A Critical Examination of Ethical Leadership Theories and Practices

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Ethical Leadership – its causes and challenges, a critical reflection
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Leadership Theories.........................................................................................................................4
Leadership Styles.............................................................................................................................5
Ethical issues in Leadership.............................................................................................................6
Overcoming the issues in leadership...............................................................................................7
A critical Reflection.........................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
Reference List................................................................................................................................12
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Introduction
Ethical leadership is considered important for maintaining the workplace of an organisation and
preserving the rights and dignity of the employees in the workplace. The implementation of
ethical leadership within the organisation is done to ensure that all the employees are functioning
to the best of their abilities and meeting with the organisational requirements. This assignment
shows the challenges faced by leaders while using ethical leadership and the ways it affects the
business operations of the workplace. Besides this, it is important for leaders to make use of
appropriate leadership theories and styles for marinating the performance of the organisation in
the market. This instigates the performance of the employees in the organisational context and
helps them to address their job roles and responsibilities. The assignment highlights the
techniques and methods used by the leaders in the organisation to deal with the issues and
challenges and enhance their overall process of business.
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Leadership Theories
It is important to ensure that leaders are selecting appropriate leadership theories so that they are
able to increase the performance of the employees. Besides this, the right choice helps them to
lead the people working for the organisation. This section discusses certain important leadership
theories that are important for leaders to follow in their workplace. Some of the theories have
been discussed below in a detailed manner:
Great Man Theory
This leadership theory aims to explain that leaders are not made but born. It states that
individuals born with characteristics such as confidence, charisma, social skills and intelligence
are most likely grow into leaders. Besides this, it also explains that all the qualities of a
successful leader are inherited. The organisations making use of this leadership theory depends
of their leaders largely (Odumeru and Ogbonna, 2013). Their leaders are capable enough to
display their leadership skills in the workplace in times of crisis. The theory has been named
Great Man because in the olden days, leaders were supposed to be male personality, as it was
mostly used for military officials. According to the concept of this particular theory, individuals
are unable to learn about the qualities and traits of successful leaders. They have these qualities
by birth and they can put it to good use if they are exposed to a difficult situation (Avolio and
Yammarino, 2013).
Trait Theory
This is another important leadership theory that is mainly used by companies for enhancing their
organisational performance in the market. The ideology of this theory is quite similar to that of
the “Great Man theory”. According to this theory, the individuals are said to have certain
qualities and traits that make them different from the other in many ways. This theory clearly
explains the behaviour or personality of individuals within an organisation context (Schyns and
Schilling, 2011). Leaders should be courageous enough to take quick decisions in the workplace
and implement new and developed strategies so that they can meet with the organisational
objectives. Trait theory explains that leaders should be able to motivate the employees in the
workplace in such a manner that they perform the task that has been allocated to them.
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Contingency Theory
This type of theory depends on the importance of situations that the organisations are facing at
present. According to this theory, it is important for leaders to decide their strategies depending
on the current issues that affect the functioning of the organisation (Schyns et al., 2011). Besides
this, it states that there is no fixed leadership style that could be used in the workplace. It is
significant for leaders to balance the functioning of the workplace in such a manner that
organisations are able to perform in an effective and efficient manner. They should be capable
enough to understand the requirements of the employees in the workplace so that they can
provide help for enhancing their performance in the workplace. The implementation of the
contingency theory allows organisations to gain success while dealing with the challenges and
issues in the workplace (Dugan and Komives, 2011).
Leadership Styles
The leadership styles refer to the qualities of leaders that allow them to motivate and guide the
employees at work. Leaders have their own style of leading and managing people at work and it
depends on the organisational requirements. It is important for them to select the right style for
ensuring smooth functioning of the workplace. The selection of appropriate style allows them to
provide suitable solutions to the issues that are faced in the workplace and enhance the quality of
work that is done. This portion discusses some important styles of leadership that are frequently
used. They are as follows:
Autocratic Leadership Style
This is considered an essential leadership style that states the level of expectation from the
employees within the workplace of an organisation (MALOŞ, 2012). With the help of this style,
leaders are able to ensure that they are explaining the roles and responsibilities of the employees
in the organisation so that it positively affects their performance in the organisation. The
employees have to ensure that they are following the instructions of the leaders so that they are
able to increase the organisational productivity. The most important aspect of this leadership
style is that leaders are able to make their own decisions for the benefit of the workplace without
consulting the employees. As a result of this, sometimes the process of decision-making suffers
within the organisational context. Employees have to face difficulties while addressing their
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duties, as the leaders have complete rights to take their own decision (Cummings et al., 2010).
