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Leadership Ethics and Values chapter 5 (Justifying Unethical Behavior…
Leadership Ethics and Values
chapter 5
Leadership Ethics
Distinguishing from wrong and doing ; seeking the just, right honest, and good in the practice of leadership.
four qualities of leadership that engender trust
empathy
,: who show they understand the world as we see and experience it.
consistency
:we trust leaders who are consistent. This does not mean that we only trust leaders whose positions never change, but that changes are understood as a process of evolution in light of relevant new evidence.
: vision,
: who pull people together on the basis of shared beliefs and a common sense of organizational purpose and belonging
integrity.
who demonstrate their commitment to higher principles through their actions.
Why Some Leaders Are Not Ethical?
•Greed
•Out of touch with ethical values
•Acting like a follower rather than a leader
–Silence about unethical behavior reduces a leader to a follower; an unethical follower
Biases Affecting Moral Decisions
•Implicit prejudice
– subconscious prejudices that affect our decisions without us being aware of them
•
In-group favoritism
– doing acts of kindness and favors for those who are like us
•
Over-claiming credit
– overrating the quality of our own work and contributions
•Conflicts of interest
– we often discount the effects of a conflict of interest
Ethical responsibilities of leaders.
•Leaders, more than followers possess unique degrees of both legitimate and coercive power;
•Leaders enjoy greater privileges;
•Leaders have access to more information;
•Leaders have greater authority and/or responsibility;
•Leaders interact with a broader range of stakeholders who expect equitable treatment; and,
•Leaders must balance sometimes competing loyalties when making decision
The Situational Aspect of Ethics
•People are more likely to act unethically:
–In highly competitive situations
–In unsupervised situations
–When there is no formal ethics policy –When unethical behavior is not punished or is rewarded
ethical role models are characterized by
–
Interpersonal behaviors :
show care, concern, and compassion for others. They are hardworking and helpful.
–Basic fairness
: fairness shown to others in treatment
–
Ethical actions and self-expectations:
hold themselves to high ethical standards. They accept responsibility.
–Articulating ethical standards:
They put ethical standards above personal and short-term company interests.
Value-based approaches to leadership
Authentic leadership
: Authentic leaders have strong ethical convictions that guide their behavior not so much to avoid doing “wrong” things as to always try to do the “right” things, including treating others with respect and dignity.
Servant leadership
has since 1970 described a quite different approach to leadership than that derived from a bureaucratic and mechanistic view of organizations wherein workers are thought of as mere cogs in a machine.
Justifying Unethical Behavior
Moral Justification
–Is the thinking process of rationalizing why unethical behavior is used.
Displacement of responsibility:
–Blaming your behavior on others
Through displacement of responsibility people may violate personal moral standards by attributing responsibility to others. Nazi concentration camp guards
•
Diffusion of responsibility:
–A group is responsible, no one person
diffusion of responsibility, whereby reprehensible behavior becomes easier to engage in and live with if others are behaving the same way.
Advantageous comparison:
–Others are worse.
Advantageous comparison lets one avoid self-contempt for one’s behavior by comparing it to even more heinous behavior by others.
•
Disregard or distortion of consequences
: –Minimizing the harm caused
disregard or distortion of consequences, people minimize the harm caused by their behavior. This can be a problem in bureaucracies when decision makers are relatively insulated by their position from directly observing the consequences of their decisions
•Attribution of blame:
–Caused by someone else’s behavior
people sometimes try to justify immoral behavior by claiming it was caused by someone else’s actions. This is known as attribution of blame.
•
Euphemistic labeling
–Covering it with “cosmetic” words
This involves using cosmetic words to defuse or disguise the offensiveness of otherwise morally repugnant or distasteful behavior. Terrorists, for example, may call themselves “freedom fighters,” and firing someone may be referred to as “letting him or her go.
Dehumanizatio
n is still another way of avoiding the moral consequences of one’s behavior. It is easier to treat others badly when they are dehumanized, as evidenced in epithets like “gooks” or “Satan-worshippers.”
