Introduction
In the current society today, the roles that leaders play in an organisation are much more significant and are studied in greater depth. The importance of ethically managing an organization and leading the entire organization towards a similar purpose and message requires great leadership. With this, we would look further into the practice of ethical leadership; how it’s defined and attempt to provide a more comprehensive understanding of ethical leadership and it’s relation with integrity.
What is Ethical Leadership?
Firstly, Ethics is a philosophical term that is related to the prescription and description of moral principles that guides people’s behaviours, suggesting that there are “acceptable” and “unacceptable,” as
The people orientation characteristic highlights the selflessness, externally focused and responsibilities required of an ethical leader which clearly demonstrates another vital characteristic and element of ethical leadership and rebuts the claim that ethical leadership is mainly about integrity.
Additionally a moral manager is required to guide as a role model, be motivating and encouraging to influence employees, delegate and empowering employees with responsibility, and align employees thinking with the organisations’ goals and ethical standards (Resick, Hanges, Dickson & Mitchelson 2006). Finally they have to ensure proper ethical standards within the organisation, by executing ethical accountability within an organisation, done via rewards and punishment systems (Petrick & Quinn 2001). All this goes way beyond pure leadership integrity, and even though ethical integrity is an intangible asset of ethical leadership, it is merely a piece of the puzzle. As it is clearly demonstrated that ethical integrity is only one sixth of the characteristics required of an ethical leader and there are evidently numerous other influential factors and elements that contribute to ethical leadership which must be satisfied. This reinforces the statement that ethical leadership consists of various concepts with many fundamental elements included but is not mostly about ethical integrity.
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