Module 14: Leadership and Ethics

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  • Mod 14: For Your Success

Be sure to complete the self-assessments found in the Check Your Understanding activity at the end of this week’s lecture.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Analyze ethics as they relates to leadership
  2. Synthesize seminal theorists’ perspectives on ethical leadership
  3. Analyze the importance of trust in leadership
  4. Evaluate how ethical leadership relates to organizational performance
  • Mod 14: Readings Required
  • Review chapters in each text.
  • I. Ethics, Trust, and Leadership
  • An audio version of this entire lecture is available. You can listen by using the embedded player below. Or CLICK HERE to download the file to your computer or portable audio player:
  • Most of the time we do not have the opportunity to choose the formal leadership within our organization or department. Usually, the boss or leader of that department or organization is chosen by someone higher than that position on the organizational chart. When you take a job, you really don’t know what type of leader you are going to end up with. Furthermore, if you just come into the company from another organization, you will have no idea what type of leadership exists in the organization overall. Everyone has probably experienced this type of “unknown” before.
  • Once you get into the organization you start to get an idea of what type of leaders are running the organization and what type of leader is running your specific department. Often, it does not take long to figure this out. However, by that time it is too late and you have already taken the role within the department, so you are most often stuck with whatever type of leader you get.
  • However, this is not the case in situations of informal leadership, and this is where we will focus for this module content. The best situation in which to discuss ethics and trust as they relate to leadership is in the political arena. In situations of informal leadership where people can choose to follow or not to follow specific leaders’ ethics and trust are not only important – they are essential.
  • Ethics are personal, and different people have very different ethical standards. When an informal leader does not share the same ethical values as you do, you are often compelled to find other leaders to follow with whom you share ethical values. A great example of this is the presidential and other political races that occur. When we are choosing which candidates to support, we base a lot of our decision on the ethical values of these leaders. For example, do these leaders believe in the war, do they believe in abortion, do they believe in same-sex marriage, do they believe in socialized health care? When we look at these leaders from an ethical perspective, it is human nature that we often follow the leader who seems to have the closest ethics to our own.
  • The problem in choosing the political leaders who run our government and our country is the issue of trust. Although political leaders make stands on specific issues while campaigning, the problem lies in what they will actually do after they get elected. Unfortunately, the past has shown that political leaders often say one thing on the campaign trail and do another after the election is over. How do we know who we can trust? How important is trust?
  • Leadership theorists from many years ago all the way to modern day leadership theorists agree that trust is one of the most important factors in choosing to follow a leader. We all want to follow someone that we can trust. We want to know they will lead us in the right direction, and since we cannot see into the future we have to put our faith and trust in that leader’s abilities. We want to know that we can depend on that leader to do what is in our best interests and that the leader will not harm us. When it comes down to choosing the people to lead our country, we tend to find the person that we can most relate to from an ethical perspective, and we tend to look for the people that we feel we can trust to do what they said they would do in their campaign.
  • Let’s return to the formal leaders we report to. Do you feel that you share the same ethical values as those who lead the organization? Do you trust the leadership in your organization? If you answered “no” to one or both of these questions the chances are that you are unhappy in your organization. Additionally, if your leaders do not share your ethical values and are not trustworthy in your opinion, the chances are that others within the organization feel the same way.
  • This is concerning as well, because the tone of the organization is set at the top and filters down through the levels of the organizational chart. If the top leadership is unethical, the rest of the organization will also be unethical. If the top leadership is not trustworthy, the culture of the organization will follow suit. Enron is an excellent example of how the unethical standards and untrustworthiness of leaders can trickle down into the organization, corrupting the organization and prohibiting it from succeeding.
  • When an organization has leaders who cannot be trusted and who do not share the ethical values of the rest of the organization, this almost always leads to a very low morale within the organization. When morale is low, productivity is low and turnover is high. This means people are leaving the organization and those who are staying are not motivated to do a good job or to work hard. Overall, this leads to low standards of organizational performance, which leads to losing competitive advantage, and in the end can lead to the failure of the organization.
  • It is amazing how poor leadership can destroy an organization. Take a look at some of the organizations that failed due to ethics - each of them had something in common, unethical and untrustworthy leaders. Finally, look at the countries that have unethical and untrustworthy governments – we call them corrupt – these countries are not the most prosperous in the world. Why do you think that is? It all comes down to the quality of the leadership.
  • When you are out in your organization in a formal leadership role, you should always be aware that your actions are setting the tone for all of those who follow you, and your ethical values and trustworthiness are also setting the tone for those who follow you. You always want to make the best leadership decisions and be as ethical and trustworthy as you can be so others will follow suit and your department or organization can thrive and succeed.

