Discussing Ethical Leadership Through Academic Argumentation

Introduction

In today’s world, organizations are striving to optimally perform their business, something that has made them take all options that make them improve. In order to maintain the market growth, the organization needs to have leadership that is ethical as that will make it continue striving in the market (Shakeel et al. 2019). This means that ethical leadership is important to factor to the company because it can act as a tool for the organization to achieve a competitive advantage because the executive can use it to influence the employee behavior. As the name portrays, ethical leadership is a leadership directed by ethical values and beliefs; thus, it is related to significant factors such as honesty, fairness, charisma, and trust (Bachmann 2015). Ethics is a vital factor that has always been concerned with morals and values that individuals or society may find important for their well-being. Every organization aims to record consistent performance and strive in the market because that enables them to expand its business in the market further. In the current world, the corporate has been experiencing major scandals that have tarnished various organizations’ brand reputations (Ehrich et al. 2015). These practices have been contributed to the organization as a result of unethical leadership. Since then, ethical leaders have received significant attention as a sign of mitigating various corporate scandals that arose around the globe. Therefore, this paper discusses how ethical leadership has contributed to relevant decision-making, informs inclusive leadership, and improves organizational performance. It will also discuss how ethical leaders influence decision-making and help the strive of the organization in the market.

The Growth of Ethical Leadership

Leadership is essential to the function of management because it is a factor that motivates people to a higher level of performance. Therefore, as a leader, you must ensure that you direct individuals’ behavior towards the desired goal. Thus, ethical leadership is a crucial and vital leadership style directed with respect for ethical values and beliefs (Moss et al. 2020). It is primarily concerned with appropriate behavior that respects the dignity and respect of others. When used in the organization, it inspires the employees by motivating them to live up to the firm’s values. Ethical leadership simply means that you need to inspire and motivate as a leader, thus making the people you are leading feel motivated (Mayer, Kuenzi, and Greenbaum 2010). Different from other modes of leadership, ethical leadership is concerned with guidance and how as a leader, you can exploit such guidance to improve your effectiveness and responsibility in the workplace (Aryati et al. 2018). In today’s business world, ethics is an important element that each leader needs to have because it helps motivate the company and build the corporate brand reputation in the market. Therefore, it is important to say that leadership with ethics is very important to develop and understand in the current business world. Having ethical leadership within the organization is important because it helps investors feel the organization is good and trustworthy to invest in.

Ethical leadership has become an important leadership style and not just a trait because of its unique structure. For instance, apart from just being a trait as a leadership style, leaders in the organization can use it to build a competitive working place among the employee. Some of the characteristics that distinguish ethical leadership as a distinct style essential to both the individual and the organization are that it requires the individual to take accountability (Giulia Villirilli 2021). This implies that you must be willing to accept responsibility for mistakes made as an ethical leader. A leader’s lack of accountability can lead to confusion and waste of resources (Ullah, Hameed, and Kayani 2017). As a result, ethical leadership is an essential leadership style since it requires individuals to hold themselves accountable and accept responsibility for any mistakes. Another factor that has made ethical leadership important not as a trait but as a leadership style is because it makes leaders act fairly. A leader faces many negotiations and decisions that require you to be ethical, as this will allow you to achieve long-term success over short-term gains (Chan, McBey, and Scott-Ladd 2011). Apart from being important in decision-making, it also fosters inclusivity among people by requiring leaders to adopt a culture of excellence and fair rights for persons regardless of social status or other potential discrimination factors (Wang, Feng, and Lawton 2017). It is also an act of Integrity because by embracing ethical leadership as a leader, you are focused on practicing things that are valuable and aligned with everyone within the company. That is an indication that you are leading by example. This indicates that it helps leaders maintain their organizational well-being by setting standards that bring equality to everyone apart from being a trait. Ethical leadership teaches a leader that they have a mandate to put the needs of their group members and organization ahead of their own (Lei, Ha, and Le 2019). Therefore, from the analysis of ethical leadership, it is significant that apart from being a trait, it is an important leadership style that any individual in leadership needs to have to make informed decisions and improve the performance within the workplace. More importantly, a type of leadership style makes a leader have holistic thinking that embraces challenging and complex issues that an organization might be facing daily (Kuenzi, Mayer, and Greenbaum 2020). This indicates that as ethical leaders, you need both experience and knowledge so that to make informed decisions on everything. Thus, as a leader practicing an ethical leadership style, you need to stick to your principles to avoid instances related to ethical issues.

