Ethics and leadership: Enablers and stumbling blocks

Abstract

Many of the scandals, indiscretions and collapses, over the last few years, at formerly venerated organizations were the results of toxic relationships, dubious economic models, opaque workplace paradigms, as well as questionable collective and individual actions and behaviours of people who, ordinarily, would not be considered ‘typically criminal’. The individuals involved have typically been people with good education, caring parents, were community contributors and, by all accounts, appeared to be upstanding members of society. Their involvement, therefore, in corrupt acts and relationships thus brings a numbers of issues under question—an important one of which is their ethical maturity, and the forming of that ethical development through important societal institutions such as: religion, education and the family. We set out to understand what some of the stumbling blocks were that prevent individuals from courageously acting on their sometimes vast bases of theoretical/common knowledge with respect to ethics and morals, but which has not yet become common practice. Additionally, we also sought to understand what the various enablers were for individuals who were able to live and act ethically, to further enhance such ethical and moral living and working. Our research sample was 646 middle managers who were all enrolled on the MBA programs of the University of Cape Town (South Africa) and Erasmus University (Netherlands). The research respondents self‐reported on both the stumbling blocks and enablers, through writing up their personal experiences for our research. They also reported on what some of the practical actions were that they employed to live and work ethically. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

How Moral Identity Influences Leadership Ethics: A Historical Case Study

“…This study provided further support for the moral identity model by Hart and Matsuba ( ) by showing how social influences and the moral orientation affected the moral identity construct of the study subjects of this case study. Because this study focused primarily on moral identity influences relative to education, family, peers, and religion, the results corroborated with research by April et al ( ) that showed how family, education, spirituality, peers, and other influences can enable ethical conduct.…”

The Impact of Perceived Ethical Leadership and Organizational Culture on Job Satisfaction with the Mediating Role of Organizational Commitment in Private Educational Sector of Islamabad, Pakistan

“…In numerous studies led on administration, the accentuation has been on the initiative procedure, pioneer practices, association with the group of onlookers and authoritative yields. (Yukl, 2002;April et al, 2010;Gardner et al, 2005). Be that as it may, as of late, the initiative has ended up connected with current exploitative practices.…”

Relationship Between Ethical Leadership, Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction at Hotel Organizations

“…Today, the term 'ethics' commonly refers to a written or unwritten ethical system that defines what is culturally considered wrong or right, good or bad (Aronson, 2001) and what kinds of components an ethical and virtuous lifestyle contains (April, Locke and Mlambo, 2010). On the other hand, within the field of leadership, researchers have not yet found a common definition for what constitutes ethics.…”

“…In many studies conducted on leadership, the emphasis has been on the leadership process, leader behaviors, relationship with audience and organizational outputs (Gardner et al, 2005;April et al, 2010;Aianei, 2006;Powers, 2006;Adeyemi, 2010;Yukl, 2002). However, in recent years, leadership has become associated with current unethical behaviors (see, for example, Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat) in business life, and governments have imposed new regulations enhancing studies in ethical leadership (Brown, Trevino and Harrison, 2005;Resick et al 2011;Den Hartog and Belschak, 2012).…”

“…However, in recent years, leadership has become associated with current unethical behaviors (see, for example, Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat) in business life, and governments have imposed new regulations enhancing studies in ethical leadership (Brown, Trevino and Harrison, 2005;Resick et al 2011;Den Hartog and Belschak, 2012). Since the 2000s, many studies (Aronson, 2001;Van den Akker, Heres, Lasthuizen and Six, 2009;April et al, 2010;Mihelic, Lipicnik and Tkavcic, 2010;Kalshoven, Den Hartog, De Hoog, 2011;Elçi, Şener, Aksoy and Alpkan, 2012) have focused on what ethical leadership behavior should be and what its effects are. Resick et al (2011) stated that most leadership theories and research were created with a Western perspective in mind.…”