Ethical Decision Making and Leadership: A Critical Analysis

Project Management

1. INTRODUCTION
The management of the business is the crucial task which require individual to be highly
confidence and ethical towards the business. However, ethical decision making becomes the
choice of current managers due to differences in their personality, moral values and culture of the
business. This has huge impact on the business performance because employees need to work
with integration and deliver good quality of services to large number of buyers. In this context,
the current essay aims to draw critical analysis of ethical decision making and ethical leadership
by referring several academic sources and relevant literature. Furthermore, personality
development plan or growth plan has been prepared by getting the insight of questionnaire
outcome. In this context, three questionnaire including Big Five personality instrument and
emotional intelligence etc. have been used or presented for getting the deep insight about the
personality traits of learner. In addition to this, detailed plan has been supported through the
timeline and SWOT analysis which provides clear picture of the growth plan. This facilitates to
ensure the leadership development and improve the decision making power of an individual.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Concept of ethical decision making and its relationship to effective managerial practice
Ethical decision-making is the process of taking key decisions by considering ethical
moral, principles in taking decisions along with evaluating and selecting the best from various
alternatives (Ford & Richardson (2013). Ethical decision-making helps the decision-maker to
face the ethical dilemma and make choice in the difficult situation. In ethical decisions there is
no right no wrong because everything is base on the moral values. Therefore, ethics is a
necessary part of the decision-maker because on the basis of its decisions may be strong and
effective.
With the help of the ethics, manager can challenge our natural boundations and
partialities. Ethics and decision-making both are connected because ethics are important for a
manager because with the help of it decision becomes more reliable and related to the conditions.
Stressful situations can be observed and resolved with help of the ethics because it provides the
1

basics of the values of society and then reach on the point and take the decisions by removing the
ethical dilemmas (Selart & Johansen, 2011).
On the other hand, Gillespie & Dietz (2009) stated that with the help of the ethics, leaders
unethical behavior can be traced and scandals can also be removed from the business because it
use the all surroundings and try to solve the consequences of the firm. However, Sonenshein
(2007) argued that in modern era, decision-maker use the less ethics while taking decisions
because they use their own values and business internal code of conduct. This is not applicable
for the manager to possess own beliefs instead of ethical values because it has major impact on
the business success and authenticity of the decisions. It shows that ethical awareness was
misunderstood by the manager to take the decisions and do not focus on the moral values of the
ethics. Nonetheless, Nyberg (2007) asserted that ethical codes provide the guidelines and
universal rules to the decision-maker so that stressful situation can also be handled with the help
of the moral principles.
Since ethics includes right and wrong aspects for the businesses as well as society which
makes the company successful so it becomes important for leaders to be ethical. Therefore, it
reveals that ethics is important for the manager while taking decisions because it focuses on the
moral values and behaviors so that problems can be sorted out. It facilitates the effective
decision-making because it removes the unethical context and dilemmas.
Capabilities and skills are necessary to promote good ethical decision making
There are several skills including self-confidence, positivity, fruitful communication,
admit the mistakes etc. which are required to enhance the ethical decision-making because these
are those things which facilitates the effective decisions without any biasness (Johnson, 2017). In
this context, ethical leader possess the skill of focusing on the teambuilding because all members
of the team are important part of the decisions. Further, all people have equal contribution to the
organization so that effective decisions can be taken by the manager.
On the other hand, Bello (2012) argued that decision-maker emphasis on the employees’
imitativeness so that they can provide the better ideas, suggestions and share their experiences
regarding the problem. It will be helpful to encourage the self-confidence in the people so that
decisions become more strong and authentic in nature.It reflects that for the ethical decision-
2

making a decision-maker have the skills to take the initiative regarding all team members for the
better alternatives but teambuilding is also necessary to have the better interactions with people.
It may be helpful to have the decisions with ethics in the business so that an effective corporate
image can be built.
Moreover, Walumbwa & et al., (2011) mentioned that ethical decision-maker must have
the capability to build trustworthy relationship with employees by making them realize about
their importance at workplace. Otherwise, employees in case of rude leaders with the ethical
approaches feel like nervous and try to remain outside from the decision-making process. So
whatever will be decided by the manager they will accept that and perform the task according to
that decision. However, Piccolo & et al., (2010) argued that a decision-maker have the capability
to involve in the task performance to all the members who follow him. Because ethical
leadership has direct impact on the performance of the employees and it will supports the people
to put extra efforts so that productivity can be increased and ethical behavior can be maintained.
Therefore, it indicates that an ethical decision-maker should have the skills of trust so that
employees can be engaged in all activities but he can focus on the performance of the task to
increase the engagement of the all team members in the organizations.
Relation of personality (including the validity of personality measurements) with good ethical
decision-making
Personality traits always affect the ethical decision-making because it directly relates to
the mental ability of an individual. Through these personality characteristics, ethical decision-
making shows that the manager is capable or not to face the ethical dilemmas or they require the
further new training programs (Kiliç, Pelit & Altunöz, 2011). In this regard, Khalid et al., (2011)
stated that age, gender and experiences are the personal factors of the individual that have impact
on the ethical decision-making because as per the knowledge and maturity level manager can
take the decisions. Further, those decisions may be effective or not because they choose the
alternatives as per the ethical dilemmas. However, Trevino and Jacobs (2007) mentioned that
proportional variations of the decisions are affected by the complexity of the individual
characteristics. However, different personalities have different traits which affect the decisions in
positive or negative manner. Similarly, Forte (2004) argued that mature manager is more capable
to have the positive ethical decisions as compared to the young managers because experience
3