Discuss about the Authentic and Transformational Leadership Styles.
Ethical leadership does not only mean that the leader will have only the have right values or have the string characters who will lead the others by examples. An ethical leader is said to possess the characteristics of a leader with the determination to succeed but will build a framework for the others to follow and attain success. The knowledge and understanding of the integrity is the very base of an ethical leader and can influence and lead others. Leaders that are ethical have a clear understanding of the acceptance, values and principles so that they can grow in their professional career, self-worth and personal knowledge. Thus, a person who is pursuing to be an ethical leader must first understand the personal limitations, behaviours, weakness and strengths and also is willing to help others (Shapiro and Stefkovich 2016).
The authors present that the leadership should and must be based on a philosophy which emphasizes the right action that will lead to the wellbeing of an individual. Thus, the wellbeing is held by the authors as the essential value. The views provided by the authors reveal that the conceptual framework provided by Aristotle facilitates a connection between the ethics and leadership. The authors reveal the fact that there is no clear distinction between leadership and ethics. It is true that the many time’s people desire the leaders to be moral but this is not always the case. For example, then it is often seen that when the material wellbeing of a person gets either substantially or mildly affected. When such a scenario arises when the people want their prime managers and the fund managers to show them the money. However, even if the process involves the ethically questionable practices and might involve legal but immoral or illegal but immoral, then to people would want it to happen (Levine and Boaks 2014).
In order to highlight and increase the clarity, it is important to note that the authors want to convey that a connection needs to be developed between leadership and ethics. This phenomenon is also termed as Machiavellian skeptic. Machiavelli advocator of realpolitik rejects the idea that people are only interested in a type of leadership which is ethically good and effective. However, Machiavellian skeptic emphasizes what is effective and would deny the fact that good leaders are ethically good and at the same time effective. The Machiavellian skeptic also denies that the fact that good ethical sense and its effectiveness in a leader is not likely to go together (Levine and Boaks 2014).
The difference between the descriptive and the prescriptive accounts of leadership is that the people want their leaders must be ethical, however, the prescriptive accounts are problematic. The prescriptive models are problematic due to the five reasons: 1) both the concerned person has their own prescriptions, 2) prescriptions are not performance-based, 3) the prescription does not take into account the critical aspects which are not consistent with the model, 4) prescriptions do not take into account the situational variation, 5) when the leadership is a multilevel phenomenon, then the individual behaviour is framed. Ciulla claims through an example that a good corporate leader is always viewed as a leader who is morally effective and good, however just as effective. Also considering from the perspective of a political leadership, when the matters related to well-being (personal, social and political), justice and fairness clashes the connection between the morality and leadership. It is also perceived that, if torture protects us, unjust inequalities provide us with the desired goods then there is a perception that such a leader is good and will provide us with all the desired goods. The authors present the view that good leadership does not always mean that it is morally good and effective. The illusion with respect to the good leaders is fostered both by the followers and leaders (Levine and Boaks 2014).
Argument- According to Mayer et al. (2012), the main three aspects of ethical leadership are: by being an ethical example, treating people fairly, actively monitoring morality. Treating people fairly and assisting and helping people by providing an ethical example, these two desirable characteristics are one of the major reflections of an ethical leadership. Some of the traits of an ethical leader are hardworking, compassionate, caring and honest. Treating people fairly is one of the ethical behaviours which discourages the unethical behaviour and encourages the normative behaviour to the subordinates through the transactional efforts like communication about punishing the unethical behaviour and about the ethics. It has been argued by Sendjaya et al. (2016), the Machiavellianism is found to be reversing the positive effects of both the authentic leadership on moral actions and moral reasoning on authentic leadership. It has also been found that the some of the leaders that are morally right but sometimes they engage in unethical behaviour of lying and bullying and it is irrespective of what they think of themselves or what others think of themselves. This is one of the main reason and is one of the major gaps of the study conducted as such issues later yield to corporate scandals.
According to Hill (2017), Leaders in different types of organizations face challenges and those things are encountered during engaging with the stakeholders which make up their working environment. Similar kind of situation arose just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, which is also called the twin towers. Central Intelligence Agency was asked by President Bush to round up the persons that presented to be a continuous harm to the U.S interests. Such an incident was followed by a series of actions and decisions by a number of the external and internal constituencies and these are all based on the information extracted from the detainees.