Assignment 14:

For this project, you will first need to complete the self-assessments required in the Check Your Understanding Activities found throughout the course. You will be analyzing and evaluating your own leadership development in multiple areas. The purpose of this project is to provide you with tools to create a self-awareness of your own strengths and weaknesses as a leader, as well as to help you improve overall in your leadership abilities.

It is essential that you use outside scholarly references throughout the project, and that you analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the research on each of the topics listed in the project. Additionally, you should be synthesizing the information from the required course readings and the discussion postings to provide another perspective on the paper.

In a well-written paper, address each of the following as they relate to your leadership development. Each is worth equal value.

  1. Provide a background of yourself, including where you live, what you do for a living, and your previous leadership experience – either formal or informal. This will provide a good foundation for the rest of the project.
  2. Self-Confidence is a large part of developing as a leader. Where are you currently with regard to self-confidence based on the self-assessments? What does this mean for you as a leader? What steps can you take to improve your self-confidence score?
  3. Leadership traits, skills and styles are all relevant in leaders today. Where are you currently with regard to traits, skills and styles as they relate to leadership based on the self-assessments? What does this mean for you as a leader? What steps can you take to improve these scores to become a more effective leader?
  4. Some approaches to leadership include situational, Path-Goal, and Leader Member Exchange. Where are you currently with regard to these three approaches based on the self-assessments? What does this mean for you as a leader? What steps can you take to improve upon these areas?
  5. Other approaches to leadership include Team Leadership, Collaborative Leadership, Participatory Leadership, and Transformational Leadership. Where are you currently with regard to these approaches based on the self-assessments? What does this mean for you as a leader? What steps can you take to improve upon these areas?
  6. With regard to gender, the Gender-Leader Implicit Association Test and Masculinity-Femininity Self-Assessments can provide further insight into your leadership styles. Where are you with regard to these assessments? What does this mean for you as a leader? What steps can you take to improve in these areas?
  7. Culture plays an important role in leadership today. The Culture Questionnaire and the Individualism-Collectivism Self-Assessments can provide insight into the dimension of culture and leadership. Where are you currently with regard to cultural aspects of leadership? What does this mean for you as a leader? What steps can you take to improve in these areas?
  8. Integrity and Trust are essential to successful leadership. Where are you currently with regard to trust and integrity as shown in the self-assessments? What does this mean for you as a leader? What steps can you take to improve in these areas?
  9. How do you compare your current leadership, based on the previous assessments, to where you want to be as a leader? Are you close to where you want to be? Are you better off than you thought? Would other people agree with your self-assessments, or do you think that answers would be different if they came from your coworkers, superiors, or subordinates? How would they differ?
  10. How do you feel you compare in your current leadership as compared to your best examples of great leadership? These could be people at work, people in your personal life, etc. What qualities do you have that they don’t? What qualities do they have that you don’t? How do you achieve that level of leadership?

The paper should be a minimum of 5 double-spaced pages. You should use at least three additional, credible sources beyond the textbook.Follow Saudi Electronic University academic writing standards and APA style guidelines, citing references as appropriate.