1. Leadership
People are not leaders just because they are in charge of others. After weighing the thoughts of hundreds of researchers and ethicists, the authors define leadership as “a power-laden, value-based, and ethically driven relationship between leaders and followers who share a common vision and accomplish real changes that reflect their mutual purpose and goals.” In other words, while power is the authority to direct the activities of others, leaders define the visions of their organizations based on shared values and interests. The goal of leadership is to implement progress while demonstrating ethics, virtue, and good character.
2. Mis-Leaders and Followers
Bad Leadership is the most common situation in today’s world where companies don’t understand the impact of bad leadership. In Kellerman’s accounting, this can be divided into seven things
A. Incompetent leadership –
The leader lacks the will or skill to sustain effective action. He or she does not create positive changes.
B. Rigid leadership -
The leader is stiff and unyielding. Although competent, he or she is unable to adapt to new ideas, new information or changing times.
C. Intemperate leadership -
The leader lacks self-control and is unwilling or unable to self-correct.
D. Callous leadership -
The leader is uncaring or unkind. The needs, wants and wishes of most members of the group of organization, especially subordinates, are ignored or discounted.
E. Corrupt leadership -
The leader is willing to lie, cheat or steal.
F. Insular leadership -
The leader minimizes or disregards the health and welfare of “the other” – that is, those outside his or her own group or organization.
G. Evil leadership -
The leader commits atrocities. He or she uses pain as an instrument of power.
First three are ineffective and last four are ethically bad. Having a Callous, corrupt, insular or evil leadership turns employee away from the company. In addition, they are bad leaders and in most cases, they are ineffective and unethical, history has proven that misleaders can still attain power and control while being unethical and selfish. For example, Adolf Hitler personifies misleader ship. However, while he misled so many people, his followers were equally as guilty for their actions. Contemporary examples of famous misleaders include Rod Blagojevich and Donald Trump.
3. Character and Leadership
Plato and Socrates were among the first to define leadership. Socrates believed that leaders accept, rather than crave, power and responsibility. A person’s moral character could be defined as a balance of values, virtues, and vices. Conscience is the internal manifestation of character. It causes people to consider what is right and wrong. Good character, like virtue, is a habitual behavior. Still, people’s characters can be flawed. Enron’s top executives and Bernie Madoff are powerful examples of misleaders with flawed characters. Good character is the core characteristic of leadership. Real leaders treat people as they should be treated and always try to act righteously. Leadership and Business Excellence Some people believe that businesses can exist without ethics, but to be successful, businesses must serve more than themselves. The ethical demands of businesses are modest, and they apply to both big and small businesses. Unfortunately, they include: • Respectable products at fair prices. • Honest marketing. • Fair treatment of employees, customers, vendors, and competitors. • Service to communities. • Reasonable profits. While leaders need followers, employees must not follow misleaders. Misleaders abuse power; they are motivated by greed and narcissistic self-interest, do not serve their communities, and are ultimately destructive. Leadership is a relationship of mutual benefit and interdependence. It is an inherent element of being human. Critical and moral thinking are essential tasks of leadership, while being ethical is its core challenge. Conscience is frequently the first step in making a moral decision, the internal uneasiness that prompts us to ask ourselves some hard questions.
4. The 10 Virtues of a leader
The Greek philosophers were pioneers in addressing how people should live their lives. They concurred that a society’s survival depends on its moral character and that personal character emanates from moral virtue. This is still true today. A virtue is an excellent moral behavior. It stems from self-control and self-discipline, especially people’s willingness to balance their own desires with the needs of their communities. Rooted in ancient philosophy, but adapted to modern realities, the top 10 virtues include character traits, modes of reasoning, core beliefs, and emotions.
1. Deep honesty:
The value of honest communication is an essential expression of respect for other and ourselves. Believing that people are entitled to the truth and that dishonesty is wrong. Great leaders perceive honest communication as part of mutual respect and trust. They apply this value when establishing new policies. Although honesty is vital, leaders do not have to be completely transparent. Transparency is defined as a virtue of the organization life, they may need to maintain confidentiality to protect the rights of others or their organizations, but the deeply honest leaders are committed to organizational transparency which does not deal with sensitive and confidential information.
2. Moral courage:
The Courageous persons is one who exercise good judgement about risks and danger. Being willing to face fears, risks, and dangers in support of deeply held beliefs. Courageous leaders may risk financial security, criticism, embarrassment, or loss of relationships. They rationally assess risks and accept uncertain futures when necessary. Moral courage is an essential virtue because without it the other virtues would not be possible. The willingness to stand up for one deepest value is essential for a leader and commitment to highest moral values like honesty, compassion or fairness is useless unless complimented with courage. Leader will have inter and external obstacles, fear that gets developed from these obstacle, they need to fairly estimate them.
3. Moral vision:
The leaders need to understand the importance of values and ethics. They need to come up with a plan when, how, and why to fight for them. Other way of putting it is that the outstanding leader have a good moral compass. They exactly know what their next steps are to translate their vision to their followers. They follow their moral visions in times of conflict, even in situations where others give in to immoral temptations.
4. Compassion and care:
An outstanding leader have an emotional and affective side and balance their emotions with a sense of justice and fairness. They also express a positive moral dimension which is charisma. A leader who is able to exhibit caring and compassion in the eyes of his followers will be perceived as Charismatic. The charismatic leaders usually develop an impressive show of compassion and that followers regret to tell them that they are deeply caring.
5. Fairness:
Like honesty and compassion, Fairness is one of the crucial accept of an outstanding leader. The leader can develops organizational policies and rewards good performance and behavior. An Outstanding leaders must also be willing to punish followers for misbehavior in order to inspire trust. Like in some cases when a follower is trying to take advantage of the policy he might need to change policies or warn the employee about his wrong doing.
6. Intellectual excellence:
An outstanding leader is open to world. They always learn about new ideas and are interested in various subjects. They have a desire to learn. Leaders with intellectual excellence also listen and consider input from others. This comes with an added benefit that is curiosity about things. The mins of an outstanding leader is passionate to learn new things. They initiate discussion and invite opposing viewpoints. Although great leaders are often brilliant people, they understand the limitations of their own intelligence and knowledge.
7. Creative thinking:
An outstanding leader has a tendency towards independence and creativity in thinking. They understand that what has worked in the past will not always work in the present and future. They come up with ideas and try to innovate to perpetuate their organizations and work to generate buy-in from their followers for their new ideas and methodologies.
8. Aesthetic sensitivity:
Using the creation of beauty as an organizational advantage. Not all great leaders have great aesthetic sensitivity, but those who do have a competitive advantage. In the current era, consumers care about both the looks and utility of any product they buy.
9. Good timing:
The leaders have a good understanding when to act. As is the case with moral courage, good timing facilitates the other virtues. One aspect of good timing is carefully considering the issue or situation before acting. The good leader waits for the time to act on a particular problem and never think about short cuts.
10. Deep selflessness:
The willingness to sacrifice oneself is major attribute of an outstanding leader. They demonstrate a consistent commitment to the cause, as in literally or metaphorically leading troops into battle. The salaries of CEO are increasing exponentially and workers get the same penny on a dollars if we compare their salaries. They are misleaders and they can be associated to Tanya (the characters presented earlier in the essay). The leaders are closer to Jane as they want to sacrifice. In other words they show altruism and not predation.