Ethical And Unethical Decision In Leaders: A Discussion

Discussion

Discuss about the Ethical And Unethical Decision In Leaders.

Ethical leadership defines the leadership style, which is guided by respect for ethical values and beliefs towards maintaining the dignity and rights of others (Zhang et al., 2014). They can lead the employees towards organizational success through ethical and standard set of organizational values and principles. This study will describe a situation, which is linked to my learning experience upon leadership concept. I will describe my internship program in an organization of Singapore, where worked as a leader of a small leader. The study will link the situation with my learning experience about leadership. This study will describe some of my attitudes, which might predispose with certain types of leadership behavior. The study will also describe my personal values and sense of ethical and unethical decision in leaders. The study will also explain some of my work related preferences.

Leadership defines the practical skills within an individual, which make him/her capable of leading individual, groups and even entire organization. According to Palanski, et al., (2014), effective leaders are always capable to inspire others in their organization. Moreover, leaders are positive and optimistic about the future of organization. In such situation, such positive attitude of the leaders becomes inspiring factor for their followers. Just like the leaders, I always remain positive about my positive. The optimistic thinking inside me leads to towards handling complex situation positively. Therefore, such positive attitude inside me can facilitate me in being an effective leader through inspiring others. On the other hand, Brown and Treviño, (2014) opined that effective leaders have high level of emotional intelligence, which makes them capable of understanding others’ emotion. Moreover, they can understand the inner feelings of their followers towards assessing their hidden capabilities. In this context, I have strong emotional quotient, which makes me capable of understanding other’s feelings and perspectives. Such high level of emotional intelligence would lead me towards being an effective leader in an organization. Moreover, I will be able to understand the internal motivational factor of the employees towards successfully leading them for better production.

Zhang et al., (2013) pointed out that effective leaders are always inclined towards maintaining integrity in their work. Moreover, they always take leading decision based on moral and ethical consequences of the decision. In such context, I always maintain ethics and adhere to moral perspectives in all my works. Such ethical adherence will build my potentiality towards being an effective leader through maintaining ethical ground in leading the followers. On the other hand, Demirtas and Akdogan, (2015) opined that effective leaders always respect their followers and appreciate them for their efficiencies. It helps the leaders in building collaborative and trustable relationship with followers. Likewise, I always respect the people around me, which make me capable of building trustable relationship with them. Such unique personality within me can predispose towards with trustable behavior of the leaders. Furthermore, Yukl et al., (2013) opined that effective leaders have high level of self-regulation power for managing themselves even in stressful situation. I have also felt strong self-regulation power in some extent of my life, where I effectively managed myself to deal with difficult situation. In this way, I can better exploit my strength over my weakness towards managing any stressful situation in organization. It will help me in better leading the people in stressful situation towards achieving organizational success.

Personal Values And Attitudes Influencing Leadership Behavior

Sharif and Scandura, (2014) opined that values are the principles, qualities and standards within an individual, which leads them towards right direction. While considering my values, I always remain authentic in all my work, which directs me towards my success in almost every aspect of my life. I am also adventurous and highly inclined towards performing challenging task. I always take interest in learning new things through handling difficult situation with adventurous mind. The learning interest within me encourage me towards trying innovative work, which needs creativity power. It has always facilitated me in exploring new edge of life towards getting success. On the other hand, Jordan et al., (2013) opined that ethics defines the moral principles, which govern and direct people towards differentiating between right and wrong decision. From my perspective, ethical decision and action always spread greatest amount of good among the people. I think that ethical decision leads people towards right direction in getting success in their life. It is more like being in accordance with the standards and rules for rights conduct. However, I faced tough challenges in maintaining the ethics in the organization during my internship. Moreover, apart from personal life, ethical conduct also facilitates in maintaining standard practice in professional life. In case of leadership, ethical practice helps the leaders towards maintaining fairness with their followers for leading their properly.

I have understood that unethical decisions and actions lead people towards wrong decisions. Moreover, unethical leadership actually leads the leaders towards taking dishonest decision, which creates a distrusting relationship of the leaders with their followers (Newman et al., 2014). I think unethical decision in the leadership enhances the sufferings of the followers, which demoralize them in their workplace. Furthermore, as per my view, ethical leaders foster an ethical commitment both in themselves as well as their followers. It encourages the followers in sticking to core organizational principles. Moral reasoning defines the manner through which leaders make decision about ethical and unethical actions for solving moral decision. Therefore, I think moral reasoning surely facilitates the leaders in maintaining code of conduct within their organization though controlling the behavior of followers.

I do not have any long-term professional working experience. However, I did my internship in one of the reputed organizations prior to the course. I was given the opportunity to work as the team leader of a small group. It was a people based company in the service sector. While working in the organization, I came to understand that execution of moral and ethical values was extremely difficult. Pierro et al., (2017) pointed out that a leader needs to ensure overall team performance optimization over individual perspective so that cumulative outcome remains unbiased. On the other hand, Hassan et al., (2013) highlighted that focusing on individual performance helps in creating directive approach to guide and nurture employee performance. I found myself to be a team player over individual achievement as I dealt with overall performance outcome over a single candidate. However, in doing this in was not able to gain knowledge of individual team mate issues and reasons for lagging.

Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Effective Leadership

While considering the viewpoint of Van Gils et al., (2015), motivation leads to achievement and a leader is the best person so ensure the factor. Considering Theory X, a leader creates motivation through rewards and recognition system and this is truer while approach is according to individual goal oriented. On the other hand, Shin et al., (2015) pointed out that task-oriented leaders create more pressure on team mates and therefore highlighting inefficiencies create de-motivation among mates. In found myself to be both task-oriented and people-oriented however, since I followed team player approach, this contradicted with individualistic approach. Therefore, I failed to execute my leadership style as there was contradiction between approaches. From here, I can understand that I lack leadership qualities such as creating motivation among the team mates.

According to Harvey et al., (2014), leaders who are process driven often find challenges while executing their leadership style because employees are asked to work under a set of policies and procedures, violation of which would lead to serious consequences. On the other hand, Chughtai et al., (2015) pointed out that goal driven leaders are more comfortable in leadership execution than process driven as employees are given flexibility and relaxation to achieve set goals. Considering two-factor theory, it can be said that existence of hygiene factors will surely help in creating motivation among employees. Being a leader, one needs to highlight the issues and discrepancies faced by employees. The same needs to be escalated to management. However, I being the leader failed to justify the hygiene factors such as positive work culture as I mostly followed process-oriented approach. Therefore, it can be said that I lack communication efficiency and creation of motivation along with positive work culture.

Yidong and Xinxin, (2013) pointed out that most of the service based organizations ensure psychological and safety needs of the employees. However, failure in execution must be highlighted by a team leader. On the other hand, Demirtas and Akdogan, (2015) argued that it must be the managers who should be held responsible for poor execution of hygiene factors. Finally, Sharif and Scandura, (2014) highlighted that a team leader is the next best supervisor who needs to create the third stage, belongings and relationship needs by following the Maslow Hierarchy Needs theory. For such relationship, a leader must be open to all team mates through clear communication and by creating a positive work culture. On the contrary, I being the leader always focused on process driven objectives and overall team player approach by ignoring employee commitment and motivation initiatives.

Integrity and Adherence to Ethics in Leadership

Considering the leadership approaches, I understood some of the strengths and weakness that I pose. I believe in creating competition and discipline by adhering to policies and procedures but at the same time I fail to coordinate with team members. I believe in serving the management and therefore find myself to be a servant leader. Some of my characteristics are awareness, healing, empathy and listening through conceptualization and persuasion. I do not have the ability to remain self-aware and self-conscious against my inner values and actions and therefore, I lack implementation ability. However, some of my strengths are maintaining discipline, ability to work under process and maintain outcome in tight schedules. Finally, it must be highlighted that I have the ability to work under critical scenarios as being calm and cool has helped me to justify and settle situations. In this way, managing employee grievances and meeting management expectations.

According to Shin et al., (2015), collaboration refers to the degree of co-operation among the employees in an organization. The purpose of collaboration is to achieve share and overlapping objectives of an organization. Therefore, being a leader, I highly value collaboration with the employees of an organization. It would enhance the support of the people for one another for which the employees can easily complete complex jobs. On the other hand, Yidong and Xinxin, (2013) opined that competition among individual employees is also important for enhancing their productivity. It is true that competition among the employees drive them towards enhancing their effort level. However, from my perspective, competition leads to a competitive environment within an organization, where everyone is competing with other. It can even foster beating mentality of the employees for each other, which can even cause clashes among them. Therefore, I do not value competition among the employees. Moreover, I never created any competitive mentality among the team members of the organization, where I worked as a leader during my internship program.

Pierro et al., (2017) pointed out that social harmony meets the social needs of the employees, which rely upon effective, trustable relationship and highly level of communication among them. I think highly level of social harmony among the employees encourage them towards discussing over the topic, which are even beyond their professional boundaries. In this way, the employees can feel a familiar feeling even within their workplace, which reduce their work stress and enhance their job efficiency level. Therefore, I highly value social harmony in leading the employees in an organization. Moreover, I already took initiatives towards fostering social harmony among the team members of the organization, where I worked as a leader of a small team during my internship. The knowledge from my learning experience would better lead me towards building collaborative team in future.

Respect for Followers and Trust-Building in Leadership

Chughtai et al., (2015) opined that time urgency is extremely important for completing the organizational task within stipulate deadline. It enhances the value of the customers through getting time delivery of the products and services. Moreover, from my perspective, strong time urgency within the employees drives them towards completing their task within strict deadline. In this way, it helps in enhancing the value of organizational project. Therefore, I have strong value of time urgency towards leading the employees of an organization. It also did the same for leading my team members in the organization during my internship programs.

Conclusion

While concluding the study, it can be said that my work experience during my internship program is quite related to my learning experience. Moreover, I gained enough practical experience about leadership during that working situation, where I used to lead a small team in a reputed organization in Singapore. I have some unique personalities, which might be predisposed towards certain leadership behavior. Moreover, strong emotional intelligence and integrity power will lead me towards being an effective leader in future. Apart from that, I think ethical leaders always take ethical decisions, which spread greatest amount of good among their followers. From my perspective, team player initiatives are always better than individual achievement. I always value for both task-oriented person as well as people-oriented person. Moreover, I used to play the role of a manager in the organization having concern for both task as well as people towards leading better productivity.

References

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