Chapter 6 Intro to Leadership (Leading with Integrity)

Craig Johnson (2012) uses the powerful metaphor of light and shadow to illustrate the difference between ethical and unethical leadership:

Leaders who cast light facilitate ethical processes and uphold ethical principles in their actions and in how they treat others. Include humility, compassion, courage, optimism, and integrity. Those who cast shadows abuse power, manipulate information, are deceitful, and act incongruently

Lipman - Blueman (2005) describes toxic leaders as those

"who engage in numerous destructive behaviors and who exhibit certain dysfunctional personal characteristics. To count as toxic, these behaviors and qualities of character must inflict some reasonably serious and enduring harm on their followers and their organizations"

Creating and Sustaining an Ethical Organization Environment

Understanding and applying ethical theories and models that operate from organizational values or codes of conduct, as well as being aware of your own moral development and that of others in your organizations, helps create and sustain ethical organizational environments.

Fact (Moral Purpose as an Act of Courage)

Upholding your principles and putting them into actions allows leaders to operate with moral courage.

Realities:

- Not everyone is prepared or willing to do the right things/ has moral orientation - Prefer to take the easy way out - Do what is more economical - Choose path with less resistance

Values or ideals such as

- Peace - Justice - Fairness - Liberty - Equal opportunity - People's general welfare Are expressed by transformational leaders.

Fact (Moral Purpose as an Act of Courage)

It takes personal courage to do the right thing

Kellerman and Lipman - Blumen (2005) addresses the notion of bad or toxic leaders and their resulting negative consequences:

a. Kellerman divides bad leadership into 2 categories: 1. Bad as ineffective (Failure of achieving the desired change) 2. Bad as unethical (Fails to distinguish between right and wrong)

It is important when using the ethical decision-making models and principles that you are prepared to receive..

criticism, see members revolt, and perhaps experience a decline in membership.

Communicating about ethics and encouraging dialogue...

is a powerful way to deepen the organization's commitment to ethics. Bringing ethical considerations to members and raising ethical issues and questions publicly shows others the value and priority placed on ethics.

Gregg Levoy (2000), a former reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer, uses the metaphor of stone sculpting to illustrate integrity and personal courage: (Moral Purpose as an Act of Courage)

"To tell if a stone is "true", you bang on it with a hammer. A dull stone indicates a fault; the stone will crack when you work on it. But a clear ring, one that hangs in the air means the stone is true. It has integrity. It will hold up under repeated blows."

Kidder (2005) describes moral courage as (Moral Purpose as an Act of Courage)

"the quality of mind and spirit that enables one to face up to ethical challenges firmly and confidently, without flinching or retreating"

KEY NOTES:

- Positional leaders and members should be equally empowered to set a tone in the organizational climate that will foster and support ethical and moral actions and sensitivities - Organization's mission or the group's common purpose should be the driving force for identifying its values - Participants should identify and operate from a shared set of core values that guide the organization's activities, actions, and decisions. (Core values will enable individuals to work towards a common purpose and provide a common understanding of the organization's principles and standards) - Members are empowered to hold each other accountable, participate in moral talk or dialogue, and work together to sustain an ethical environment - Appointing one person to be a group's ethicist or standard bearer will not achieve the same degree of ethical climate as when all participants are concerned with doing what is right. ( counterproductive when a leader handles ethical dilemmas alone of in isolation from other members of the organization.)

On the other side of the award continuum, unethical, behavior should be addressed, but in a different manner:

- Public humiliation - Members need to know that they will be held accountable for such breaches - Participants have an obligation under the principle of "doing no harm" to protect an individual's right to confidentiality when addressing a violation of rules or standards and ensuring that due process is provided and safeguarded

Some organizations lack a positive ethical environment because leaders and participants are not committed to a moral orientation: (Ethical Lapses)

- Reward based on "improving" - Support shortcuts - Poor-quality work - Cover-ups - Lack of personal responsibility for mistakes or problems

Developing a global mindset and cultivating diversity are important components of ethical leadership. Johnson identifies 14 personal competencies for establishing cross-cultural relationships. The following are a few of these competencies:

1. Be nonjudgemental 2. Be flexible 3. Listen attentively/observe carefully 4. Assume complexity 5. Manage personal biases 6. Show respect 7. Show empathy ^^^ These cultural considerations illustrate the complexity of the cultural influences of leadership and ethics and show the connection between ethics and culture

Nash proposes 4 qualities that are necessary for participants to advance ethical standards in an organization (Help create an ethical organizational environment) : Leading with Integrity

1. Critical thinking skills to analyze and convey the ethical components of a problem or dilemma. 2. Possession of a high degree of integrity to stand up for your personal and professional ethics. 3. The ability to see situations from other's perspectives (showing concern for others) 4. Personal motivation to do the right thing.