A report published in Vox (2018), reports that a shooting incident took place in Parkland, Florida and the reactions of President Trump has drawn heavy criticism from several areas. President Donald Trump has mentioned in his initial round of tweets reminded the country that the Florida shooter has shown an erratic and bad behaviour and such a behaviour should be reported to the authorities. This was not received well by the Florida citizens. The critics called the response to be a victim blaming and the survivors of the event were neither inspired nor comforted. The heavy criticism focused on the fact that the Donald Trump has failed to highlight gun control as a policy area. Rather it can be considered as a lack of the moral context as a whole. Analysis of the past incidents suggests that the Trump’s speech is not up to the mark and it did not impress the people of Florida. This shows that President Trump is weak in his position and he shares some of the characteristics of a disjunctive leader that comes to power due to the relevance of a dominant party and decline in cohesion.
Transformational leadership theory- transformational leadership is evident at all levels of the organizations like the organization, division, department and teams. The leaders that possess such a characteristic is a thoughtful thinker, risk taker, daring, inspiring and visionary. These leaders have a charismatic appeal and along with it the other factors that are exhibited by a transformational leader is an inspiration motivation, intellectual stimulation, idealized influence individualized consideration. Within a corporate setting due to uncertainty, organizational instability, global turbulence the transformational leadership acts as the best form of leadership style. The followers of such a transformational leader demonstrate high levels of organizational commitment, of satisfaction and organized citizenship behaviour with respect to a politics (Price and Weiss 2013).
In the transformational leadership, ethics plays a major role and attempts to change the corporate values of the company. This also reflects the humane standards of standards and justice and fairness. In other words, it can be said that a manager is adapted and have knowledge of his followers (Northouse 2017). Transformational leadership includes the qualities of values, ethics, emotions, charisma, visionary, persuasive style of leadership, motivation, inspiration. Transformational leadership is treated as a process that between the followers and the leaders and this leadership theory provides an insight into the other types of leadership models. Ethics is at the core of the leadership and is needed for running a business in a proper way. The employees will be willing to work because they will be able to feel that they are needed without any biasness (Yasir and Mohamad 2016).
Ethical decision making- from the perspective of transformational leadership perspective, the ethical decision making provides a process through which the effective decision making can be done. This will be done with consistency in the ethical principles and the ethical decision making is done based on the choosing the ethical alternative (Ford and Richardson 2013). Thus the recommendation is as follows:
Conclusion
From the above study, it can be concluded that ethical values and ethical principles are the base of the political and organizational leadership. Political and the organizational leadership calls for an ethical leader who will work for the betterment of the citizens of employees respectively. This study has involved a journal which has presented a view that the all good leaders are not ethical, however, the literature review provides a different perspective. Transformational leadership serves the best ethical leadership theory which incorporates the leadership style in an ethically. The transformational leader has the characteristics of a thoughtful thinker, risk taker, daring, inspiring and visionary. A transformational leadership looks for the effective ways to motivate and inspire his countrymen or his employees. The ethical decision making at the same time serves the organization that manages a lot of employees. The ethical decision making is a process through which the conflicts between the employees can be reduced.
Reference
Ford, R.C. and Richardson, W.D., 2013. Ethical decision making: A review of the empirical literature. In Citation classics from the Journal of Business Ethics (pp. 19-44). Springer, Dordrecht.
Hill, R.P., 2017. Failure of Ethical Leadership: Implications for Stakeholder Theory and “Anti?Stakeholders”. Business and Society Review, 122(2), pp.165-190.
Levine, M.P. and Boaks, J., 2014. What does ethics have to do with leadership?. Journal of Business Ethics, 124(2), pp.225-242.
Mayer, D.M., Aquino, K., Greenbaum, R.L. and Kuenzi, M., 2012. Who displays ethical leadership, and why does it matter? An examination of antecedents and consequences of ethical leadership. Academy of Management Journal, 55(1), pp.151-171.
Northouse, P.G., 2017. Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice. Sage Publications.
Price, M.S. and Weiss, M.R., 2013. Relationships among coach leadership, peer leadership, and adolescent athletes’ psychosocial and team outcomes: A test of transformational leadership theory. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 25(2), pp.265-279.
Sendjaya, S., Pekerti, A., Härtel, C., Hirst, G. and Butarbutar, I., 2016. Are authentic leaders always moral? The role of Machiavellianism in the relationship between authentic leadership and morality. Journal of Business Ethics, 133(1), pp.125-139.
Shapiro, J.P. and Stefkovich, J.A., 2016. Ethical leadership and decision making in education: Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas. Routledge.
Vox, 2018. Don’t look to the president for moral leadership. [online] Vox. Available at: https://www.vox.com/mischiefs-of-faction/2018/2/19/17025728/trump-moral-leadership-parkland-florida-shooting [Accessed 8 May 2018].
Yasir, M. and Mohamad, N.A., 2016. Ethics and morality: Comparing ethical leadership with servant, authentic and transformational leadership styles. International Review of Management and Marketing, 6(4S).
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