Characteristics of Ethical Leaders

In contemporary situation of instability around the globe; it has been witnessed that a greater number of managers, executives, and business personnel belonging to different levels of functioning are conscious about values and ethics and are inclined towards instigating a value creation process by dedicating their efforts and time. Thus, this wider perception of ethical leadership enables these individuals in clarifying and ascertaining their personal values and ethics. A list has been presented below which offers a structure for initiating ethical leadership. It has been formulated by observing as well as conversing with professionals and students for twenty-five continuous years along with perusal of business literature. The list has been formulated from the viewpoint of a leader; they provide a thorough comprehension regarding ethical leadership which is very much intricate and transcends the general idea of “good values and character”.
Ethical Leaders:
1. Articulate and embody the purpose and values of the organization.
Nowadays it is vital for leaders to motivate their subordinates by narrating a persuasive and ethically rich instances and stories, and it is equal crucial that they should also align themselves to those ethical instances and stories. In contemporary business environment envisioning such dedication seems very farfetched due to that fact that individuals belonging to business environment are not used to integrating such values in themselves. Thus, a majority of political leaders are unsuccessful in aligning themselves to those instances and stories which they mention in their speeches. Furthermore, recently leaders in business environment have been criticized after news associated to their bad conduct and scandals have emerged. Chief Executive Officers in contemporary organizations are deemed as role models for ethical values in every single society.
In the year 2004, on the basis of a sequential instances associated to unethical and immoral actions performed by the personnel of Citigroup in Japan; new Chief Executive Officer, Chuck Prince dismissed numerous personnel, publicly acknowledged it is vital for leaders to motivate their subordinates by narrating a persuasive and ethically rich instances and stories, and it is equal crucial that they should also align themselves to those ethical instances and stories.
accountability and apologized the Japanese officials.2 His message was not only acclaimed in Japan but also gained support from the top tier officials of Citigroup in instigating an unprecedented practice of “shared responsibility” which emphasized that every personnel will take ownership of the ideas and decisions which can influence the organizations functioning.
2. Focus on organizational success rather than on personal ego.
Leaders who are ethically conscious also have the comprehension of their worth amidst the wider spectrum of stakeholders and related constituents. Thus, the notion does not entirely focuses on the leader alone, it encompasses much more than that by focusing on aims and objectives of the overall organization. These ethically responsible leaders also comprehend that in core essence values lies in the success of organization’s personnel.
In the year 1998, former Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of PepsiCo, Roger Enrico demonstrated his devotedness towards the firm’s personnel by electing to give up all of his income and keeping just $1 for himself. He requested PepsiCo that this benevolent act of his should result in a contribution of $1 million in the scholarship fund by the firm so as to buttress the personnel in bearing the educational expenses of their children.3
In an analogous way, JetBlue’s founders initiated to provide their incomes to funds created for personnel financial assistance. Presently, their whole income goes to JetBlue Crewmember Catastrophic Plan fund, so as to facilitate the personnel in coping up with those crises and catastrophes which are not entailed in the insurance policies.4 The purpose of sharing these instances is to delineate that ethically conscious leaders comprehend the magnitude of those factors which are liable to influence personnel loyalty and take apposite measures accordingly which will ultimately enhance the firm’s success.
3. Find the best people and develop them.
This particular function has been entailed in diverse models which are associated to the subject matter of leadership. Ethically conscious leaders are concerned in uncovering and selecting the best employees because they deem it as a crucial necessity which will certainly facilitate the selected employee in not only enhancing his expertise but will also enable him to support other employees as well. Searching the best employees entails the importance of character and ethics as judgment tools in the selection phase.
It has been told to us by various CEOs that evaluating the honesty and reliability of someone are way more vital than assessing the know-how and abilities they have. Still, in numerous firms, the employees are appointed on the basis of skills with small considerations of integrity issues.
4. Create a living conversation about ethics, values and the creation of value for stakeholders.
Possessing a laminated visa card in the pocket or good observance of ethics is thought to be a full and final solution of “ethics problem” by many business administrators. Enron and various other companies in trouble already had these solutions in their agenda. But what they did not possess was a general dialogue and communications between all the levels of business in which having discussions and arguments about the fundamentals of value construction, opinions of stakeholders and communal expectations was are normal practice. There is an erroneous belief that morals and ethics are “squishy and soft” ingredient of management. It couldn't be any more false than this.
In such organizations where principles and ethics are given importance and where they are discussed , the workers there actually account themselves and others around them about whether they are acting upon values and ethics or not. And, they anticipate the managers of organization to observe the same practices. Actually doing such discussions implies that people should have awareness of options but they should prefer every time to settle with the group only because it inspires them and has an importance for them. If one wants to direct morally, a very strong will is needed to actually make these discussions and communications happen.
The chronicle of the former CEO of Johnson and Johnson Jim Burke and the Tylenol product (1980s) is well known, in which, regardless of financial costs and loss, all the possibly fiddled products were pulled off the market and thus they kept together the trust of public.
The less famous backdrop of this tale is vital to understand the end result. Johnson & Johnson had conducted a bunch of meetings internationally known as “challenge meetings” some time prior to the Tylenol crisis in which the administrators and managers argued about the “Credo”, a description of their aims and values of what and who they really want to be, as a firm. This chat about morals at Johnson & Johnson made the choices of Jim Burke easier and vivid than they could ever have been about managing the circumstances.

