Blog 4: Ethical Relationships between Leaders and their Teams

This blog explains about the ethical relationship existing between the leaders and the followers of a team. According to Ponnu and Tennakoon (2009) Ethical leadership helps to attain the moral development and identity of the team members.  Positive relationship should exist between the leader and the team members in order to complete the task successfully within a particular time period. Ethical relationship between the leader and the followers of the team will influence the interactions among them and helps to attain high mutuality (Brown and Trevino 2006). Leaders are responsible to create a moral environment among the team members and motivate them to work around common values (Piccolo et al 2010). The above authors have mentioned the significance of ethical leadership by producing different ideas. They have emphasized that; moral development and mutuality are attained through the existence of ethical relationship between the leader and their team members. For example, the leaders or managers should communicate clear data about the ethical integrity and conduct as well as regarding the various behaviours that are expected from the team members (Schminke 2010). In a restaurant industry, leaders should instruct the ethical standards and explain the outcome measures for satisfying the consumers resulting to high profitability.

Increase in the level of ethical leadership will result in a reduced level of unethical behaviour among the team members (Ponnu and Tennakoon 2009). Internalisation and symbolisation are the two dimensions of moral identity obtained through effective ethical relationship between the team members and the team leader (Schminke 2010). The effectiveness of the leadership ethics depends on the moral or ethical attitude of the leader and the followers. Lentz (2010) mentioned that, effective performance of a team is the result when the values and ethics of the leaders and the team members are similar. The views of the above authors state the effectiveness of ethical leadership in a different ways. They have revealed that effective leadership leads to moral identify and efficient team performance.

 

Figure: Classic management process

Source: (Lang 2010)

Conclusion

Ethical leadership results in a positive relationship among the leader and team members. It is concluded that, effective ethical leadership leads to an increase of moral identity and mutuality between the team leader and followers.

 

 

References

• Brown, M. E. and Trevino, L. K. (2006) ‘Ethical leadership: A review and future directions’. The Leadership Quarterly 17, 595 – 616
• Lentz Leadership Institute and Lentz, C. A. (2010) The Refractive Thinker: Vol. IV: Ethics, Leadership, and Globalization, Volume 4. Las Vegas: Refractive Thinker Press.
• Lang, M. (2011) Transformational Leadership: Fundamentals – Models – Differences – Impact on Employees. Germany: GRIN Verlag
• Ponnu, C. H. and Tennakoon, G. (2009) ‘The Association between Ethical Leadership and Employee Outcomes – the Malaysian Case’, EJBO Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organisation Studies 14(1), 21-32
• Piccolo, R. F., Greenbaum, R., Den hartog, D. N., and Folger, R. (2010)’The relationship between ethical leadership and core job characteristics’, Journal of Organisational Behaviour 31, 259-274.
• Schminke, M. (2010) Managerial Ethics: Managing the Psychology of Morality. New York: Taylor & Francis Group.