ETH400 Chapter 6 Lecture Ethical Leadership Lecture

The transcription discusses the distinctions between values, morals, and ethics, as well as the concept of ethical leadership. It highlights the importance of having a value system to determine right from wrong, how morals stem from values and are specific to individuals and contexts, and how ethics are the actions that reflect morals. It also delves into various leadership theories, such as moral leadership, values-based leadership, and ethical leadership, emphasizing the importance of ethical content in leadership decisions. The canonical model of leadership is discussed, pointing out the lack of specific role for ethics. Ethical leadership theory stresses the connection between ethics and leadership, promoting shared values and ethical decision-making. Hi everyone, so this week we'll be talking about the differences between values, morals, and ethics, and we're also going to be checking out what ethical leadership really looks like. Okay, so the study of leadership is not as competitive as usual, and so there are three key deficiencies in the study of leadership. First is that we really don't know very much about leadership. The second is that leadership still exists in a vacuum when it comes to ethics, and how do we know this to be true? Well, look at all the executives for big corporations that are being thrown in jail, so that's why we know it's true. And then third, leadership is generally understood using a top-down approach. It's an approach where a powerful leader of a big company or corporation proposes plans for followers to follow or execute. So think about this. Have you ever considered someone's behavior to be unethical? Have you ever questioned something that someone else does, that someone else did? Have you ever wondered whether someone you know has a moral code? Have you ever wondered what values someone has when they do something you think is questionable? Now these questions really point to three terms that we tend to use interchangeably, and these are ethics, morals, and values. Now this is where things become really murky. But let's take a look at the first term, values. Now values are the bedrock of a person's ability to decide to do what's right or wrong. So if someone were to say they have values, they're really talking about a deep-seated belief system, you know, something that they don't even know where it comes from, but they still believe it. Now values are not universal. So here in Canada, you know, we may value pleasantries, like good morning, good evening, how are you? We may value that, but it doesn't really mean that it's valued everywhere else in the world. So we can say that values are more about the individual or about the social groups of a given law. Having a value system really allows us to decide what's wrong and what's right. In other words, we have to have a value system to first be able to decide what's right or wrong. So if you value honesty, then when someone you know feels something, you will definitely have a problem with that, and you might say that that's wrong. Next there is morals. So our morals come from our values. While values are the bedrock of a person's ability to decide between right and wrong, morals are the actual belief system. They are specific to the individual and specific to the context that surrounds the individual or the individual's actions. As such, we can say that morals can be questioned. It is subject to opinion. And if we say that it can be questioned and that it's subject to opinion, what we're really saying is that morals have a greater social element to them than values, all right? Morals tend to have a very broad acceptance. With morals, we tend to judge people more, and so we judge them based on our morals than our values, so when we're judging people, it's not because of the values. It's because of our morals. Then there is ethics, and ethics really is what drives our morals. Ethics is our morals in action, and so if you were to find a $100 bill on the floor of the classroom, and you were to look around and try to see who it belongs to, that's your morals in action, all right? That's your morals in action. And if you were to pocket the $100 bill, that's your morals in action as well. And so ethics is really what we see on display when we demonstrate our morals. So if you pocket the $100 bill, you're a thief. We see your ethics on display, so we're either ethical or we're unethical. Another way you can look at this, here's another, a little bit of a weird example. So if your friend were to come over to your house for shelter, she's scared, someone is trying to hurt her, and she wants you to hide her quickly. And so you hide her in the kitchen, and then another mutual friend comes along, and he wants to hurt your friend, and he says to you, is Janet here? And you say, yes, she's hiding in the kitchen, and you do this. Why? Because your ethics, all right, your ethics prevents you from telling a bold-faced lie, and your ethics prevents you to do this, even though it's your friend. Now, of course, I don't want you to do that, because there's another aspect of ethics that might say it's wrong for you to do that. All right? And why? Because, you know, you live here, and when I say here, I mean Canada, and so here we share the value, all of us, we share the value that life is sacred, and that life needs to be protected, that we should protect life, and there you are not protecting life by telling this crazy person at your door that your friend is hiding in the kitchen. So we can, therefore, say that ethics is internal. We adopt ethics from society. Morals, on the other hand, we impose on other people. So ethics is internal, morals external, so there you have it, morals, values, morals, and ethics. All right, so let's talk a little bit about leadership now. What is leadership, really, and why is it important? Also, why studying it is filled with pitfalls? Now, of course, these are all open-ended questions. Leadership comes in many forms. You know, there's business leadership, political leadership, military leadership, social leadership, you know, when I say social leadership, I mean you might be leader of a club, captain of a team, that kind of thing. And really, this discussion of leadership is really to get you thinking about the many ways in which leadership may be manifested, and so this is really a good opportunity here now in this lecture to discuss how this term leadership may be overused in certain parts of the world, for example, camping in the United States, because if you were to ask an international student to tell you about leadership and how they think about leadership, they may have a very different view. They may view this concept of leadership differently, all right? And then also, the whole idea of this, that there are so many theories on leadership, so many ideas in leadership, there are lots of experts who feel qualified enough on the topic to discuss leadership, and because of all the, you know, it's so complex because of the different aspects of leadership, there are also many pitfalls with leadership. The canonical model of leadership tries to organize all the factors that influence leadership into four variables. So they try to just whittle them down, narrow all of those factors down to four variables, and they came up with the leader, the follower, the leadership processes and skills that a leader must have, and the situation or context. Really, we're talking about the outcome of a leadership decision, and within the canonical model of leadership, according to experts, there is no specific role for ethics. So if you look at your screen, you'll see that ethics is not there. There's no role for ethics. So this chapter really, as this chapter develops, it really becomes evident that we can use the canonical model to really connect leaders, values, and ethics in at least three ways, and these are a moral leadership which has no connections to ethics whatsoever because