Leadership models and traits
An analysis of how cultural style dictates the perception of what is ethical in a leader's use of power, influence, and authority.
Ethical leadership models function as implements for curating organizational culture. Moreover, these models are able to effect these advantages while maintaining the diversity of the social groups—and their cultures—among a bevy of employees. To this end, cultural style is able to effectively determine what is perceived as ethical according to a leader’s usage of power, influence and authority in a couple of distinct ways. Primarily, cultural style forms the basis of values which an organization has. The relationship between values and ethics is an important one. Essentially, that which is valued by a company and prioritized influences the ethics which an organizations upholds. Thus, if a leader is acting in accordance with his company’s culture, the vast majority of things he does with his power and authority will be perceived as ethical within the constraints of that organization.
An excellent example of this fact is found in the analysis of Enron’s company culture and the behavior of its leaders. Under the leadership of Jeff Skilling, Enron admittedly had an aggressive company culture (McLean and Elkind, 2013, p. 70) that was used as the basis to justify a number of different actions...
For example, Enron had performance reviews in which it routinely fired those who finished in the bottom percentages of those performance reviews. The mandatory firing of employees based on performance—not on instances of remissness or incompetence—is certainly an extreme use of power, influence and authority for upper level management. Yet because Enron had an aggressive company culture, this practice was not only deemed ethical but also necessary to increase productivity and competitiveness. Because Enron’s values were rooted in competitiveness and hyper-productivity, such a practice was deemed ethical in accord with its overall cultural style.
An overview of which leadership models, styles, and traits are most commonly accepted as ethical across the greatest array of social cultures.
One of the most commonly accepted leadership models deemed ethical by an array of social cultures is transformational leadership. This model is typically regarded as ethical across cultural boundaries because it is focused on motivation from a genuine, people perspective. Transformational leaders are able to compel followers to adhere to their notions for positive organizational change via a lot of qualities which are intangible. This leadership model is based on getting followers to actually…