5. Create mechanisms of dissent.
Many executives actually don’t comprehend their power merely by high value of the positions they are on. Stanley Milgram a famous psychologists had depicted a long time ago that even when there is no accountability for defiance still people mostly comply with what they think to be as legitimate authorities. To get past the “Authority Trap” what is vital is to create a peculiar and well formed process for the workers to contradict if they think that some market , process or region is not working properly.
This should become a very important part of the customs of organization and not merely a document of compliance agenda. Some corporation have tried to provide the telephone and e-mail process from unknown identification and numbers to know the opinions of workers without the interference of administration which is the real barrier in huge organizations. Many managers have also tried “skip level” conferences in which they talk with the people in various levels of cooperation to have a more practical view.

Famed “workout” procedure of General Electric—it is where the employees meet to come to a decision about how to make it a better company and fix the troubles being faced—was a method for the workers of front line to contradict the authorities and management already present. All these developments showed the way to healthier judgments, more focused employees, and augmented probability of evading the mistakes causing damage.
A company which focuses sincerely on their reason of existence and their values , always have some system available for pushing back to keep away from decaying of the company’s values. If there would have been some resourceful customs for employees to utter about their disappointments with the procedures and actions of others in a company they would have indeed, prevented from some of the very recent corporate disgrace. This system of dissent are developed according to the leadership style followed in a company or by its culture but this comes under the responsibility of a good leader to craft values in today’s corporate world.
6. Take a charitable understanding of others’ values.
It can become easy for ethical leaders to recognize that why different alternatives are picked by different people but they still have a strong hold on recognizing what people do and why. Nelson Mandela; after spending twenty-seven years in South African prison, still able to recognize good things in jailers. Nelson also protested against a ferocious and an inhuman jailor who later got transferred from the Robins Island and before he left, the jailor came back to Mandela and stated “I just want to wish you people good luck.”Mandela took this statement as an indication that every person possesses some good in them even after trapped in immoral systems. Mandela took it as his accountability to recognize good among people and try to bring it out. Once a CEO of a company stated that we should not take ethical leadership a mechanism for stopping people from doing wrong instead we should use it to facilitate and appreciate people in doing right.
7. Make tough calls while being imaginative.
It is a duty of Ethical leaders to take difficult unavoidable everyday decisions from the reorientation to creating company’s strategies and also creating value schemes which help in making decision for individual employee regarding his working in an organization. Ethical leaders always take challenges by making difficult decisions they never get scared in attempting them and never avoid them by making excuses. The ethical leaders always come together to do the right thing for their followers and for the organization.
Ethical leaders are just being enjoyable and loving, this idea contradict with reality. Moral mind's eye is the most significant task done by ethical leaders often. The German Bank was originated by this moral mind’s eye by mohammad yunus. He implemented the same systematize banking practice of lending money to people with collateral against it and it laid the industry of micro lending to poor as he turned it on his head.
German bank has a leading loan reimbursement percentage in the banking industry and it initiated lending programs for poor women of Bangladesh to start their own small businesses and their program helped millions of women to stand on their own feet and able to feed themselves and just because of this purpose the slogan of German bank was “poverty belongs to museum”.
In organizations leadership exists mainly in the people of higher positions like CEO and board levels. Few years back, a new firm inclusive strict obligation made by the CEO of DuPont in order to lessen factory emanations. Plant engineers insisted CEO that decreasing the emissions of the company cannot be reduced at any cost so the CEO and president of the company decided to shut down that plant which make many people lost their jobs.
CEO was notified about the possible solutions regarding the requirements by the plant engineers weeks later. They may be cost saving too. although we are unaware of the hard work that was done by the engineers (whose name are not disclosed), we can definitely view the outcomes with respect to imagination and leadership.
8. Know the limits of the values and ethical principles they live.
Each and every value has its boundaries and in a given situation it may work sometime and it may not work too. The limitation of a certain value is very much related to the audience and the environment in which these values are practiced. Ethical leaders can provide us with solid evidences and reason about their chosen action and they have an exact sense about the limits of values that they live in. Majority of the problems that a manger faces are due to cultural differences and not understanding the limitations of the values.
One of the most common examples is of not understanding the limitation of “putting the shareholders first.” Keeping the prices of the stock high artificially and not provided not only to customer but also to the stakeholders the long lasting value which creates fanaticism instead of providing good and clear judgment. Ethics is something which is not a different thing but is attached to us and is part of an individual’s life. No one can substitute practical sense, judgment, and sound advice which have influence on our actions.
9. Frame actions in ethical terms.
The leadership provided by the ethical leaders in their own view is considered to be a completely ethical task. Due to this it is very important that differences and the rights claimed by other are taken seriously. In addition to this we should also understand the effect of behavior of an individual upon others and also the effect of character on others. Sometimes the ethical leader also recognizes the weakness and poor guidepost in the values they practices.
It is considered that responsibility of provided moral judgment is on the shoulders of the ethical leaders. But is important to understand here that, it is easy to coat an action in terms of ethics and consider it to be right. There are numerous views about ethics and one of them is that, it is inviolable and universally accepted principles that are not to be violated. There is a need for hard work to understand the implementation of these values and principles in today global complex business environment.
There is often difference between values, individual, principles and cultures which results in conflicts. It is important for an ethical leader to have a humanistic view rather than going for righteousness. In addition to this it is also important to have an open mind to understand and learn and to have conversations and discussion with those which belongs to a different culture and have a different view points. Ethics is something that we discovery by coming in contact with different individuals. It provides us with realization of importance of improvement there new ideas.
10. Connect the basic value proposition to stakeholder support and societal legitimacy.
The leader must understand and act in terms of corporate strategy rather then taking business and ethics separately. It is linking basic raison d’être of a corporation with the methods thought which value is created in a society. It is a fact that an ethichal leader will never give an exuse of it’s just a business.
Regardless of extreme opposition from various groups, Lee Scott the CEO of Wal-Mart got an approval in the year 2004 to establish a new store in west side Chicago with partnering with the black community leaders. The basic reason was to fulfill the need of employment and jobs of the community and that side of the town. It was due to the support of community that helped Wal-Mart in wining the approval form the City Council. Wal-Mart also encourages the subcontractors to make there facility locally and hire majority of the employees for the local residence.
Guiding people to understand their expectations and ideas, building worth for the shareholders, as well as performing these errands with the concentration and significance that “ethics” defines, all of these things are concerned to Ethical leadership that is focused on “raising the bar”. The things lacking in our present leaders is they do not give room for errors, for hilarity, as well as kindness, all that was said. By the character in their daily lives, Ethical leaders, who are common people, set examples of taking the world to a higher level. The questions like what is our individuality, what re we plus what can we be, how to spend lives and the that way we may make it improved, Ethical leaders talk to us regarding these all querries.










