Attributes Of Ethical Leadership In Leading Good

Analysis of ethicality of Carlos Slim’s Personal Philanthropy as Support to his Business Interests

Discuss About The Attributes Of Ethical Leadership In Leading Good?

Philanthropy refers to the idea, action, activities or event that is executed for the betterment of the humanity. The philanthropy involves sacrifice rather than motive of profit. The activities included in the philanthropy are donation of money to any charity, local shelter volunteer, or collecting find for any disease like cancer and others. Many businesspersons follow the philanthropic idea in order to do wellbeing of the society as well as the humanity. In other hand, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to the idea of business approach contributing to the sustainability of an organization by developing the economical, social and environmental conditions for the key stakeholders of the organization. Most of the nationalized company practices the CSR activities in order to hold the sustainable existence of the organization.

While considering the fact of the similarity or the difference between the CSR and philanthropy the two are not the same. However, from the surface perspective CSR and philanthropy looks same, but there is little difference between the two. The practice of philanthropy is done without any personal motive of profit whereas the CSR practice is performed for maintaining the sustainability of the organization (Sahota, 2013). This is the basic deference between the two ideas.

Concerning above analysis of the philanthropy the report discusses the ethicality of the personal philanthropy of Carlos Slim in supporting the business interest. The ethical refers to the some idea, activity or action that is morally acceptable and does not create any dilemma in mind (Othman and Rahman, 2014). Ethical also entails honesty and morality. The chosen case study suggests that the personal philanthropy of Carlos Slim in supporting the business interest is ethical. It is evident from the case study that the philanthropic practice of Carlos Slim was aligned with the business activities. He, apart from owning numerous companies and trying to gain more profit firm all the business, supported education, training and development of the team that orients the business. The ethical philanthropic approach of Slim is evident from his people oriented business approach. As discussed above the work ‘ethical’ refers to the idea, which is morally acceptable. The approach of Slim is honest and definitely acceptable. The case study presents the fact that he has never shown personal interest in the acquisition of the company Telmex and others, instead he always had shown his business interest with a motive and objective of donating money to the charity. He wanted to execute his philanthropic ideas and practices through his different business approaches. Not only by donating money to the charity but also by establishing financial schemes for the people having low wages, he proved his philanthropic practice to be ethical in terms of the business interest. He focuses on the expansion o business as well as on the welfare of the social lives of human together. There is no doubt that the personal philanthropy of Carlos Slim had been a support to his business interest in an ethical manner.

Leadership Style of Carlos Slim

It is not possible to refer to one style as the leadership style of Carlos Slim, rather it can be said that he is the mixture of various styles. In some of the instances of his activities, he is seen as the leader who is task oriented and autocratic. Again, he is also seen using his people oriented approach as the transactional leaders. His managerial styles are based on the situation. Here, in this regard the contingency leadership style can be mentioned. The contingency leadership style changes with the changing of situations (Northouse, 2015). This particular leadership style can be linked with Carlos Slim as his behavioral tendencies imply him to be task motivated or relationship motivated. 

Martinez (2013) suggests that the managerial principles of Slim include ten principles that are effective and suitable to the management leadership style of Slim. These ten principles include minimal and simple organizational structure that flexible and responsive, austerity maintenance in times of plenty in order to strengthen and accelerate the growth, proactive in seeking simplification, improvement and modernization in productive process, unlimited the company parameters, achieve the business objectives together, focus the re-investing strategy, creativity for problem solving, optimistic vision and approach and feeling of the existence. This principles of management indicates the philosophy and leadership style of Slim. For example, communicating the guiding principles in order to motivate his workers for being innovative and creative in solving problems refers to the transformational leadership style of Slim.

For understanding the leadership approaches of Carlos Slim, the Leadership Grid of Robert Blake and Jane Mouton can also be mentioned. The leadership grid not only refers to the alternative leadership style but also help assisting the development process of leadership (Josanov-Vrgovic and Pavlovic, 2014). The variables of the grid are the respect, people and task. The five section of the grid entails different views of leadership style.  The grids are:

Impoverished management signifies the low concerns for both the tasks and people. The leaders under this group are less interested in work process and leave the decision over to the group of workers.

