What Distinguishes Ethical Leaders in Business and Society - Essay Example

What Distinguishes Ethical Leaders in Business and Society?

Introduction

Business or societal ethics apply to all aspects of the societal or business conduct. The societal or business ethics are set of the moral values or principles that govern the behaviour of the society or organization regarding what is right or wrong. The business or societal ethics enables the society or business to adhere to the daily dealings with the world. Good business or societal ethics should be part of every society or business. Many world businesses, entailing major brands that are used by the public can be seen to using poor business ethics (Caldwell, 2009). Many major brands have been heavily fined for engaging in unethical business practices. In the twenty-first century marketplaces, there has been a growing conscience-focused that demand for more ethical practices and actions. Societal or business ethics are either descriptive or normative in the discipline.

Society and business need leaders who should ethically lead other and act as their role models while communicating the importance of the ethical standards and holding the others accountable to such standards. Ethical leaders in the society and business have a great impact in causing positive outcomes and reduce the occurrence of the negative outcomes. When a society or business is led by unethical leaders, the outcomes that are likely to be seen are detrimental to the organization and leads to breeding of unethical practices in the society (Chun, 2014). Thus, ethics are central to leadership in society and business because of the relationship nature of the leaders and the followers.

This paper has defined what ethics and ethical leadership is and has gone further illustrate what ethical and unethical leadership are by use of an example. The differences between ethical and unethical leadership have been explained. A conclusion has also been made about the how ethical leaders can be distinguished in the society or business environment.

Ethics and Ethical leadership

Ethics at their simplest is a system of moral principles that affect how people make their decisions and live. Ethics entails how people live a good life, rights and responsibilities, moral decisions and the language of wrong and right. Ethics are derived from the human rights, cultures, philosophy and religions. Ethics infuse the concerns on the topics of professional conduction in the society and organization. Ethics can also refer to various things that attempt to apply reason so as to answer different ethical questions (Shin, 2012). Philosophers have tried to describe the meaning of ethics in the society and have argued that it is set of principles that guide human beings in determining what behaviour harms or helps sentiment creatures. Ethics has also been seen to be referring to the ability of common man to have a thought of the ethical problems that is not specific to the philosophy.

On the other hand, ethical leadership involves knowing what it is right and practice it without any form of alteration that suits one’s interests. Ethical leadership constitutes the acts of the leaders where they make decisions ethically. Ethical leaders also lead other people in a morally and ethical manner (Ogunfowora and Matthews, 2014). Ethical leadership helps the leaders to be able to motivate others, treat people in a decent manner and have healthy interactions with all the individuals whom they lead. Ethical leadership is a critical component in the leaders that helps them to have set values and principle that aids them when making a difficult decision in certain situations. Any person who exhibits ethical behaviour in their practice is said to portray ethical leadership. Thus, ethical leadership is an element that occurs after being proved over time again and again. Leadership values and ethics should be visible because the individuals live them in their actions in every day (Perreault, 2010). In many places, of work, there is a problem of mistrust because the leaders do not identify of living their values. When leaders in the society or business live their values in their daily lives, there is an aspect of trust that is developed and helps in enhancing free coexistence in the society or organization.

Ethical and unethical leadership

Social context in organizations is always concerned with people's well-being especially their supervisors who can dramatically influence the way one feels towards the work and about themselves. While a society or business environment can offer support, it can also constitute a source of stress. The distinctive quality of human anxiety can arise from the fact that the man values the animal that interprets life and the world regarding meanings and symbols. Organizational leaders play a key role in how supportive a work setting could be, and they are also instrumental in defining and framing the reality of others (Kalshoven, van Dijk and Boon, 2013). Furthermore, many organizations are characterised by somewhat ethically ambiguous, and the presence of ethical leaders may serve as an important resource because that leader will serve as a salient example of appropriate behaviour that is consistent with normative values and morals. Employees or individuals who perceive their immediate supervisors as displaying ethical leadership behaviour are likely to report higher levels of work engagement and register lower levels of burnout. The predominant contributor to the burnout in the participants in any organization is the experience of the value that is inconsistent with efforts.

