Use for leadership scholars/practitioners having a little look at ethics Pamela F Murray

1. Ethical leadership

2. “The remarkable thing is that we really love our
neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do
unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate
ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we
tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we
forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others
when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves”.
Eric Hoffer:

3. • A Mori opinion poll showed that only 28 per
cent of the British public trusts business
leaders to tell the truth.
• Doctors were consistently at the top of the list
of the most trusted profession (92 per cent)
• Why?
Base: 2,074 British adults aged 15+, November 2006, Source:
MORI/RCP 2006

4. What are Ethics?
At its most basic, ethics is deciding what is
right (or more right) in a particular situation
—determining what ought to be — deciding
what is consistent with one’s personal or
organisational value system.

5. What is ethical leadership?
As individuals complete the following sentence with
short words and phrases. Then share your results
and come to a group definition
Ethical leadership is….
Ethical leadership is….
Ethical leadership is….
Ethical leadership is….
Ethical leadership is….

6. Definition
What do you think of this definition?
Ethical leadership is knowing your core values and
having the courage to live them in all parts of your
life in service of the common good.
Source: Center for Ethical leadership
http://www.ethicalleadership.org/philosophies/ethical-leadership

7. Group discussion
Below are some reflection questions to ask on
your personal journey toward ethical leadership:
Will you be the same person at work? At home?
In the community?
Will you have the courage to live out your values
when there is pressure to compromise or
rationalise?
How do your values contribute to the common
good?

8. Enron; What went wrong?
• One of the most famous examples of not having an ethical leader is in the
company Enron. According to Seeger and Ulmer, which is noted in Organizational
Communication: Perspectives and Trends by Michael J. Papa, Tom D. Daniels and
Barry K. Spiker, this is the best way to understand ethical failures.
• Enron Corporation is a gas pipeline company that turned into a huge enterprise. In
2001, the company collapsed due to scandals and bad leadership. Basically, the
reason why they failed was due to a set of values that employees had to agree to,
but in fact executives were demonstrating a different set of values. Due to this
miscommunication of values and other important facts, the company went
bankrupt.
• The conclusion to the Enron case, according to Wee Heesun, is that smart CEOs
will realize that an honest, transparent, and trustworthy culture can also bolster
employee morale and ultimately guard shareholder value.

9. Politics
Positive politics
Business enhancing
Energetic debate over
scarce resources
Being pleasant and
friendly to people who can
help you
Not treating some people
as better than others
Negative politics
Business limiting
Information used
selectively to benefit
yourself at the expense
of other people
‘sucking up’ involves
treating people who may
be useful to you as
better than others

10. Conger - Dark side of leadership
• Jay Conger warns of dangers associated with high-profile leadership practices
• Looks at leaders first hailed as exemplary & later as misguided or morally
suspect
• Leader’s distort vision to meet egocentric ambitions
• Leader develops sense of invulnerability & belief in ‘rightness’ of their vision
• Failure of charismatic leader due to:
– Commitment to vision – shift to single-minded obsessiveness
– Authentic communication – with vision as extension of leader’s personality
needs communication is les authentic
– Style of charismatic leader – exclusion and stereo-typing
Source: J.A. Conger, The dark side of leadership, Organizational
Dynamics 19 (1990), pp. 44–55.

11. ‘Pseudotransformational’ leaders
• Working with Burns’ definition, Bernard Bass in 1985
concluded that transformational leaders motivate
followers by appealing to strong emotions regardless of
the followers.
• In contrast to Burns, who saw transformational leadership
as being inextricably linked with higher order values, Bass
saw it as amoral, and attributed transformational skills to
people such as Adolf Hitler and Jim Jones.
• Bass later invoked the notion of ‘pseudotransformational’
leaders may also motivate and transform their followers
but in doing so they arouse support for special interests at
the expense of others rather than what's good for the
collectivity.
Source: Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance
beyond expectation. New York: Free Press.

12. The corporate psychopath
“They look and dress the same way
as most businessmen they may even
use the same language. Some of
these people are fairly persuasive,
they can manipulate, they’re very
charming, some of them even
charismatic. And a lot of people,
they like them, they think they’re
kind of fun to be around, but it takes
a long time before you can figure out
that something is really amiss here”.
(Professor Robert Hare).
Source: Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths
Among Us; Robert D. Hare;The Guilford Press;1999

13. Quiz: Is your boss a psychopath?
For each question, score two points for "yes," one
point for "somewhat" or "maybe," and zero points for
"no.“
[1] Is he/she glib and superficially charming?
[2] Does he/she have a grandiose sense of self-worth?
[3] Is he/she a pathological liar?
[4] Is he/she a con artist or master manipulator?
[5] When he/she harms other people, does he feel a
lack of remorse or guilt?
[6] Does he/she have a shallow affect?
[7] Is he/she callous and lacking in empathy?
[8] Does he/she fail to accept responsibility for his own
actions?
Total____
If your boss scores:
1-4 Be frustrated
5-7 Be cautious
8-12 Be afraid
13-16 Be very afraid
Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/96/open_boss-
quiz.html

14. The ‘Servant Leader’
‘Good leaders must first become good
servants.’
•Be authentic
•Be vulnerable
•Be accepting
•Be present
•Be useful
Source: Greenleaf, R. (1997). Servant Leadership. New York
Paulist Press.

15. Values of servant leadership
• Collaboration rather than competition; it puts a premium on truthfulness
and admitting mistakes.
• The capacity to move to the other side, i.e., to feel with compassion.
• Being accountable, not blaming. Blaming is covering up. Accountability
offers the possibility for growth.
• Being willing to compromise with others when appropriate, and therefore is
not in need of always controlling the outcome.
• Letting go of control and trusting and validating others.
• Seeking the enhancement of the individual or community as the outcome
over productivity.
• Power for participation, not for domination – power with, rather than
power over.
• Systems that value and validate their members and tell the truth. Systems
fail when they exploit the members and hide and conceal.
• Putting oneself at risk, with humility and clarity.
‘Buzz’ discussion
How much does you adhere to these values?
Source: Greenleaf, R. (1997). Servant Leadership. New York Paulist Press.

16. ‘Whistle Blower’
Whistle blowers are people
who reveal generally harmful
or very unfair activities, often
of which they have become
aware because of their
employment position within
their employer's organisation
and, or their access to
otherwise unavailable
communications from within
the organisation.
Discuss in your
groups when you
would become a
whistleblower

17. Characteristics of an ethical culture
• 1. Leaders support and model ethical behaviour
• 2. Consistent communications come from all leaders
• 3. Ethics are integrated into the organisation’s goals,
business processes and strategies
• 4. Ethics are part of the performance management
system
• 5. Ethics are part of recruitment process and
selection criteria.
Source: IBE
Briefinghttp://www.ibe.org.uk/publications/Briefing_4.pdf

18. “Divorced from ethics, leadership is
reduced to management and politics to
mere technique”.
James MacGregor Burns