Authority-obedience management displays high concerns for tasks and low concerns for people by the leaders. The leaders under this grid are authoritative and take all the decisions.

Country club management refers the high concerns of leader for the people and low concerns for tasks. Leaders following this style tend to seek harmony and avoid conflict in decision-making.

Motivational Theories

Middle of the road management is a non-committal in focusing on the task as well as on the people. The leaders with this style put minimum effort in balancing the people and tasks. Thus, workers of this group are not extremely productive. 

However, the leadership approach of Slim cannot be categorized individually under any one grid. He reflects the leadership style of authority obedience and country club management. In other hand, though his approach of leadership to certain extent can be related to the contingency leadership style, he never followed ant specific leadership style. Therefore it is better to say that he is the mixture of all leadership style.

To discuss the motivational factor of Slim in his works the motivational theories must be investigated. A thorough analysis of the theories will make the motivational factor if Slim understandable. The theories are:

The content theories imply the understanding of human needs and the response of the people to different situation (sielearning.tafensw.edu.au, 2017). These theories are also known as the need theories. The theories included in the content theories are the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Erg theory, Herzberg’s Two Factor theory and McClelland’s Need for Achievement, Affiliation and Power.

The process theories of motivation refer to the additional insights of people giving meaning to rewards and responding various work related behaviors (sielearning.tafensw.edu.au, 2017). The theories under this category determined the effort for the sustainability. The theories under this category are Equity theory, Expectancy theory, goal setting and the self-efficacy theory.

The reinforcement theories of motivation focuses on the environment as one of the major sources of rewards influence the behavior of human (Richter, Raban and Rafaeli, 2015). The factors of the theory are the positive rewards, negative rewards, extinction and punishment.

While discussing about the motivation of the workers by Carlos Slim, the process theory can be linked with the same. The workers of Slim followed the motivational theory of self-efficacy under this particular category.  The theory refers to the sense of the workers of being responsible and self-efficient in plying the role that has been assigned to him. It is noted from the case study that he once commented that his workers are the resource of his business that are ready to take new challenges that comes every day in their way of performing the job. The goal setting theory can also be partly linked with the motivational factor of Slim in motivation the workers. The goal setting theory referring to the effects of setting the goals on the subsequent performance ensures the better  outcome from the workers. It is clear from the case study that the workers of Slim are motivated by the ‘buy-into’ the strategic vision of the organization as defined and goal set by Slim.

Concerning about the needs of the workers as addressed by Slim the theory of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can be mentioned. This particular theory refers to five levels of hierarchy that define the basic needs in of the people in general (Niemela and Kim, 2014). However, the theory can be linked with the workplace too. The five levels being the psychological, safety, social, esteem and self actualization are extremely related to the needs of the Slim’s workers as addressed by him. It is evident in the first two sections that Slim always had shown his business interest through his personal philanthropic ideas. Therefore, the theory is the perfect example in analyzing needs of the workers that Slim addressed. However, the reinforcement theory cannot be anyhow linked with the motivational leadership of Slim followed by his workers, as the case study does not suggest any instances that are related to this theory.

Power can be recognized as the ability of a person to make someone to do some activities that the former person wants to be done. In other words, the power is the ability to control someone or any situations or rather make the desired thing happen. However, it would not be right to say that Carlos Slim have power to control his employees, despite having the ability to control the situation and the workers. Slim was not the dominant leader that usually uses his power to control everyone. Rather it can be said that Slim possessed the personal power that is more like influencing someone to identify himself with the former one. It is better o say that the Slim had tie referent power that was recognized by his workers that influenced enhancing their loyalty and strengthening their ‘buy-into’ the strategic vision of the organization set by Slim. However, the case study provides evidence that the position of power had been underplayed by Slim in many ways to influence and focus on the ability of the workers in achieving the organizational objectives. In this regard, it can be said that the position of power based on the offerings of the managers to others the first category of reward can be linked with Slim’s release of power. In other hand, Slim had the personal power based on the worker’s view, which can be discerned as referent power.