Lucas and Anello (1995) propose 8 assumptions about ethical leadership, which are central themes in the study and practice of ethical leadership: (Assumptions about Ethical Leadership)

1. Ethics is the heart of Leadership: It is the central issue in leadership. "Good Leadership" means leadership that is effective, in that goals were achieved, and that follows a sound and ethical process. The means justify the ends when leading with integrity. 2. All leadership is values-driven: We need to reframe leadership so that it represents values that reflect good (ethical) leadership. Participants and leaders bring to the organization their own values and beliefs about how people should be treated, notions of what is right vs. what is wrong, and ideas about what is just and fair. Organizations and communities are value-driven as opposed to values-neutral. 3. Personal values intersect with organizational values: The journey to ethical leadership begins with an examination of personal values, as well as an ongoing reflection of personal core values and how these values are related to the values of an organization or community. Your personal moral compass will guide in wrestling with ethical dilemmas and eventually will point you in the direction of making a decision based on ethical analysis, consideration of opposing viewpoints, your personal values, and the values of your organization. 4. Ethical Leadership can be learned: Ethical learning is a process involving experience, reflection, conceptualization, and application. Trial - and - error experiences can sharpen your ethical analysis, as well as your reflection about notions of what is just and fair in a given situation. The life experiences you gain over time will affect your development as an ethical leader. 5. Ethical leadership involves a connection between ethical thought and action: Linking moral reasoning with values and action is imperative in leadership. Engage in ethical analysis and insights based on theories and concepts applied to real-life experiences. 6. Character development is an essential ingredient of ethical leadership: A leader's character is defined by his or her actions and behaviors, not simply by the values that are espoused. Leaders need to walk their talk. 7. Ethical leadership is a shared process. Members at all levels of an organization or community have the opportunity and responsibility to participate in the process of exercising ethical leadership. Leaders and participants share the responsibility of advancing core organizational values and of doing the right thing. (Most advocate even if they lose something or friends.) Organizations that are empowering and inclusive involve members in wrestling with ethical dilemmas and seek their advice on how to resolve problems. 8. Everything we do teaches: Role modeling is a powerful way to influence the ethical climate in families, organizations, and communities. We learn by watching others, and we make judgments about what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior in organizations. What a leader demonstrates, gives off to the members that it's okay.

Individuals committed to leading with integrity are faced with their own dilemma of what to do when their values and principles clash with the organization's standards. This is a very difficult situation and offers only 3 choices: (Ethical Lapses)

1. Ignore or put up with the situation 2. Address the situation and work to change the organizational climate into one that is ethical in nature 3. Or leave the organization

Few examples of behaviors and traits associated with toxic leaders:

1. Leaving their followers worse off than they found them 2. Violating the basic standards of human rights of their own supporters, as well as those of other individuals and groups they do not count among their followers 3. Consciously feeding their followers illusions that enhance the leader's power and impair the followers' capacity to act independently (e.g. persuading followers that they are the only ones who can save them or the organization) 4. Misleading followers through deliberate untruths and misdiagnoses of issues and problems 5. Insatiable ambition that prompts leaders to put their own sustained power, glory, and fortunes above their follower's well-being 6. Enormous egos that build leaders to the shortcomings of their own character and thus limit their capacity for self-renewal 7. Reckless disregard for the costs of their actions to others, as well as to themselves 8. Cowardice that led them to shrink from difficult choices

From interviews with 24 leaders from 16 different countries, Kidder identified 7 common values among them:

1. Love 2. Truthfulness 3. Fairness 4, Freedom 5. Unity 6. Tolerance 7. Responsibility 8.Respect for life

Examples of CEMS: (Ethical Lapses)

1. Martha Stewart, CEO of Omni Living, brought down her company over the cover-up of an insider trading scheme and received a federal prison sentence 2.Ken Lay, CEO on Enron, duped shareholders and others, destroyed his company and entered his trial facing a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison 3. Former Senator John Ensign resigned from office for using funds to cover up an extramarital affair, and the president and dean of the business school at West Virginia University resigned under fire for showing preferential treatment of the state's governor daughter by falsifying her transcript.

Moral courage can be viewed as the intersection of 3 conceptual fields: (Moral Purpose as an Act of Courage)

1. Principles 2. Danger 3. Endurance

Seligman identified 6 virtues common to more than 200 religious and philosophical traditions:

1. Wisdom and knowledge 2. Courage 3. Love 4. Humanity 5. Justice 6. Temperance and spirituality and transcendence

Perseverance (Moral Purpose as an Act of Courage)

A willingness to endure some type of hardship such as the risk of losing friends or a job is a component of moral courage.

CEMS which means Career Ending Moves (created by Rushmore Kidder - 1995): (Ethical Lapses)

Engaging in morally questionable or unethical behavior

Ethical fitness by Kidder: Is getting in shape to tackle the tough ethical dilemmas as they rise. That same fitness applies to our ability to express moral courage. → MEANS being : (Ethical Lapses)

Mentally Engaged: Thinking about the dilemma you are facing, reasoning through it, and grappling with the tough issues. Also requires Practice: Thinking through potential ethical dilemmas so you are used to this process when faced with a real dilemma.

Transforming Leadership

Transforming leadership reaches moral dimensions when the leaders' and participants' behavior and ethical aspirations are elevated by mutual influences on one another. Transforming leadership involves persuasion, a desire to change something, and multidirectional influence relationships between leaders and participants.

Cultural Assumptions (Cultural Assumptions)

● Ethics are culture-specific ● Ethical standards or assumptions specific to a nation ● Also relevant to shifts in paradigms. ● Morals and values change within organizations, and with nations. (In the US can't drink till 21, and other countries don't care a ● There is no universal agreement on what behaviors or practices are considered appropriate, legal, ethical, or moral across cultures ● Ethics are also temporal in nature, especially in light of changing laws and legal norms. ● Laws and regulations influence the changing nature of ethical practices and behaviors, especially in the business world.