Question

How would you respond to the post below?

Leaders are tasked with their position to bring a group of people together to work towards the same goal. While working towards the goal does not mean the leader will be ethical but if the leader would like to create an ethical culture they must lead by example. A leader’s public can private morality should not be differentiated from the other. If that were the case, it would be accepting unethical behavior in either facet of life. Also behavior from one side of life tends to spread into the other side. For example, Pope Francis made some changes to his approach which leads by example. He changed to papal Mercedes to a Ford Focus, which is a more conservatively priced car (Moore, Mayer, Chiang, Crossley, Karlesky, & Birtch, 2019). Both vehicles get the Pope from point A to point B, but does the Pope really need a car that could be valued over one hundred thousand dollars? These small changes give an example to other members of the church to rethink how they have been performing day to day. It is important for leaders to demonstrate this conduct because their followers are watching their actions. There is a popular saying that “actions speak louder than words” and ethical leadership demonstrates that because the associates will mimic the actions of the leader (Warrick, 2016). While many Popes before him stayed at the Apostolic Palace, which is home to the Vatican Libraries and Sistine Chapel, Pope Francis chose to live in a two bedroom apartment (Moore, Mayer, Chiang, Crossley, Karlesky, & Birtch, 2019). The idea that the Pope, head of the Catholic Church would do such selfless acts encourages the Bishops and other leaders to follow suit. The Pope is also a great example of how bad people cannot be good leaders. While a bad person might be in a leadership position, it does not make them an effective leader. Ethical leaders are vital to maintaining an ethical organization. Per Moore, Mayer, Chiang, Crossley, Karlesky and Birtch (2019) “consistently find that higher levels of ethical leadership are associated with lower levels of misbehavior via lower levels of moral disengagement” (para. 103). While having a code of ethics and training the employees is important, the documents need to be supported with action and action specifically by leadership.

Answer 1

Leaders are capable to influence people to achieve a common goal. To achieve organizational, personal or group goals some of the leaders follow ethical path and few opt unethical and illegal way to achieve short term gains. A true leader may be deciding to transform the organizational gaols through lead by example.

A leader may decide his approach towards different facets of life and his followers may also adopt the same without knowing the reality. It is the charisma of a leader like Hitler, Broker T. Washington, Mr. Barak Obama, Mr. Narendra Modi, president Trump, Sundar Pichai, and former CEO of Apple Mr. Steve Jobs etc. that people blindly follow them for their actions, charm, commitment and style to keep silent their immediate competitors.

The most important thing while deciding the leadership’s effectiveness is what is attitude of leader while dealing with ethical and moral issues. It may be negative or positive but our role is to follow a positive and honest man to decide our fate.

Ethical leaders used to support people for better communication, getting their benefits, rights, moral beliefs protection and creation of value system. Leadership can be taught through training, orientation and regular practical assignments to the target people.