To discuss about the leadership and the power of Slim on motivating his workers the difference between the power and influence must be understood. The power and influence are not the same (Richardmckeown.com, 2017). The power creates dominance over workers while the influence creates impact on the workers. Power is something that is gained from position, hence the power dominates and control things, whereas the influence is personal and comes from the personal knowledge and values (Lunenburg, 2012). Therefore, the influence can be distinguished as motivational. In other words, the power is something that makes the person to be resented by others, but influence makes the person to be respected by the people.

Hence, it is clear from the discussion and the evidence from the case study that Slim did have some power that he gained from the business and money but that he did not use the same in dominating his workers. Rather it can be said that he influenced his workers to be like as a person with whom the workers liked to identify themselves. In addition, he never pushed his workers for achieving the organizational goals of the business; rather he persuades his motivational ideas into his workers that made them identifying him as the leader being referent. In fact, the difference of power and influence is clear from the leadership style of Slim as presented in the case study.

Conclusion:

This can be concluded from the above discourse on the case study of Carlos Slim that the philanthropic activities of him were related to his business interests. He used his business interests for supporting his philanthropic practices. However, the case study as well as the discussion on the same proves that the personal philanthropic ideas of Carlos Slim in supporting the business interests were ethical. The ethicality of his philanthropic practice is related to his leadership style, which is a mixture of all possible styles of leadership. His leadership style also reflects his motivational ideas and factors in motivating workers to achieve the objectives. The theories in the above report show evidence of the motivational leadership style of Slim. In addition, the report presents that the power of Slim is more influential rather than dominating which indicates the motivational leadership style of the person.

Reference:

Josanov-Vrgovic, I. and Pavlovic, N., 2014. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP STYLE AND TEACHERS’JOB SATISFACTION IN SERBIA. Montenegrin Journal of Economics, 10(1), pp.43.

Lunenburg, F.C., 2012. Power and leadership: an influence process. International journal of management, business, and administration, 15(1), pp.1-9.

Martinez, J., 2013. Carlos Slim: The Richest Man in the World/The Authorized Biography. Titletown Publishing, LLC.

Niemela, P. and Kim, S., 2014. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research (pp. 3843-3846). Springer Netherlands.

Northouse, P.G., 2015. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.

Othman, Z. and Rahman, R.A., 2014. Attributes of ethical leadership in leading good governance. International Journal of Business and Society, 15(2), pp.359.

Richardmckeown.com, 2017. “Power” vs. “Influence” – Building a Legacy of Leadership | Richard McKeown. [online] Richardmckeown.com. Available at: <https://richardmckeown.com/power-vs-influence-building-a-legacy-of-leadership/> [Accessed 20 Sep. 2017].

Richter, G., Raban, D.R. and Rafaeli, S., 2015. Studying gamification: the effect of rewards and incentives on motivation. In Gamification in education and business. Springer International Publishing, pp. 21-46

Sahota, A., 2013. Corporate social responsibility and philanthropy. Sustainability: how the cosmetics industry is greening up, pp.175-195.

sielearning.tafensw.edu.au, 2017. The Content Theories of Motivation. [online] Sielearning.tafensw.edu.au. Available at: <https://sielearning.tafensw.edu.au/MBA/9791F/BusinessServices/LO/1207_020138_605F_02_wi/1207_020138_605F_0204_wi.htm> [Accessed 20 Sep. 2017].

sielearning.tafensw.edu.au, 2017. The Process Theories of Motivation. [online] Sielearning.tafensw.edu.au. Available at: <https://sielearning.tafensw.edu.au/MBA/9791F/BusinessServices/LO/1207_020138_605F_02_wi/1207_020138_605F_0205_wi.htm> [Accessed 20 Sep. 2017].