Personal Ethics Essay

I will try to paper the importance of personal ethics in leadership and how ethics produce effective leaders in organizations. The importance of understanding ethics, motivation to act as a role model and developing a plan of action for an organization are discussed because of their importance regarding development of good leadership. These key points suggest personal ethics positively affect leadership and when made a priority for leaders will produce ethical and effective leadership. With so many definitions of leadership, the question evolved from “what is the definition of leadership?” to “what is good leadership” (Ciulla, 2004, p. 13). To develop a system of values one must compile a list of the most important instrumental values and

Ethics are generally accepted as an optional philosophy and helpful for a person’s thoughts and actions. Understanding the importance of ethics will show leader’s ethics are not only helpful, but also necessary. In general, issues are easier to solve when you find the root of the problem. With the common lack of trust and support for leaders today it is safe to say there is a problem with today’s leadership. Strategies and theories are constantly being developed about what is wrong and how to ‘fix’ leadership in today’s society. The optional view of ethics has resulted in its disappearance. Changing the view of ethics from optional to necessary would fix the issue because lack of ethics is the source of ineffective leadership. As demonstrated in the next section, ethics affect every decision made which greatly determines a leader’s success. If ethics are properly used in leaders’ actions, how and why decisions are being made is addressed and therefore what decisions being made become ethical and

Understanding the importance of ethics will increase the likelihood of leaders to adopt ethical leadership. People are more likely to accept and use a concept they understand. If leaders understood that the ethics development process would make them an effective leader, an increasing number of leaders would have a personal ethics system. Understanding the importance of ethics is critical because leaders will consciously work to develop and use ethics, which makes them more effective. This acceptance will result in ethical decision-making and the ability to put theory into practice as well as create ethical organizations. These mentioned processes that lead to good leadership are further discussed in the following sections. What seems so minimal on a personal level can actually affect the entire society. Personal ethics produce good leadership, which help create better organizations and societies. Similar to other theories, good leadership is much easier to think and talk about than actually practice. Although the topic of this paper focuses on how someone builds and develops a personal ethics system for good leadership, it is no longer possible to set aside the key factors that define leadership in