Assignment Number 2: Leadership, Trustworthiness, and Ethical Stewardship

The problem to be investigated is empirical data that suggested when a leader’s action is observed to be ethical; leaders are inclined to be more ethical. In essence, positive-reinforcement of any type of behavior will drive the continuation of that behavior whether it is good or bad, especially when it comes to leadership. Caldwell and Clapham (2003) wrote that trustworthiness is the keystone in the development of trust. My hypothesis is that the empirical data is correct and that leadership’s behavior (good or bad) can affect an organization especially when the behavior is positively reinforced. This paper examined various topics covered in Caldwell, Hayes, and Long’s (2010) article on Leadership, Trustworthiness, and Ethical Stewardship.

Leadership was the first topic, which was covered in Caldwell, Hayes, and Long’s (2010) article. A relationship with customers and leadership is paramount. Customers have unwritten requirements called expectations, which need to be met by the leadership of a business. It is up to the leadership of a business to ensure that when satisfying these unwritten requirements, that they are fulfilled in a clear and ethical way. Caldwell, Hayes, and Long (2010) found that within the model of leadership three major subsets exist. The three subsets found were relationship building, resource optimizations, and image consulting.

Relationship building was described as using emotional intelligence in conjunction with holding leadership & employees accountable & responsible for having ethics as a core tenet. Caldwell et al. (2010) cited Maslyn and Uhl-Bin’s (2001) article on Leader-Member Exchange and Its Dimensions: Effects of Self-Effort and Other’s Effort on Relationship Quality which found that...

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