Ethics Of Leadership Essay

There's no one to blame but there are a million or so of us to take responsibility, to fix it from within, and that is the hallmark of a nation and a people. That's leadership, management, tradition and spirituality. Granted, the solutions don't come easy. I know that from my personal experience, just as we know that it's the willingness to struggle towards the ideal that elevates us as individuals, communities and societies. Therefore, leadership plays a very important role in our lives. The ethics of leadership rests upon three pillars: (1) the moral character of the leader; (2) the ethical legitimacy of the values embedded in the leaders vision, articulation, and program which followers either embrace or reject; and (3) the morality of the processes of social ethical choice and action that leaders and followers engage in and collectively pursue. Such ethical characteristics of leadership have been widely acknowledged (Wren, 1998). Transformational leaders set examples to be emulated by their followers. And as suggested by Stevens et al., (1998) and demonstrated by Conger & Kanungo (1998) when leaders are more morally mature, those they lead display higher moral reasoning. But not all leadership fits the same pattern and ethical analysis shifts with varying leadership modalities. In the societies of the western world the subject of responsibility is increasing in importance. (Moran, 1996) Issues of responsibility arise in small social units as well as in global societal structures. Responsibility establishes a connection between person and society. Mothers and fathers who care for their children or a person who warns his colleague about taking up business with a questionable partner are examples of responsibility within small so...

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