Free Leadership And Ethics Critical Thinking Example

Leadership and ethics go hand in hand. Leadership without ethics is not proper leadership since it may lead to a leader making decisions that carry personal bias. A leader should never exhibit personal bias since he or she is expected to be of high moral standards and principles. A leader must be ethical in all thing he or she partakes, because leadership as a kind of relationship has the power to influence. Furthermore, it bestows responsibilities and obligations to those under its leadership (Northouse, 2010).
Concerning ethics and morale, a leader should be able to balance both social values and personal values. Any leadership that upholds ethics is ultimately effective in reaching the set goals and objectives of an organization. However, it is difficult for a leader to strike a balance between ethics and effectiveness. Sometimes while upholding ethics, a leader may seem not effective. Based on the reading, it has been noted historically that some of the world leaders were either ethical or effective but not both at the same time. The reason behind this view is that some of the world leaders who made ethical decisions were never considered to be effective leaders (Geuras & Garofalo, 2011).
However, further theory discussed transformational leadership. It is noted that ethics form the core of transformational leadership (Ciulla, 2004). The core values of a transformational leader is to ensure that he or she uphold ethical decision-making. It also requires a leader to motivate and inspire those they lead to uphold the same ethical values. The reading also provides an argument that leaders can use transformational leadership in a negative manner. This is mainly possible when the leader is able to introduce unethical decision making while in office. In order to avoid the issues pointed out on ethical leadership a leader must exhibit self-discipline at all times (Ciulla, 2004).

References

Geuras, D., & Garofalo, C. (2011). Practical Ethics in Public Administration (third ed.). Vienna, VA: Management Concepts.
Northouse, P. G. (2010). Leadership: Theory and Practice (sixth ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE.
Ciulla, J. B. (2004). Ethics and leadership effectiveness. The nature of leadership, 302-327.