Becoming an EthicalLeader
We are honored to know several decision-makers that we can categorize as ethical leaders. A thoughtful and unfathomable knowledge of ethical standards, principles, and personality at the heart of headship, these all things are commonly present in those decision-makers. Improving others as well as allowing them to chase their own expectations and ideas, these are all considered as work by them. They are capable of achieving tasks in complex cultures and associations. However, their connection with the admirers, the talents and procedures they make use of in directing them, their study of the frameworks, and their own logic of personality, these are all permeated by the ethical core.

It is fairly easy to become an ethical leader. The readiness and potency to admit liability for the outcomes of your deeds and a dedication is required in order to examine your own performance and morals is just required for it.
The message given to us by ethical leaders pertains to our personality, our present and our future, the way we live now and the way we could spend a better life.
additionally on yourself. The “responsibility principle” is an essential feature for “managing for stakeholders” to be valuable in present business community. The ethical leaders must shoulder responsibility and think about the consequences of their activities on employees, suppliers, customers, societies and others who are concerned. The “responsibility principle” would be pointless in a situation where the business was only looking after the interest of the shareholders.
To qualify as an ethical leader, one must ask the following questions to himself:
(1) Which principles and values are important to me?
(2) Are these values reflected by the way my time is spent?
(3) What opinion is carried by my peers and subordinates about my values?
(4) What methods and procedures have been instituted by me to ensure that my subordinates are able to challenge my authority?
(5) Under what circumstances would I be prepared to give up my job due to ethical reasons?
(6) What do I intend to achieve with my leadership?
(7) What should be the opinion of people on my leadership qualities when I leave the organization?
(8) Is it possible for me to preach my close relatives about my leadership style and give examples from my daily work practices for them to become ethical leaders?