How Executive Leadership Shapes Ethical Culture and Conduct in an Organization Essay Example

need to set ethical examples. According to the social learning theory, people learn behaviors by observation, attention to and the imitation of their role models. The executives always have the highest status and power in an organization. Therefore, they become the role models to all the other members of the organization. If the executives show, accountability, honesty, consideration of others, fair treatment and proper behavior and manner, they become credible and attractive in the organization (Wu et. al, 2015).

By rewarding of the employees’ good behaviors and punishing unethical behaviors, an executive level leader is able to shape the ethical culture and conduct in an organization (Randal, 2012). The executive level leaders helps the organization to maintain the desired ethical culture by assisting in attracting and retaining the members that share the desired and similar ethical values of the firm. The executive level leader’s ethical leadership will therefore facilitate the congruence of ethical values among the members in an organization thereby shaping the organizational culture and conduct (Wu et. al, 2015).

The executive level leaders models the kind of behavior needed in an organization and leads in a caring, just and principled manner. Ethical leadership includes paying attention, measuring and consequently controlling the other members’ behavior so as to avoid unethical behavior but instead exhibit ethical behavior. How the leaders will approach handling the critical incidences promotion, resource allocation and firing of workers will also shape the way people employees behave in an organization (Fehr et. al, 2015). How the executive responds to a member’s ethical behavior influence the other employees’ perceptions about the executive as a moral role model. If the manager fails to punish unethical

behaviors, this undermines the ethical conduct and culture. This is because this is likely to undermine the manager’s authority. The other employees will feel that the ethical standards are unenforceable in the organization and therefore, not important at all. On the other hand, if the manager dismisses the employee due to unethical violations, it sends a message that ethical behavior is important and in return increase the ethical standards in an organization (Schaubroeck et al., 2012).

The challenge of using reward to instill certain ethics is that the employees may perceive the reward to have a limited value to them (Randal, 2012). If the employee does not perceive a reward to have any significant value to him or her, then the reward will have little success in promoting the desired values. Therefore the kind of reward that the leader uses will shape the kind of ethics the employees will have. Good knowledge on the results of each reward to employees will therefore help the leader shape the kind of ethical culture he or she deems to be the best the best for the organization.

If employees in an organization view their leaders as having exemplar and prominent ethical standards, they automatically become more receptive to ethical conduct (Schaubroeck et al., 2012). The followers are more likely to engage in ethical behaviors and less likely to engage in unethical behaviors. Therefore, by acting ethically, the executive is able to instill ethical behaviors among the employee. This indicates that there is a positive and indirect relationship between how the leaders behave and how all the other members in an organization behave. This further proves that, it is the executive

level management that shapes the ethical culture and conduct of the organization.

Leaders are able to influence the followers in an organization if they are liked and admired by those employees. It is much easier if the employees feel that they identify with a given leader. The leaders need to make sure that their own ethics values are consistent with organizational culture. The leaders should engage in informally conversations with the organizational members, listen to their ethical dilemmas and try as much to address the members concerns. In the process the leader is able to persuade the followers to engage in ethical behaviors. The social learning theory proposes that individuals are able to learn from others through interactions (Fehr et. al, 2015). Therefore, through informal interaction with the members, the leader is able to transmit values, behaviors and attitudes to the employees thereby shaping the ethical culture and conduct of the organization.

Leaders have both personal and positional power. The leader can employ all these sources in enhancing ethics in an organization. But then, leaders who are more successful rely more on personal power rather than the positional power to shape the ethical culture and conduct in an organization (Fehr et. al, 2015). This is ethics deals more with the personal traits of an individual. The leader uses his or her personal power to ensure that the ethics programs are conceptualized by the employees. These programs are either value oriented or compliance oriented. The managers make sure that both the compliance oriented and value orientation contributes to members or employees ethical awareness and therefore reduction in the cases of unethical behaviors. Although both compliance orientation and value

orientation are important in determining the organization ethical culture, value orientation is more successful than compliance orientation (Randal, 2012).

One might therefore, conclude that the use of personal power by the leader is more effective than the use of positional power in the establishment of ethics in an organization. This is because positional power requires one to be obedient to the authority, punishments and rewards. It is therefore likely that the positional power will promote compliance orientation. On the other hand, personal powers always rely on the abilities, traits and skills of the leader (Schaubroeck et al., 2012). Therefore, personal power reflects strong value orientation.

Leaders are expected by their followers to set visions for their organizations. They are expected to set the organizational values. To create an ethical culture in the organization, the managers design structures that help in hiring of the best staff that will reflect the organizational values (Wu et. al, 2015). They, create orientation sessions that helps in conveying the values of the organization. The leaders also develop mentoring programs that exposes the new recruits to the values of the organization. The leaders also develop training programs that reinforce the desired values in organization (Fehr et. al, 2015). Reinforcing the values frequently ensures that the employees are more familiar with these values. The leaders also are the ones that create the code of ethics that must be adhered to by all the employees.

The existence of codes of ethics alone is not effective, unless they enforced and are consisted with the culture of the organization (Randal, 2012). The codes may only be considered to be there only as a protection to the leaders in

case of a legal issue. Therefore, the leaders need to enforce these codes within the members of the organization. The degree of enforcement of these codes by the management will therefore determine the ethical culture and conduct of an organization.

A leader’s or managers understanding of ethics normally extends beyond the challenges on ethics facing the business and the industry at large. Leaders always make their decisions basing on their values (Kaptein, 1998). Therefore those ethical values of the leaders have a big impact on the values of other employees. This is why leaders should recognize that it is very important for them to develop their own ethical stands as they behaviors will be reflected in what the employees do in the organization. In other words, their ethical standards shape the ethical culture of the organization.

Leaders sometimes have excess work demands (Kaptein, 1998). They may therefore fail to develop ethical philosophies or even knowledge base on the ethical issues that face the members of the organization. This may make them fail to comprehend the costs that are associated with unethical conduct in the organization. Such costs include fines and penalties, corrective actions costs and bad reputation. It is the leaders that will determine through the lawyers what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. They will this pass it down to the rest of the members. In the process, they help in shaping of ethics in the organization.

In conclusion, there is no doubt that executive leadership shapes the culture and conduct in an organization. This is because the leaders have the authority to formulate policies that should be followed by everyone in the organization on their

day to day operations. The employees also look up to the leaders as role model and therefore they are likely to imitate what their leaders do. Therefore, to shape the required ethics in an organization the leaders will have to both develop policies that promote ethical behaviors as well as act in ethical manner. The executive leaders should recognize the fact that it is them that shape the ethical culture and conduct of the organization. This will help in the promotion of both the domestic and international business ethics. It will further reduce the corporate leadership issues that we still experience in this 21st century.

References

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