Ethical Leadership: Exploring Impacts on Business and Culture

This report examines the contrasting impacts of ethical and unethical leadership on business operations and organizational behavior. It explores how ethical leaders foster trust, influence decision-making, and promote ethical conduct within a company, ultimately shaping its culture and performance. Conversely, the report highlights the negative effects of unethical leadership, such as compromising employee trust and potentially damaging the company's reputation. The report also considers the role of ethical leadership in relation to business objectives and values, emphasizing how it can influence business culture and ensure ethical practices. Key references include works by Gan et al. (2019), Shapiro and Stefkovich (2016), and Engelbrecht, Heine, and Mahembe (2017), which provide insights into how ethical leadership can affect business operations.

What is an unethical leader?
Unethical leader is the one at the workplace who used to perform the illegal activity in
the organization to carry out different operation of the business. It can be also said that unethical
leader in the organization is the one who used to violate the existing modal of standards. For
example: Telling lie to the subordinate in context of the objective of the business is unethical
practice as it is right of the employee to have a proper and clear knowledge about the objective of
the organization (Gan and et.al., 2019)
How ethical leadership could influence any business to behave ethically regardless or the
prevailing organisational culture
 Ethical leader in the organization generally find it very easy to build a good sort of the
trust among the different subordinate in the organization, this ultimately result in
employee blindly trusting the leader which eventually help the leader in influencing
business in behave ethically and also get support from subordinate in doing the same
(Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2016). As employee or subordinate generally used to trust the
decision of the ethical leader more easily as compare to Unethical leader .
 Ethical leader in the organization generally used to promote the objectives and the value
of the business in front of all the insider as well as outsider of the business. This
eventually used to help the leader in building a good image of the company in front of all
the interested parties in the organization which ultimately help the business in behaving
the ethical in market regardless of prevailing organizational culture (Engelbrecht, Heine,
and Mahembe, 2017).

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Gan, C and et.al., 2019. Unethical leader behavior and employee performance: a deontic justice
perspective. Personnel Review.
Shapiro, J. P. and Stefkovich, J. A., 2016. Ethical leadership and decision making in education:
Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas. Routledge.
Engelbrecht, A. S., Heine, G. and Mahembe, B., 2017. Integrity, ethical leadership, trust and
work engagement. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.