Exercising responsible leadership in a Singapore context

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the western developed notion of responsible leadership (RL) from a Singapore context. Design/methodology/approach Following the qualitative research tradition, face-to-face interviews with 20 influential Singaporean leaders were developed into case studies. Grounded theory methodology was applied to identify similarities and differences within and across cases. Findings The findings reveal that the interviewed Singaporean leaders projected traits and values consistent with western definitions of responsible and effective leadership. Findings also suggest that contextual factors such as national culture and the ethos of the nation as well as leaders’ relational intelligence influence RL. These factors also help responsible leaders to better manage the tension between responsible and effective leadership. Research limitations/implications The small and geographically bound sample size makes it difficult to generalise the findings of this study. As in other ethics studies, interviewees’ desire to present a socially desirable image of themselves could be high in this study. Finally, the methods and analytical techniques applied may be biased and be influenced by the purposive selection of the participants. Practical implications Singaporean business leaders may need to consider the importance of retaining and developing the national culture and ethos of the nation, since these are the factors that have been identified in this study as key to influencing RL. Originality/value This study identifies the factors that influence RL from a Singapore context. It extends the understanding of the mostly western-based multi-level theory of RL.

Responsible leadership practices in the hospitality sector family businesses: evidence from an emerging market

“…Moreover, sustaining trust with different stakeholders requires relational intelligence (Pless and Maak, 2005;Mousa, 2020a;Mousa et al, 2021a;Mousa and Chaouali, 2021) and relational intelligence includes (1) emotional intelligencetheir ability to appreciate and engage with people from various backgrounds and (2) ethical intelligencetheir ability to absorb conflicting interests through exporting values and wisdom (Pless and Maak, 2005;Mousa, 2021). Responsible leaders must always show commitment to their communities, sustain trusting relationships with diverse stakeholders and collaborate to serve the common good (Maak and Pless, 2006;Koh et al, 2018).…”

“Being true to oneself”: the interplay of responsible leadership and authenticity on multi-level outcomes

“…In Asian context, specific research investigates RL's effect on micro, meso and macro-level outcomes like unethical pro-organizational behaviour, talent retention, organizational citizenship behaviour, environmental performance, job performance and pandemic management (Yasin et al, 2020;Javed et al, 2020a;Afsar et al, 2020;Zhao and Zhou, 2019;Haque et al, 2019aHaque et al, , 2019bHan et al, 2019;Mehta et al, 2020;Lin et al, 2020). While exploring the Western developed notion of RL in the Asian context, Koh et al (2018) observed that Asian leaders possessed values and traits accordant with the Western concept of RL. Further, the construct of RL has already been studied in Pakistani context (Javed et al, 2020a(Javed et al, , 2020bAfsar et al, 2020) which addresses and dispels the apprehensions regarding the contextual factors.…”

Identifying core “responsible leadership” practices for SME restaurants

“…Regarding employees, power-sharing practices were found to be essential in SME restaurantsa finding similar to the results obtained by De Hoogh and Den Hartog (2008) for SMEs in services, trade, repairs and so on. Finally, ethical behavior on the part of the leader is also identified as an essential practice in SMEs restaurants, a finding that echoes most of the literature, regardless of the sector and the size of the companies analyzed (Antunes and Franco, 2016;Koh et al, 2018;Mousa, 2018Mousa, , 2019bVoegtlin, 2016). In sum, the present results reflect the multidimensionality and complexity of RL (Scully, 2015), the need to adapt RL practices to the hospitality sector due to its particular characteristics (Freire and Gonçalves, 2021), and the positive impact on business performance of carrying out these practices (Salem et al, 2021).…”

“…The scholarship has endeavored to measure the practices associated with the responsible leader (Agarwal and Bhal, 2020; Eriksen and Cooper, 2018; Koh et al , 2018; Waldman et al , 2020). However, the approaches, measurements and perspectives adopted in the literature on this topic vary considerably.…”