Research Paper
This week’s journal articles focus on transformational leadership and knowledge and knowledge sharing within an organization, please review these concepts and answer the following questions:
- How do trustworthy and ethical leaders enhance knowledge sharing in organizations? How does this impact the rate of information technology implementations? How does this impact data management within organizations?
- How does servant leadership assist with transferring knowledge in an organization?
- When thinking about data analytics, how does transformational leadership assist with building good data structures?
Be sure to use the UC Library for scholarly research. Google Scholar is also a great source for research. Please be sure that journal articles are peer-reviewed and are published within the last five years.
The paper should meet the following requirements:
- 3-5 pages in length (not including title page or references)
- APA guidelines must be followed. The paper must include a cover page, an introduction, a body with fully developed content, and a conclusion.
- A minimum of five peer-reviewed journal articles.
The writing should be clear and concise. Headings should be used to transition thoughts. Don’t forget that the grade also includes the quality of writing.
Needed 3 pages
Organizational Leadership
John Bratton
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Part 1
Contextualising leadership
Ethics and leadership
Chapter 5
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Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
Critically evaluate and comprehend the concept of ethical leadership theories and models.
Examine and discuss recent issues in ethical and unethical leadership in the context of contemporary work organisations.
Identify and critically analyze the social and ethical responsibilities of contemporary leaders in industry.
Understand the role of ethics in the future of organizations and employment relations.
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The nature of ethical leadership
Every society recognizes many ‘unwritten’ rules that we perceive we must conform to such a rule is one of the main elements that aid human societies to function smoothly. Thus, ‘moral rules’ affect decisions we take as individuals, compelling us to tell the truth rather than lie to family members, friends and colleagues.
Two schools of thought:
‘Having’ ethics – The notion of the leaders (imbued with ethics, act as a driver of ethical conduct in the organisation (e.g. Brown, Trevino and Harrison, 2015).
Managing ethics – Ethical leaderships’ sole purpose is to provide conditions for organizational success (more transactional in nature; e.g. Engelbrecht, Heine, and Mahembe 2017).
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Philosophical approach to ethical leadership – philosophical approaches
Utilitarianism/Consequentialism/Forward-looking
The right or wrong of actions and behaviours are directly assessed against its consequences and whether those consequences prescribe to the basic consequentialist principles of the greatest good for the greatest number, or the ends justify the means.
Deontology/Kantianism/Backward or Present-looking
It is not the consequences of an action that make it ethical, but whether the action was simply the right thing to do.
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Philosophical Egoism
Focuses on the beliefs of reality through a social lens – people will follow if it avoids punishment.
Social acceptability of behaviour is paramount to achieving one’s self-interest, thus leading to social approval to direct the moral path.
Philosophical approach to ethical leadership – philosophical approaches
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Ethics of Virtue
It is the system of beliefs that take precedence, rather than behaviours. Virtues may be moral (courage justice and prudence) or intellectual (i.e. wisdom).
Ethics of Responsibility
The key understanding is that everyone is responsible for their own through an open set of possibilities.
Philosophical approach to ethical leadership – philosophical approaches
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Philosophical approach to ethical leadership – leadership models
Authentic Leadership
Transformational Leadership
Charismatic Leadership
Servant Leadership
Which perspectives most suited ethical leadership then?
The clear definition would be ethical leadership is mostly about the moral components.
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Dimensions of ethical leadership
The moral components are not solely about the personal attributes or characteristics of the leader, nor are they solely about providing the conditions for organisational success (Williams 2016).
It important to be a good leader, where good is defined as both effective and ethical (Bonner et al. 2016, Ciulla and Forsyth, 2011; Trevino and Nelson, 2017).
One should be both a morally good person and a morally good manager, and where morality is based on the principles of what is right and not necessarily what is considered to be legal (Beard and Lynch, 2015).
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Dimensions of ethical leadership
Resick et al. (2006) and DuBrin (2015) identified key words like: “character and integrity” “ethical awareness” “people orientation” (including altruism), “motivating”, “empowering” and “accountable” as dimensions of ethical leadership – illustrating that ethical leadership is seen as one, or a set of behaviours. Others including integrity, trustworthiness, honesty and empathy in the mix.
Ethical leadership is essential to promote trust and in turn trust is essential to promote employee engagement, which is essential for organisational success (Nankervis, Baird, Coffey and Shields, 2014, 2017, and Engelbrecht et al. 2017).
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Organizations behaving badly – failures in ethical leadership
Misbehaviour in work organizations is ‘everything that employees do or think that their superiors do not want them to do or think’ (Karlsson, 2012, p. 17).
It is difficult to untangle the many instances of organizational misbehaviour and assign responsibility and culpability. Many of the organizations found to be guilty of transgressions continue to operate.
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Many of the CEOs and boards of directors who were empowered with leadership were well rewarded and maintained their careers. In the murk of organisational behaviour, it is not clear where responsibility lies and what the place of leadership is in any transgressions.
The only leadership style experienced by employees is that of an immediate supervisor or line manager. Does the behaviour or styles of line managers reflect the behaviour or styles of senior managers, executives, the CEO and board of directors?
There is rarely a penalty or a responsibility for leadership, but there is a premium.
Organizations behaving badly – failures in ethical leadership
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Misdemeanours may be supported by the state or by poorly drafted or porous laws. The complexity of organisations, especially transnational with many subsidiaries, offshore holding companies, and complex supply chain relationships, makes identification of responsibility and culpability more complex.
In large organizations, a context and framework can be developed that not only supports leadership, but also supports ethical leadership to the extent that it is possible to consistently maintain high ethical standards within the organization regardless of who is the appointed leader.
Organizations behaving badly – failures in ethical leadership
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Context, the rhetoric and reality
Organisational Culture
Senior leaders exhibit a visible commitment to ethical principles, a trickle-down effect occurs throughout the workforce. Where a leader behaves unethically and accepts similar behaviour from others, unethical practices will become normalised through acceptance, and, in some cases, rewarded (Brown and Trevino 2006).
CSR is argued by Williams (2016) that is an outcome of ethical leadership rather than ethical leadership in its own right.
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Context, the rhetoric and reality
HRM
Widely held to provide antecedents to an organisation’s actual culture (Guerci et al., 2015).
Not simply about compliance but also about demonstrating values through responsible self-managed conduct (Weaver & Trevino, 2001; DuBrin, 2015). Thus, focus of ethical leadership includes both the individual and the organization.
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Is staying silent unethical leadership?
Whistleblowing is a response by an organisational member to disclose what they view as a wrongdoing – responsible followership.
Ciulla and Forsyth (2011) contend that followers are enablers; that is, they permit leaders to do ‘good’ and ‘bad’ things, but followers also have a responsibility to ‘watch their leaders’ – psychological contract that influences employer to remain loyal to the employer or to be viewed as a snitch or a grass (Fisher & Lovell, 2009) – a violation of the employer-employee relationship.
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Millennial leadership, digitalization and AI
Millennial’s face a workplace where digitisation and increasing automation of jobs is possibly the only certainty.
Featherstone (2018: 3) claims that with increasing digitalisation and automation “trust is oxygen”.
The Deloitte Milliennial Survey 2018 identified that confidence in business ethics is at its lowest in four years, signalling that leadership is not only required but mandatory for the group that is not only the immediate future workforce but consumers of the products and services provided by others.
Can AI assist in providing ethical leadership as it displaces roles, responsibilities and decision making in organisations?
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