Ethical Leadership: A Literature Review and Future Research Directions - Essay Sample

Introduction

The article carries out a literature review on the study of ethical leadership and outlines then specific areas that need future research. It begins by discussing ethics and leadership while drawing the research from the "dark side" leadership behavior (Brown & Mitchell, 2010). With the use of emerging organizational research, the article widens the boundaries of the investigation to incorporate the analysis of unethical leadership. It does not only discuss ethical and unethical leadership but also examines the emerging trends that are crucial within the literature of organizational behavior that has been proposed for ethics and leadership.

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According to the study by Weber (2014), the emerging trends of emotions, identity, and identification, as well as fit and congruence, are crucial in extending the current thinking on leadership and ethics. Aside from discussing these emerging trends, the review also examines the essential matters relevant to the progress of this ethical leadership research (Weber, 2014). Hence, the article takes the reader through the importance of leadership, especially in terms of encouraging ethical conduct in companies and organizations. It is the leaders who set the expectations for organizational behavior and goals.

General Theme

In my opinion, the authors' general theme is on the ethical leadership concept more than it explores the wrong leadership perception as it mostly examines the literature on ethical leadership practices and behaviors. Its primary focus is on ethics and leadership meaning that these two factors make up the authors' general theme.

Point of View

The authors' presentation of their point of view was objective and factual. I felt this way because the authors back up their positions with facts from well-researched papers. They provide explanations using a simple language and provide citations where necessary (Brown & Mitchell, 2010). It is informing the targeted audience as it focuses on the facts and gives it to the audience. Besides, it goes beyond just laying out the facts. It is also instructive and educative to the intended audience.

Issue Analysis

The article presents various issues. It identifies that leaders influence the building of ethical work practices as the behaviors of employees. It identifies the difference between being a moral manager and an honorable person, which has an impact on the concept of ethical leadership (Monahan, 2012). People learn different standards of behavior by observing how their leaders behave. It identifies that followers often ignore a leader who does not have moral behavior. Ethical leadership has an impact on employees as it makes them feel obligated to return the right responses. Additionally, ethical leadership is associated with crucial employee outcomes, such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and task significance (Brown & Mitchell, 2010). The contexts of high pressure leadership are linked to unethical behavior.

The article also presents the issue of destructive work behavior and why members of organizations still engage in them. There are unethical leader acts that include abusive supervision, tyrannical leadership, and toxic leadership, which are morally unacceptable to the larger society (Davis, Cox & Baucus, 2019). A leader can be an ethical person but encourages corrupt and unethical actions in the effort of accomplishing organizational goals. According to the social cognitive theory of moral action and thought, leaders sometimes behave unethically because of their disconnection from ethical standards. The use of self-regulation principles explains the reason unethical leadership occurs (Brown & Mitchell, 2010). It found that leaders were in a position to influence the emotion of their followers through their communications and behavior towards employees.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The authors conclude that it is crucial to integrate the emerging trends of emotions, fit, and identity into the research of leadership and ethics to be able to know more about the domain. The agreement between leaders and their followers have some consequences and antecedents that result in ethical and unethical leadership. The article settles that the scientific education of ethical leadership has grown immensely (Mihelic, Lipienik & Tekacic, 2010). They suggest then the presence of many prospects for the coming studies while assimilating the evolving trends in the literature for organizational behavior that include emotions, fit, and identity.

The article recommends further studies on unethical leadership research to address the issues in other capacities of organizational behavior. Particularly, the authors rely on other scholars to consider matters that involve the leadership rating variability as well as the management levels, and the longitudinal and multisource data (Brown & Mitchell, 2010). They recommend the use of empirical research on ethical leadership. Studying ethical leadership at various levels of management will help determine how the concept is based on learning processes (Suhonen et al., 2011). It also recommends the examination of differences and similarities in the various levels of management as well as an examination of the interrelationships between them. Additionally, many questions have been left unanswered, and thus the authors recommend the use of longitudinal research designs ton help get the answers. More research is also needed to fully understand how the ethics of followers are formed about the perceptions of their leaders (Van Der Wal, 2010).

Likewise, there are recommendations to explore how cultural differences might impact the perceptions of employees towards their leaders. A leader and the employee might be coming from different cultures and might influence the effectiveness of the leader. Further research is also needed to determine the effects of culture on ethical and unethical leadership outcomes.

Agreement or Disagreement

I agree with some of the conclusions and recommendations and disagree with others. I agree that it is crucial to integrate the emerging trends of emotions, fit, and identity into the research of leadership and ethics to be able to know more about the domain. These sectors are important in the leadership field as they help to extend the current thinking of ethical and unethical leadership (Butts, 2012). I also agree that it is necessary to conduct more studies on unethical leadership because there are a lot of things that make up unethical leadership even when one is a moral person (Chadegani & Jari, 2016).

Professional Projections

I have learned that ethical and unethical leadership styles both have an impact on the employees positively and negatively. For employees in an organization to be moral people, the leaders have to set an example of what they expect the employees to follow (Brown & Mitchell, 2010). Some of the behaviors are unconsciously acquired, while others are incorporated due to constant practice (Suter, 2006). I may apply this experience in my professional future career by learning how to be an ethical leader and getting the employees to be moral people and allow everyone in the organization to act ethically at all times.

References

Brown, M., & Mitchell, M. (2010). Ethical and Unethical Leadership: Exploring New Avenues for Future Research, Business Ethics Quarterly, 20(4), 583-616.

Butts, J. (2012). Ethics in Organizations and Leadership, Clark, 119- 151.

Chadegani, A., & Jari, A. (2016).Corporate Ethical Culture: Review of Literature and Introducing PP Model, Procedia Economics and Finance, 36, 51-61.

Davis, M., Cox, M., & Baucus, M. (2019). Managerial Aspirations and Suspect Leaders: The Effect of Relative Performance and Leader Succession on Organizational Misconduct. Journal Of Business Ethics. doi: 10.1007/s10551-019-04245-1

Mihelic, K., Lipienik, B,. & Tekacic, M. (2010). Ethical Leadership, International Journal of Management and Information Systems, 14(5).

Monahan, K. (2012). A Review of the Literature Concerning Ethical Leadership in Organizations, Emerging Leadership Journeys, 5(1), 56-66.

Suhonen, R., et al. (2011). Organizational ethics: A literature review, Journal of Nursing Ethics, 18(3).

Suter, R. (2006). Organizational Ethics, Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America, 24, 579-603.

Van Der Wal, Z. (2010). The Content And Context Of Organizational Ethics, Public Administration, 89(2), 644-660.

Weber, J. (2014). Identifying and Assessing Managerial Value Orientations: A Cross-Generational Replication Study of Key Organizational Decision-Makers' Values. Journal Of Business Ethics, 132(3), 493-504. doi: 10.1007/s10551-014-2364-8