it doesn't recognize things as being right or wrong, or values-based leadership which recognizes the leadership value or the leader values that, you know, the values that a leader would have, but there's no focus on the ethical implications to those values. And then, of course, there is ethical leadership. Now, how does a moral leadership theory help us, you know, as students studying leadership and ethics, how does having an understanding of this theory of leadership help us, and where does it all show up? See, a moral leadership theory gives us a good starting point, and it asks us to consider what traits constitute a good leader. It asks us to think really about the characteristics of a good leader. That's what it asks us to think. The problem with this model is that it falls short in that it doesn't say much to allow us to evaluate whether a leader's decisions are ethically good or bad, and some of us could perhaps make a connection with what we call actor-based ethics, and we might point out how this view appraises individual virtues, all right? It just looks at the individual virtues, and it doesn't attempt much to evaluate actions or their consequences. Okay. So, who are values-based leaders, and how do they really help in thinking about putting ethics and leadership together? See, values-based leaders, they really start to create what we call a congruence between the values of their followers and the values of the organization, and in this way, it really helps us to see leadership as more of a partnership, and it also works to elevate the goals of the leaders of their followers, and so many values-based theories of leadership, they really emphasize the importance of shared vision, of the importance of having values in maintaining this relationship between the leaders and the followers. The problem with values-based leadership model is that it really falls short of commenting on the ethical content of such values, so that in itself is problematic, all right, which brings us to ethical leadership. Now, what is different about ethical leadership? How do you practice ethical leadership? How do you know if you're an ethical leader? How do you know if your boss is an ethical leader? How do you know when your boss is exhibiting or displaying ethical leadership characteristics or qualities? See, ethical leadership theory really strives to underscore the ethical content that is built into every aspect of leadership, and so in one sense, ethical leadership starts with the understanding of, you know, the deep and necessary connections between ethics and leading, so that's the first thing. Ethical leadership starts with the connection between ethics and leading, and so leading is not in a vacuum, and so the earlier models that we talked about, the immoral theory of leadership and the values-based theory of leadership, they don't take any emphasis at all. As a matter of fact, immoral, no emphasis, period, and values-based models, there isn't a focus on emphasis. But ethical leadership does say there has to be a connection, because one cannot lead without ethical assumptions or implications, it just can't happen, and so in terms of leading in ways that are ethically sound, there are no simple guidelines, none whatsoever. So even though we cannot lead without ethical implications, we're also saying that it's not just cut and dried because ethics is so complex, therefore, there are no guidelines or formulas in terms of how we should practice this ethical leadership. And so what ethical leadership theorists would say is that at the very minimum, ethical leadership strives to nurture the human potential of their constituents or stakeholders. Ethical leadership should really strive to balance the needs of the individual and the community or the organization or company that they work with, therefore. Ethical leadership really strives to defend the fundamental values of the community and the business or the organization that they work for, and they should really work also to instill in individuals a sense of initiative, a sense of responsibility. So the ethical leader should also be able to distinguish between, you know, not just immediate results or consequences or immediate action, but they should also be able to distinguish between end results, therefore, or end value. So they should try to not only strive to achieve the model, but they should also aim for end value. Now, this chapter in leadership, it also raises some core benchmarks that will help leaders understand if they're meeting the challenge of ethical leadership. And it does this by framing action in ethical terms. And so what Wick and others, and this is also Wick and others, Wick and others are saying is that, you know, ethical leaders need to be able to articulate and embody the values and the purpose of the organization that they lead or the corporation or the community that they lead. Ethical leaders need to connect the value proposition to the stakeholder support. Ethical leaders need to really create conversations around ethics within their organization. They need to value and create these conversations, not just for themselves, but for their stakeholders as well. They need to be able to create mechanisms for dissent when someone disagrees. Is there a mechanism for something like that within the organization that you work for or that you aspire to work for? Ethical leaders need to be able to find the best people and to develop them and to help them make the tough calls. And they need to do all of this while being supportive and imaginative and creative. And we can see how being an ethical leader is very complex. All right. Now, there is another theory that comes from ethical leadership and it's called leading from the middle. So what is this leading from the middle and how does this really influence, you know, the way we think about leadership in an organization? Now, leading from the middle is exactly what it says. It really refers to the idea that much of the leadership that happens within organizations and businesses that, you know, that it should happen. Not that they're happening already, but that they should happen not at the top of the hierarchy, but that it should happen at the middle and at the lower levels of your organization. And you're thinking that it should happen especially at the lower levels of your organization because then you're working with middle managers, not the top existing managers. And this is a theory, this leading from the middle theory. It really starts with the premise that upper management should really delegate responsibility and power to middle managers to really help implement goals for the company. And, you know, as I said, this particular approach, it moves away from the earlier theories that you talked about that were more like a top down kind of management leadership style. And this leading from the middle gives middle managers more room to really innovate and to exercise motivation. All right. So now to wrap up, let's go back to the four variables. So earlier we talked about how extra leadership integrates ethics and values into four variables, and we said that because leadership is such a big, big topic, it really was a challenge to just narrow everything down to four variables. But earlier when we talked about these four variables, we didn't talk about ethics. Ethics was removed. Now we're talking about ethics because we have established that ethics needs to be at the very core of leadership. All right. They need to be at the very core of leadership, and that's why you see in the graph here where the arrows are moving from ethics to the leaders, from ethics to the formula, from ethics to the situation or the outcome, from ethics to the kinds of skills or the processes that leaders would be involved with. And so we see in this model that any kind of leadership, any kind of leadership must involve ethics at the very core. All right. I'm going to stop the dance now. I will talk to you again soon, so ciao for now.