Ethical Leadership is that you go the right way for yourself and your people together at the same time. Ethical Leadership examples are established by the ethical leaders, which motivates the followers to practice similar ethics in their day-to-day work lives. What is ethics in leadership, refers to the trust, justice, righteousness established between the leader and followers. Leaders do need to understand the importance of the principles of Ethical leadership, so as to be able to lead that way.
What is ethics in leadership?
Ethics in leadership, are like the bricks in constructing a building. It is very important for the leaders to have clarity of the ethics, in order to implement it in the organization. To understand Ethical Leadership, one needs to understand the principles of Ethical leadership in detail, one can:
Set Ethical Leadership examples.
- Bring ethical leadership principles like community, justice, respect, integrity, and honesty in regular practice.
- Ensure there is zero tolerance to unethical means.
- Lead as an ethical leader, and set examples that can be followed.
- Recruit ethical employees.
It is very important to understand the ethics in leadership. Understanding ethics helps out both the employer as well as the employees to be able to achieve a good working relationship, trustworthy business, meaningful results, and always an inspirational success journey. It is a must for leaders to understand the importance of ethical leadership as well as the principles of ethical leadership in the process. Ethical leadership is a leader is driven but not dependent approach, where every individual in the team has the power and courage to express clearly, take a good decision and contribute to the overall growth of the organization.
Principles of ethical leadership
Principles of Ethical Leadership as highlighted time and again in the Ethical leadership theory given by multiple philosophers and researchers.
As indicated in some of the theories, the ethical leadership principles do follow a common trend of practicing
- Justice,
- Equality,
- Integrity,
- Trust built in between the leader and the followers.
Since ethical leadership is an example-led approach of leadership, the leader needs to ensure that the principles of ethical leadership like
- integrity,
- truthfulness,
- trust,
- justice,
- honesty,
- and transparency are well followed.
As the leader proceeds, his people follow, and that’s how the entire process of Ethical leadership keeps advancing in the process.
Why is ethical leadership important?
- Ethical leadership should be based on “doing in a way that sets examples”.
- Leaders if following the ethical values promote the same culture overall in the organizations, motivate the fellow employees, and encourages them to follow the ethical practices.
- Looking at their leader going the right path, and the results a leader can produce, the employees do start understanding what is ethical leadership and why is it important.
- As the leader uplifts following the practices on his way, the followers do get a sense of reliability as well as insurance on the outcome of the approach, and they are pushed up from within to follow the same approach on their way forward.
- But point to be noted here is that this process should be anywhere in a way that the leaders get projected to be dominating. It should be his acts not his orders, that compel his people to do anything.
What are unethical behaviors?
Unethical behavior starts propagating within the organizations when the employees, fail to understand what is ethical leadership and why is it important. Ethical Leadership examples set up by the leaders, if understood well, can avoid the practice of unethical behavior within the organization.
Unethical behavior includes the
- Malpractices, like cheating, lying, dominating.
- Corruption
- Non-disclosure of conflicts of interest
- Discrimination
- Abusive behavior
- Offering or receiving bribes
- Usage of company property for personal use
- Manipulation in expenditure records
- Forgery in company records and documentation
Moving to the inter organization relationships, unethical behaviors also refers to the deviation from agreed-upon points from the agreements (code of conduct) signed between the two parties, stealing data from any of the other party’s resources, or accessing/using resources that are not allowed or approved.
Anything that falls against following the practices of ethical behavior in the business would fall into unethical. It also includes recording or creating a backup/copy of the other party’s data without the permission of the other party.
Any identified practice of unethical behavior can also lead to legal implications and may result in legal punishments and fines. It’s important for the employees to understand the difference between ethical and unethical ways right from their roots.
How to be an ethical leader?
An ethical leader works to set up examples for the followers to implement and grow on their way. To become a successful Ethical leader, one has to follow the below-mentioned steps:
Have your values defined with you, all your way.
Keep your values aligned with your followers.
Recruit the employees with similar values in your organization
The values may not be the same, but there should always be a common vision shared amongst the leaders and all the employees.
Establish a culture of open communication
Always promote ways within the organization to support and encourage open communication. Take measures to ensure there is no biasing. Always beware.
Frame a path, that can be followed by others. Set examples to lead people around.
Focus on your behavior and choices, as your people are going to learn from them and follow the same.
Do find a role model for yourself and it will always be inspiring for your growth journey. It helps to choose one if you do a little research at your end.
Lastly, always take good care of yourself, as you need to be fit enough to take care of others.
Conclusions and Key takeaways
Ethical Leadership is a culture of leadership, where every individual member contributes to the overall success, irrespective of whether it’s the leader or the follower. It is truly and entirely based on truth, respect, honesty, integrity, and community, which encourages the involved members to keep doing their best and stay motivated throughout and forever.
It helps to achieve optimum and reliable success. It also helps to maintain overall harmony in the work environment, which is another factor that amplifies the output. With an Ethical Leadership approach, the leader is able to attract employees, who share common cultural values and vision.