Currently, there is growing tendency among the members of an organization to fail to attribute the lack of instability and financial instability to environmental factors like bad luck or market conditions instead of tying such experiences to hypocrisy. Mostly, the blame is pinned to the leadership of the organization or individuals who are perceived to be abusing power. Unlike ethical leadership, unethical leadership behaviour represents a threat to the follower work engagement and stimulates the follower burnout. Ethical leadership comprises of expression of normative conduct via personal actions and promotion of the interpersonal relationships to the followers through reinforcement and decision-making (Ogunfowora and Matthews, 2014). Ethical leadership is associated with imperative results to the followers such as perceptions of leader effectiveness, commitment, and satisfaction with the leaders.

Unethical leadership practices entail behaviours that lead to morally inappropriate actions to the society. Leaders who apply unethical leadership practices within their businesses or organizations do not exercise ethical leadership as it has been defined. However, failing to apply ethical behaviour may not necessarily translate to unethical practice. Rather, such instance may mean being ethically neutral. However, it is the leaders who actively perpetrate unethical behaviour that display the unethical leadership in their undertakings. Again it can be noted that not all ineffective leader behaviours can be said to be unethical. Only behaviours that are exhibited by the leaders that show malicious intent are treated to be unethical (Collins, 2009). In the social exchange theory, individuals are obligated to reciprocate and give back what they have gotten. However, the individuals who believe another has given them fair and good opportunities they give back a give back to the beneficial behaviours that they have experienced. An illustration of the example of the ethical leadership is important and then an attempt to disentangle it from another illustration of the behaviours that can be considered to be unethical.

Ethical leadership has been expressed by many individuals in various companies in the world. One of the ethically and morally upright leaders in the business and society in general is Heather Mills. She has been involved in various occasions where she orchestrated the practice of ethics. She values the rights for both human and animals. For instance, in 2005, she became the patron of the British animal rights and great campaigned against the use of the dog fur. She publicly maintained her stand that, ‘if one doesn't wear their dog should also not wear the fur of the dog'. Those sentiments meant that one should respect the dogs and should not use their products to make attires. Heather Mills maintained her values and was never swayed by any event that came her way. Through her extensive work she in living her values and beliefs she exposed the Chinese company that was dealing with fur. Again Heather Mills was engaged in the Vegetarian campaigns and advocated for animal rights. After she had quit the patron work at PETA, she continued to live her ethical practices by establishing a vegetarian cafe. The Cafe has been offering purely non-animal products. People who are vegetarians have been able to get pure vegetable foods products.

Heather Mills has been the leader of the VBites vegan restaurant. Her practices have motivated the employees in the business, and it is geared towards becoming a global chain of vegan restaurants. To her vision alive she sold one of the small restaurant premises and acquired a bigger VBites place to stage the business. Her Mills Company offers fifty meat-free products. Due her ethical practices Heather Mills, noticed that might have been some traces of the dairy in the products that were sold under the brand, ‘ Wot no Dairy' in 2014 and were removed from the offer as they could have proved to be dangerous to the individuals who are not dairy tolerant. Such strong ethical practices by Heather Mills have resulted to the VBites Company to be nominated as one of the most ethical company in the United Kingdom (Neil, 2016). All these illustrations are examples of ethical practices of a leader that are exemplified by Mills in her work. It is through the Heather Mills’ practices and behaviour that shows her ethical practices. If it were not for her ethical behaviour the company could not have been listed as an ethical one, since the leader influences the employees and it is through her influence that the ethical practice is seen in the entire work she has been engaged.

