Question

evaluate yourself as an ethical leader who creates a work environment that supports doing the right thing and discourages unethical conduct by examining”Am I walking My Ethical Talk” questions on page 280 of the Trevino textbook. Select what you believe are the three most important question for you as an ethical leader and explain why these three are important to you.

Following is ”Am I walking My Ethical Talk” questions on page 280 of the Trevino textbook.

A common phrase used by today’s managers is “walking the talk.” If your intention is to be an ethical leader, here are some questions to ask yourself to see if you’re walking your ethical talk. 1. Do I talk about the ethical implications of decisions with the people who report to me as well as with the job candidates I’m interested in hiring? With my peers? With my manager? 2. Have I made it clear to the people who report to me that I don’t want to be protected from bad news? Do they understand that they can tell me anything without fear of retribution? Do my reports come to me with ethical concerns? 3. Do I provide guidance on ethical decision making, and have I participated in the ethics training of those who report to me? 4. When evaluating the performance of my staff, do I value ethical goals at least as highly as performance and quality goals? Do I focus on the means as well as the ends in decision making and performance appraisals? 5. Do I reward ethical conduct and discipline unethical conduct? 6. Do I require my people to take responsibility for their decisions? 7. Do I support employees who challenge unjust authority? 8. What are the informal norms in my department? If my employees were asked to list the “rules” of working for me, what would they say? Are any of these problematic if ethical conduct is the goal? 9. Do my direct reports know I care about them and will be there for them in good times and bad? 10. If I were to die tomorrow, would the people who report to me say that I had integrity? How would my peers describe me? And what would my manager say? The answers to these questions should form a sound beginning for understanding and managing ethical behavior in your work group and within the broader ethical culture.

Answer 1

There are various Ethical Leadership Theories that prevail in business and society:

• Communitarianism: In this type of leadership, leader considers community as the most important entity of the society. The actions of the leader are aimed towards common well-being. The leader works for the greater good and to develop a collaborative society. The leader tries to encourage participation in decision-making rather than proposing his solution. The supporters of this leader play a special role as they have an upper hand in influencing the leader’s thought direction. This leads us to one dimension of toxic triangle i.e. susceptible followers. These followers can influence the leader’s whim towards ulterior good. But the communitarianism trait helps the leader in identifying the greater good. Mahatma Gandhi was a great Communitarianism leader.
• Authentic Leadership: The central component of this type of leadership is genuineness. This trait of genuineness makes them relatable and trust-worthy. The authentic leader has the heart of owning his mistake and works in correcting the same. These kind of leaders are very influential and are mass-attracters. Talking about authentic leaders, they combat the traits of destructive leaders - another side of the toxic triangle. Authentic leaders never get overwhelmed of their power and or start getting negative. Who can be a better example than Steve Jobs of being an authentic leader.
• Transformational Leadership: This leader serves as a change agent for the society. They are inspiring, are visionaries, the torchbearers of new and improved society. Most striking feature of this leadership is the clarity of vision that they possess. The third aspect of toxic leadership i.e. conducing environment do try to instable their vision, but the instinct and courage of transformational leader fares past such negatives. Barrack Obama is one great example of transformational leader.

The central component of Authentic Leadership is genuineness. This trait of genuineness makes them relatable and trust-worthy. The authentic leader has the heart of owning his mistake and works in correcting the same. These kinds of leaders are very influential and are mass-attracters. Talking about authentic leaders, they combat the traits of destructive leaders - another side of the toxic triangle. Authentic leaders never get overwhelmed of their power and or start getting negative. Steve Jobs is the epitome of being an authentic leader.

Culture intelligence is an essential competency, which aids leaders to work effectively in any kind of cultural background. It helps the leader to propagate a culture of diversity and inclusion.

The specific features of cultural intelligence that aid authentic leadership style are:

• Authentic leadership style, when coupled with cultural intelligence, leads to creation of morally grounded and culturally adaptable leaders, who have the capability to react as per the cultural diagnosis.
• The self-awareness of authentic leaders makes them aware about the importance and impact of cultural system in any organization and they take decisions without any cultural bias, leading to a balanced solution.
• The authentic leaders value ethical perspective in any situation and often prioritize moral actions over strategic actions, in any problem faced in the global business setting.
• The cultural norms dictate the transparency in relationships of authentic leaders and thus facilitate trust building of the leader with his employees.