However, this leadership style is most suited in place where there is not much time to discuss
about the functioning of the organisation.
Democratic Leadership Style
This is regarded as an effective leadership styles that have immense positive impact on the
workplace performance. The democratic style of leadership states that leaders are more effective
when they are involved with the employees in the workplace. The importance of employee
engagement can be seen in the way employees are allowed to share their ideas and perceptions in
the workplace. As a result, the impact on the overall productivity of the organisation increases in
a huge way. Leaders gather ideas from all the employees in the workplace and select the best
idea that could be implemented in the organisation. However, they are responsible for the final
stage of decision-making in the workplace. With the help of employee involvement in the
workplace, employees develop a sense of motivation and encouragement and they are able to
perform in a creative fashion.
Transformational Leadership Style
This important style solely aims to inspire and motivate the employees within the premises of the
organisation. This helps employees to bring about necessary changes in the workplace and
enhances the quality of their performance in the organisation. The leaders look to train their
employees so that they are able to use technologies to meet with the organisational requirements
(Hoel et al., 2010). Moreover, it helps to boost the quality of individuals while they are working
to achieve the organisational goals. Besides this, the implementation of transformational
leadership style has helped to increase employee satisfaction and their performance.
Ethical issues in Leadership
Ethical leadership has its share of issues and challenges that should be addressed in the
workplace. These issues have a tendency to affect the workplace of organisations in a negative
manner, resulting in the decrease in the work standards of the employees. The major issues faced
while implementing leadership has been outlined below in a summarised manner:
Maintaining the organisation vision
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It is essential for the leaders to make sure that they are functioning for the vision of the
organisation. This is not always easy to maintain, as employees might find it complicated to
work in accordance to the set ethical standards in the workplace. As a result, employees are
unable to meet with the requirements of the company and it reduces the productivity of the
workplace. Setting the standards of ethical leadership within the workplace could create an
atmosphere of tension and might pressurise the employees while attaining their job roles and
responsibilities.
Increased dependency on leaders
Since leaders are responsible for most of the business operations of the organisation, employees
and other staffs have a tendency to depend on the leaders for their work. As a result, it becomes
difficult for them to handle pressure in the workplace. Individuals should follow their leaders so
that it allows them to perform in an effective and efficient manner (Jogulu, 2010). However,
following the leaders too much indicates that their mistakes in the organisational context will be
overlooked and it could have a negative impact on the functioning of the organisation.
Consistent Performance
In order to make sure that the organisation is performing in a consistent manner, it is significant
for the leaders and the employees to meet with the organisational requirements. However,
performing in a consistent way is never easy. The organisation might face difficulty in order to
develop their products and services by maintaining the same quality. As a result, it portrays a
negative impression about companies in the minds of the consumer. Due to this, the overall sales
and profit generation of the organisation decreases.
Overcoming the issues in leadership
Overcoming the ethical issues in leadership is important for the organisation to ensure smooth
operations in the market. Besides this, it enables them to increase their profit generation in the
market. It is necessary for the leaders to train the workers in a proper manner so that it enables
them to perform their job responsibilities and roles in the workplace. They should make certain
that all the employees are able to make use of advanced technologies in the place of work so that
it helps to achieve the organisational objectives. Leaders should look to assist the employees
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within the organisation and provide them with regular feedbacks for enhancing their performance
(Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2016). This will help to reduce the amount of mistakes made by the
employees and will help to increase the productivity. Leaders take recourse to reward
distribution amongst the employees based on their performance. This helps to motivate the
employees and they strive to achieve their target that has been assigned to them. This will help
them to maintain the ethical standards within the organisation.
Besides this, they should look to provide incentives to the employees that have performed in a
better way. This will help to motivate the other employees and they will look to address their job
responsibilities to gain incentives from their leaders. It is important for the leaders to maintain
the cross-cultural difference in the workplace. It allows them to meet with the requirements of
the organisational. The leaders should look to make the employees more responsible by
allocating them with job responsibilities (Rebore, 2013). It is important for the leaders to work in
alignment with the policies and legislations of the workplace. This will allow them to maintain
the functioning of the different departments and overcome the ethical issues that have an affect
on the achievement of the administration.