On the other hand, a good illustration of unethical practice can be deduced from the behaviours of Rupert Murdoch. ‘News of the World' was the national newspaper that was published in the United Kingdom from the early 1840s to 2011. At one time it was termed as the biggest selling newspaper around the globe and at its closure was one of the highest English-language circulations. In 1969, the newspaper passed its reigns to Rupert Murdoch after an acrimonious struggle with Pergamon Press. Murdoch had gained support from the majority to take over the newspaper company. Those who were competing with Murdoch to acquire the paper accused him of using ‘law of the jungle' to get it, where fair and bona fide candidates defeated and frustrated after three months of manoeuvring. These initial practices were not ethical whatsoever. Murdoch defended himself by urging that the paper shareholders had judged his past experiences and exemplary work. Under Murdoch tutelage, the newspaper reporters used private investigators to gain unlawful access to numerous voicemail accounts of various individuals who had interest to the newspaper (Arsenault and Castells, 2008). The method that was used by Murdoch Newspaper Company to access private information was illegal. The information was acquired through computer hacking, entrapment, blackmail, burglaries and making false statements to the officials to obtain confidential information.

Again Murdoch stole phones and made payments to officials so as to get confidential information. The information that was acquired illegally entailed private communication, bank account records, phone bills, medical records, tax files, organizational strategies bank account records and physical location of individuals. The news media phone hacking scandal entailed perpetrators, victims, solicitors, and oversight officials. The victims of the Murdoch acts were celebrities, law enforcement officials, politicians, solicitors and ordinary citizens. When victims learnt that their privacy had been violated they some retained solicitors and filed suit against the news company and their agents. There was evidence that the illegal acquisition of the confidential information occurred until 2010 (Arsenault and Castells, 2008). The solicitors of the victims were targeted for surveillance until as recent as 2011 and illegal payments that were made to the media agents were established to have occurred to as recently as 2012.

All the practices that were exhibited by the news media company were unethical by all means. The access to information of any one through illegal means so as to gain access to confidential information about them is quite an unethical practice. Rupert Murdoch being the owner of the media company should have prevented the practices of the media reporters if he was ethically and morally upright leader. A leader is supposed to lead by example, and the News Media Company was practising the values that were implemented by the leader (Arsenault and Castells, 2008). Since the practices were ethically unacceptable, it is true that the leader who was gives the orders was also unethical in his behaviour. The acquisition of the company was also based on the malicious practices by Murdoch, which resulted in complaints by other candidates it shows that Rupert Murdoch was not morally and ethically right leader.

The overall operation of the media company was under Rupert Murdoch. Though, leaders of the organizations are not directly involved in the daily work of the employees, are still responsible for ensuring that the senior officers do not engage in the illegal or unethical practices in the company operations. Again the leaders of organizations are supposed to make adequate monitoring of the systems in place and ensure that they are flawless (Arsenault and Castells, 2008). So even, even Rupert Murdoch was not was not aware of the certain unethical or illegal acts, he cannot avoid to be responsible for what occurred at his news media properties. All these events that took place during the Murdoch reigns show his unethical practices as a leader.

The cases that have been illustrated are typical examples of the ethical and unethical leadership practice respectively. It is clear that ethical leaders influence their subordinates to exemplify ethical practices in their deeds. It is also true that unethical leaders also engage the entire group in unethical behaviours. Heather Mills being an ethical leader has managed to influence workers to practice ethical behaviour while Murdoch being unethical leader allowed the employees to practice illegal and unethical behaviour.

Conclusion

Leaders of the business of organization are the main individuals who have the tremendous influence to the outcomes of other subordinates. Ethical leaders influence others to practice the ethical behaviour, and this helps in making the entire business or society to exhibit ethical behaviour. The leaders have the responsibility to control the practices of the senior employees and those of the other workers. However, when the leader of any business or organization paradises unethical behaviour, the practice is practice is embraced by all the stakeholders and the resulting practices are all unethical. Unethical leaders are not concerned about the organization or business’ practice. When the employees engage in unethical practice and the leader does not question and help in rectifying the deeds it is likely that the practice spreads to the whole business or company activities.

The ethical leaders are always concerned about every bit of the business or organization's activities, and they closely monitor any form of the unethical practice and rectify where possible. However, for the unethical leaders, they do not monitor what organization or business engages in and determine whether it is ethical or unethical. Due to the freedom that is allowed to the employees by the unethical leaders, it is likely that unethical practice is likely to happen in the organization or business. Thus, if a leader is ethical or unethical one influence the employees and they exhibit the behaviour in their operations, and entire organization or business portrays the behaviour.