Selected Leadership Sector

The sector I have chosen is the manufacturing business, where ethical leadership plays a vital role in promoting business growth and enhancing equality among the employees. As an Executive manager in the business sector, ethical leadership style is important when embraced within the business. For instance, with the ethical leadership style in business, you are to build customer loyalty. In the current world, consumerism has evolved to highlight the ethics and value of the company in relation to the services and goods it provides (Copeland 2015). It is an indication that the overall morality of the business has tremendous power to break or build brand identity. As an executive leader, in this case, if you embrace ethical leadership in the business, you will be able to maintain corporate growth in one way or another. Also, the establishment of ethical leadership in business helps establish trust in partners, employees, and the community, thus boosting the company’s performance. Another significant factor about ethical leadership in my business sector as an executive manager is that it will help to enhance a healthier working environment where each individual will feel valued and inspired to work.

Leadership theories are an essential factor in giving the reason for how certain individuals become leaders. These theories try to explain and emphasize traits and behaviors an individual needs to adopt to boost their leadership abilities (Leadership theories 2020). From the view of these theories, such as the great man theory, Contingency theory, and situational theory, individuals were able to build ethical leadership, which has been effective in decision-making and enhancing equality within the organization (Tourigny, Han Baba, and Pan 2019). They are decision-making issues related to ethical leadership, including having multiple alternatives, personal implications, and other factors (Madachian et al. 2016). The factor contributing to these issues is that leaders make decisions based on defined values such as trust, accountability, respect, and equality in ethical leadership.

The applied ethical leadership plays a vital role in informing inclusive organizational culture and HRM practices. It is clear that enhancing the aspect of ethical leadership within the organization helps raise an organization’s culture and employees’ values to a higher level of ethical behavior because it always makes the corporate look inclusive (Angelos et al. 2021). Ethical leadership within the organization helps promote a high level of Integrity, thus helping to stimulate a sense of trustworthiness among the employees and their leaders (Voegtlin 2016). It is also significant that ethics in leadership has helped inform the culturally diverse organization. With inclusivity, the corporates have been able to strive in their performance because the employees are motivated and inspired by ethical leaders who are people-oriented (Copeland 2013). In HRM, ethical leadership is essential because it helps them foster fairness and justice for all employees and organizations with respect and dignity (Pasricha, Singh, and Verma 2018). Since the HRM has the mandate of ensuring that the organization has talented and innovative employees, they can embrace ethics as that will help them enhance equality and professionalism within the workplace. This analysis shows that ethical leadership significantly benefits my selected sector because it will help improve job performance and workplace equality.

Conclusion

From the information I have gathered, it is clear that leaders such as Human Resources managers and other stakeholders within the organization need to consider ethical factors as part of their decision-making. Similarly, this article discussion has tried to give an overview of what ethical leaders need to look like and how embracing an ethical leadership style influences their decision-making within the organization. It has also been clear from the discussion that ethical leadership greatly impacts decision-making and organization performance (Thapa 2019). In today’s workplace, managers like H.R. have embraced ethical leadership styles to enhance equality within the organization, which has helped the positive growth of many businesses today. Further, from the outcome of the discussion, it has been indicated that today’s leaders influence the welfare of a number of people in society (Kooskora 2012). The discussion also has shown that ethical leaders influence the organization’s future they are involved in and for stakeholders, employees, community, and suppliers. As a result, in the report’s conclusion and discussion of the article, it is reasonably apparent that organizational achievement and ethical leadership are linked, indicating that the organization must embrace this type of leadership in today’s competitive market. This discussion has tried to overview how ethical leadership has played a significant role in the current organization’s performance (Khuong and Nhu 2015). Based on the evidence mentioned above, ethics in leadership positively influences the organization’s performance; thus, leaders need to embrace this style and traits for successful business strive. This discussion has given a comprehensive overview of how ethical leadership is a significant factor in the current leadership style.

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