Why We Need Ethical, Virtuous Leaders

The following is an excerpt from my new book, Virtuous Leadership: The Character Secrets of Great Leaders.

“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have the right to do and what is right to do.”— Judge Potter Stewart

Oxford Dictionaries defines ethics as “Moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity.” 

The problem is that not all people adhere to the same moral standards in today’s society. Some are common to everyone. For instance, killing and stealing are morally wrong, but attitudes on other topics, such as the ethics of animal research or abortion, varying according to religion, culture, personal beliefs, politics and laws. 

Sometimes a moral or ethical principle comes into conflict with another moral or ethical principle. An example is the issue of freedom of speech. What if one of your employees exercises that freedom but the language is abusive to another employee or the boss. 

So ethical leadership means staying true to your moral principles, while also being aware of the complexity of some ethical issues and being sensitive to the differing views of your employees and managing the conflicts that may arise. 

Unfortunately, ethics and leadership don’t always go together. According to a study by the Institute of Leadership & Management: 

•  63% of managers have been asked to do something contrary to their own ethical code. 
•  43% have been told to behave in direct violation of their organization’s own values statements.
•  19% have been asked to break the law. 

The Benefits of Ethical Leadership

When the post mortems were conducted on various corporate and political scandals over the years, it became clear that the mistakes could have been avoided if strong ethical leadership had was present and managers had prevented the wrongdoing before it escalated. 

Studies have found practical, positive benefits as well. For example, one study at Cornell University concluded “ethical leadership was positively and significantly related to employee performance.” 

Another study published in Science Direct revealed that ethical leadership reduced employee turnover, a significant benefit given the high cost of employee turnover. 

Although academics have long debated the subject of ethical leadership, descriptive research on what ethical leadership entails is relatively new. Some of the first studies focused on defining ethical leadership was by Linda K. Treviñob and colleagues. Their research revealed that ethical leaders could be described along two dimensions: moral person and moral manager. 

According to the researchers, the moral person dimension refers to the qualities of the ethical leader as a person. Strong moral persons are honest and trustworthy. They demonstrate a concern for other people. They are also seen as approachable. Employees approach these moral persons with problems and concerns, knowing that they will be “heard and seen.” Moral persons have a reputation for being fair and principled and act consistently on those principles. Lastly, moral persons are seen as consistently moral in both their personal and professional lives, rather than having two different lives. 

The moral manager refers to how the leader uses the position of leadership to promote ethical conduct at work. Strong moral managers act as role models in the workplace. They make ethics real by modeling ethical conduct to their employees. Moral managers establish and communicate ethical standards using rewards and punishments to ensure those standards are followed. In sum, leaders who are moral managers “walk the talk” and “talk the walk”. 

People who try to appear to be strong moral managers who are weak moral persons are likely to be seen as hypocrites, failing to practice what they preach. Hypocritical leaders often talk about the importance of ethics, but their actions can be unethical and amoral. Conversely, a strong moral person in their personal lives who is a weak moral manager runs the risk of being seen as an ethically “neutral” leader, being silent on ethical work issues, suggesting to employees that the leader is not concerned about ethics. 

Unethical Behavior Can Spread Among Employees

Recent research shows that ethical leadership is related to important follower outcomes, such as employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment, willingness to report problems to supervisors, industriousness, are focal about standards and perceptions of organizational culture and ethical climate. At the group level, ethical leadership is positively related to organizational citizenship behavior and psychological safety, and negatively related to workplace deviance. 

Traditional leadership literature has not described destructive leader behavior as “unethical”; however, the implication is clear. Unethical behavior involves acts that are contrary to an organizations ethical rules, and is illegal and/or are morally inappropriate to larger society. Research into behaviors of leaders with “dark triad” characteristics has uncovered a variety of unethical leader acts. Various terms have evolved in the literature, such as abusive supervision, supervisor toxic leadership, and tyrannical leadership. Research shows these leaders are manipulative, abusive, and toxic. Their actions are perceived as intentionally harmful, and may be the source of legal action against employers. Therefore, by these measures, destructive leader behavior is unethical. 

Unethical leadership transcends beyond the leaders’ own behavior. In seeking to accomplish organizational goals, leaders can encourage corrupt and unethical acts within their organizations. For instance, a review of corporate scandals in Fortune 100 corporations concluded that actions perpetrated by executives, boards of directors, and government officials were the primary cause of such transgressions. 

Leaders can foster unethical behavior among followers without engaging in the behavior themselves and do so by way of rewards, condoning non-conformers, and ignoring unethical acts. Qualitative research shows leaders who reward short-term results, model aggressive and Machiavellian behavior, do not punish followers’ wrongdoing, end up promoting like-minded individuals, and heighten unethical behavior within organizations. Also, research shows employees who engage in unethical acts to boost organizational performance or help the organization in some other way help to spread unethical practices. Such embedded practices in an organization can protect leaders from primary blame, essentially providing them “plausible deniability”.

One of the most common and reprehensible defenses that unethical followers use when engaging in unethical (and/or immoral) behavior is that they were just “following orders” given by the leader(s). 

The influence of what many have described as an unethical, narcissistic sociopath like Donald Trump cannot be underestimated. During his presidency he has given the green light to thousands of leaders and followers throughout the country to act in unethical, amoral and immoral ways. “If the person at the top can do it, then it’s okay for me too,” many of them would argue.