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A critical Reflection
This critical reflection is extensively concerned with my own experience of working as a leader
or leadership whereby I also analysed areas that require immediate action for my own growth
and development. I think that leadership is a specific process or series of events directed
commonly towards the achievement of the team or group goals and objectives. In other terms, it
is a constant demonstration of pattern behaviour that deals with certain goals and objectives. My
own participation with my work was pinched from superior levels of empowerment and
independence, which my seniors and administrators helped to promote. During my leadership
duration, I explored various ethical problems and issues in my team. In order to eliminate the
ethical issues, I knew that there were many other alternative options of leadership approaches
and styles and it was vital for me to choose one appropriate style or approach. I realized that in
order to bring the team together or influence them to work as a single unit, it was important for
me to grow and develop in my leadership as well (Avey et al., 2012).
There were many ethical issues or challenges associated with my team such as their increased
reliability on me. This created a major problem or posed as an obstacle in the path of the success
of my team or me. I always believed that teamwork as a single unit is an important part of
leadership and it is important to consider that in victorious leadership. I improved my ability to
view a specific scenario as positive despite our apparent grubbiness of it. I considered adopting a
transformational leadership approach i.e. concerned with the interaction with different team
members in order to develop a solid and strong relationship with the individual team members.
After analysing all the ethical issues in my team, it was time for me to analyse my way of
leadership and the steps I needed to take or execute in order to enhance the performance of my
team. I individually needed to improve my communicative skills in order to ensure that the
included affirmations on the job did well. Some of the areas that I needed to further develop for
my own career success were delegating roles and responsibilities to my every individual group
members.
During my role as a leader, I acknowledged that delegating roles and responsibilities is very
much important as it unburdens the workload of the whole team and not just of the leader.
Similarly, influencing the whole group towards eliminating issues and issue-solving activities
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made me understood that it could provide various benefits and opportunities for effective
decision-making. I also learnt during my leadership that a greater autonomy level in the work
necessitates relevant skills and traits gets set for the work as because the team members due to
this, tend to perceive higher responsibilities and satisfaction. Hence, the different skills and traits
of my team members must by synchronized with the different autonomy levels needed by the job
role. This reflection was also complemented with the theory of Path-goal leadership and Gibbs
theory of leadership in which a leader counsels its individual members towards the
accomplishment of the goals and objectives (writepass.com, 2017).
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Conclusion
Maintain the ethical standards within the organisational context are important for the leaders.
They have to keep a track of their employee performance within the workplace so that they are
able to deal with the issues and challenges and overcome them. From the above discussion, it
could be concluded that it is important for the leaders to make use of different leadership theories
and styles in the organisation. It was observed that the ethical issues in the workplace could have
negative impact on the overall functioning of the organisations. The ethical leaders should look
to implement appropriate leadership techniques in the workplace so that they can work in order
to sustain their level of performance.
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Reference List
Avolio, B.J. and Yammarino, F.J. eds., 2013. Introduction to, and overview of, transformational
and charismatic leadership. In Transformational and Charismatic Leadership: The Road Ahead
10th Anniversary Edition (pp. xxvii-xxxiii). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Cummings, G.G., MacGregor, T., Davey, M., Lee, H., Wong, C.A., Lo, E., Muise, M. and
Stafford, E., 2010. Leadership styles and outcome patterns for the nursing workforce and work
environment: a systematic review. International journal of nursing studies, 47(3), pp.363-385.
Dugan, J.P. and Komives, S.R., 2011. Leadership theories. The handbook for student leadership
development, pp.35-57.
Hoel, H., Glasø, L., Hetland, J., Cooper, C.L. and Einarsen, S., 2010. Leadership styles as
predictors of self‐reported and observed workplace bullying. British Journal of
Management, 21(2), pp.453-468.
Jogulu, U.D., 2010. Culturally-linked leadership styles. Leadership & Organization
Development Journal, 31(8), pp.705-719.
MALOŞ, R., 2012. THE MOST IMPORTANT LEADERSHIP THEORIES. Annals of Eftimie
Murgu University Resita, Fascicle II, Economic Studies.
Mayer, D.M., Kuenzi, M. and Greenbaum, R.L., 2010. Examining the link between ethical
leadership and employee misconduct: The mediating role of ethical climate. Journal of Business
Ethics, 95(1), pp.7-16.
Odumeru, J.A. and Ogbonna, I.G., 2013. Transformational vs. transactional leadership theories:
Evidence in literature. International Review of Management and Business Research, 2(2), p.355.
Rebore, R.W., 2013. The ethics of educational leadership. Pearson Higher Ed.
Schyns, B. and Schilling, J., 2011. Implicit leadership theories: Think leader, think
effective?. Journal of Management Inquiry, 20(2), pp.141-150.
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