is based on moral situationism, a phenomenon which claims that the tactic a leader adopts should depend not on principles but on the aspects pertaining to the circumstances. This makes it hard to determine if situations and circumstances theory permits leaders to disobey rules. This approach to ethics in a way insinuates that leaders should face each situation or challenge differently, since each situation has its own distinctiveness (Price, 2008; Ciulla, 2001; Conger & Hollenbeck, 2010; Lewis, 2011). Membership and moral particularity is an approach based on standard moral theories that attempt to eliminate or diminish prejudice in assessment of moral issues and decision-making. The approach stresses that ethic codes guide our actions as opposed to individual reasons. In addition, membership and moral particularity proceeds to argue that it does not matter if reasons for doing something are personal or group. Utilitarianism theory supports this approach, further discourages partiality, and requires that leadership styles be equally sensitive of the feelings of all the stakeholders (Price, 2008; Chappell, 2011). The greater good ethical approach posits that impartial deliberation replaces partial consideration and justification of actions whereby groups are supposed to broaden their moral concerns beyond the personal or group members’ interests. This approach justifies rule-breaking if leaders do it for the interest of the society, since it supersedes the group interest. However, leaders must clearly demonstrate that the rule-breaking actions served a goal or cause higher than that of the group or organization (Price, 2008; Bertsch, 2012; Chappell, 2011). Everyday leadership ethics addresses the issue of whether certain features can justify the rule-breaking activities by leaders. According to this approach, it is upon the leaders to convince the followers that their day-to-day activities warrant them to break any rules. The leaders should use reasons to justify and persuade followers to regard their law-breaking behavior differently from that of other people who may break the same laws (Price, 2008; Aronson, 2001; Chappell, 2011; Dyson, 2010; Lewis, 2011). Leadership Theories and Views of Different Theorist on the Different Approaches Behavioral scientists have endeavored to determine how traits, behaviors, situations, and other aspects such as power leaders possess may affect or influence the performance of the followers (Dyson, 2010; Guillen & Gonzalez, 2001). Research findings have shown that traits such as intelligence level, skillfulness, physicality, and individuality of leaders influence the effectiveness of a leader in his or her duties. However, it is almost impossible to prove the traits of a person and their effects on his or her leadership style (Aronson, 2001; Chappell, 2011; Guillen & Gonzalez, 2001). Another theory that considerably emphasises leadership approaches is the deliberative democracy theory. “Democratic theorists argue that democracy needs to be about reasoned discussion rather than about voting, power, and interests. Deliberative democracy advocates for involvement of all stakeholders in decision making through open and reasoned debates” (Chappell, 2011, p. 79). The theory argues that true democratic leadership system is the one that puts the needs of the followers ahead of the leader’s needs (Bandow, 2001; Dyson, 2010). Utilitarianism is an additional theory; it states that leader’s action should be impartial and considerate of the needs of all. The theory argues that the focus of issues depends on circumstances and that leaders are not justified to use their speciality to break moral rules (Bandow, 2001; Dyson, 2010). Conclusion Ethical leadership influences employee job performance. The type of leadership strategy adopted by an organization determines motivation of employees and, consequently, their performance. Leader-centric approaches insist that leaders are special and, therefore, may justify their moral behavior or are free to act differently, not like their followers. On the other hand, group-centric approaches argue that all people are equal in matters pertaining to law and moral ethics, and, therefore, leaders have no right to act differently, especially for personal interest. Group-centric approaches also insist that the interests of the society are more important than the interests of groups or persons, so leaders have a moral right to take certain actions if these actions are for the betterment of the society. Self-interest in leadership can have an effect on competences in both realistic and moral issues. All leadership styles and all approaches are rooted in various sets of values, some of which are more likely to lead to ethical outcomes. It is thus important to comprehend the moral challenge distinctive to people in leadership positions in order to understand the very nature of leadership. It is only by considering the ethical dimension of leadership, together with technical and psycho-emotive ones, that we can accurately explain interpersonal influences beyond the scope of power. References Aronson, E. (2001). Integrating leadership styles and ethical perspectives.” Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 18(4), 244-256. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/204874148?accountid=8289 Bandow, D. (2001). Time to create sound teamwork. The Journal for Quality and Participation, 24(2), 41-47. Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy1.apus.edu/pqdweb?did=79078951&sid=1&Fmt=4&clientId=62546&RQT=309&VName=PQD Bertsch, A. (2012). Updating American leadership practices by exploring the African philosophy of Ubuntu. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics, 9(1), 81-97. 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