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Apr 18, 2024 · Ethical leadership involves leaders and managers making decisions based on the right thing to do for the common good, not just based on what is best for themselves or for the bottom line.
- Overview
- What is ethical leadership?
- Principles of ethical leadership
- Ethical leadership examples
- How to improve your ethical leadership skills
- The importance of ethical leadership
- How to highlight your ethical leadership skills
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Ethical leadership demonstrates a high regard for values. The principles of ethical leadership include honesty, justice, respect, community and integrity. Ethical leadership is critical to the success of any business.In this article, we define and provide examples of ethical leadership, as well as detail how to improve and highlight your ethical leadership skill set.
Ethical leadership is leadership centered around appropriate conduct through respect for ethics and values, as well as the rights and dignity of others. The concepts of honesty, integrity, trust and fairness are all critical to ethical leadership.Ethical leadership can provide value to businesses by inspiring employees to be motivated and live up to the company’s values. Experience suggests that ethical leadership leads to greater employee satisfaction and lower turnover rates.Ethical leaders should demonstrate ethical and appropriate behavior in every facet of their life over time, even when their behavior is not necessarily observable by their employees. Ethical leadership may even occasionally be unpleasant, for example when it involves terminating an employee who uses company property for personal ends. Nevertheless, maintaining your integrity is of paramount importance to leadership.
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Honesty
Dishonest behavior is a form of lying or misrepresenting reality. Dishonest behavior by leadership creates an atmosphere of mistrust and can lead to leadership being seen as not dependable. People will lose faith in dishonest leadership. As a result, ethical leaders must behave with honesty.
Justice
Ethical leaders are also concerned with issues of justice and fairness. These types of leaders prioritize treating everyone in an equal manner and placing justice and fairness at the center of their decision-making more broadly. They make a rule of never giving certain individuals special treatment, except when a particular situation demands it for justice.
Respect
Leaders who convey respect to their peers and employers approach others with an inherent sense of their worth and value as individuals. Respect means listening carefully to others and confirming their inherent value. Leaders should also mentor others to become aware of their purpose, values and needs so that ethical qualities spread throughout the organization.
Set an example
Ethical leadership is about walking the walk as much as it is about talking the talk. Ethical leaders have high expectations for their employees, and they hold themselves to the same standards. Leaders also expect other members of their team to lead by example.
Publicly champion the importance of ethics
Ethical leaders focus on the importance of ethical standards and work to educate their teams and peers about their importance. They seek to integrate these values into every facet of their team and company.
Communicate ethics
Ethical leaders need to be good communicators. They should become comfortable speaking in public, leading meetings and writing communications that clearly articulate what they are trying to convey. Good relationships between leaders and their teams are built on fairness, integrity, and trust. Ethical leaders are effective at building these relationships via communication.
1. Identify potential “trigger” situations
Identify situations such as hiring, firing, purchasing or promoting that seem to attract ethical dilemmas at your company or elsewhere. Recognizing when ethical dilemmas are likely to arise can help you be more attuned to the risk and to think carefully about how to behave with integrity.
2. Deal with ethical dilemmas when they arise
Identifying potential dilemmas is one thing, but dealing with them when they arise can be more difficult. There are a few steps you can take to deal with such dilemmas: •Prepare in advance: Visualize how you might respond to theoretical scenarios so you can think about the ethics of such instances ahead of time. In a crisis, you may have less time to make a decision, so this kind of rehearsal can be helpful. •Assess the evidence: Whenever possible, take time to carefully weigh all of the information you receive about a situation. Assess whether someone has taken an unethical action before you react. •Get advice: It is often helpful to talk through an ethical dilemma with a friend, mentor or even a spiritual advisor. Assessing advice rationally can help you to make important ethical decisions.
3. Demonstrate courage
Sometimes you will need to make a decision that will leave you wondering afterward whether you did the right thing. Even when you do know that you made the right choice, you or your team could suffer unpleasant effects as a result even of an ethical decision. For example, if you learn of irregular accounting in your firm and inform an auditor, this could lead to someone being fired. Even though you know that the decision you made was correct, it might be painful to see someone lose their job.However, this type of situation can help you to learn to trust your instincts, release your anxiety and assess each situation logically rather than emotionally.
Importance to the individual
At the individual level, ethical leadership can help maintain a positive work environment for each individual. Ethical leaders can inspire employees to follow their example. Positive communication among co-workers as a result of ethical leadership can in turn influence productivity and improve each individual’s attitude in the workplace.
Importance to the team
Ethical leadership can also improve team dynamics and overall morale within the unit. Ethical leaders help team members to communicate and get along with one another, which in turn affects the team’s performance. Strong ethical leaders set an example for their team.
Importance to the organization
Finally, the overall health and well-being of an organization can be deeply affected by ethical leadership. The leaders should foster an environment of collaboration and mutual respect, one that allows individuals to grow and contribute to the organization’s overall goals.
Ethical leadership is an important leadership skill that can help in all aspects of your career. When a leader and their company consistently do the right thing, employees will be aware of the foundations of their leadership. Management’s actions convey to the rest of the company that the leaders act with integrity. This, in turn, means employees will be more proactive about communication, including when things go wrong.Additionally, ethical leadership skills can be very attractive for hiring managers. Highlight your ethical leadership skills when you are applying for new positions. For example, in an interview, you can convey specific examples of times when you acted with integrity in the workplace.
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Sep 9, 2021 · Ethical leadership is a leadership style grounded in principles like trust, equality and fairness that ultimately promotes the common good of an entity and the success of others.
- Alexandria Jacobson
- Staff Reporter
- Johnson & Johnson’s Tylenol Poisonings. A classic case of ethical leadership in business is “the Chicago Tylenol poisonings.” On September 9, 1982, a Chicago-area 12-year-old girl woke up with a cold.
- JetBlue’s Shutdown. On Valentine’s Day, 2007, at the John F. Kennedy International Airport, JetBlue Airlines sent nine planes from the gate to the runway during a snowstorm, hoping conditions would rapidly improve—but it had no such luck.
- Starbucks’s Racial Bias Incident. If one of your employees made a critical decision based on racial bias, how would you respond? That was the question Kevin Johnson, then-CEO of coffee shop chain Starbucks, had to answer in April 2014.
- The Muse Sticking Up for Employees. Ethical dilemmas often aren’t public scandals—even quiet, internal decisions can have enormous impacts. Kathryn Minshew, CEO and co-founder of The Muse, faced one such scenario in the early days of growing the online career platform.
A New Model for Ethical Leadership. Create more value for society. Summary. Rather than try to follow a set of simple rules (“Don’t lie.” “Don’t cheat.”), leaders and managers seeking ...
Mar 16, 2015 · It is now a “focused passion brand”, intent on providing the best service it can. Demonstrate moral authority. Ethical leaders realize their power isn’t over people, but through people. Leaders can enlist people in any cause if there is a sense of a common mission and shared values.
May 20, 2024 · Learn more about ethical leadership and implementing ethical practices in your workplace. Embracing ethical leadership can be a transformative force for your organization, leading to increased productivity, a positive culture, and ethical consistency.
