Ethical leadership

The main purpose of this blog is critically analysis the ethical leadership form different sides and give example in the automotive industry to illustrating the point.  Also at the end, it concludes the role that ethical leaders play to have a positive effects on the organisations.

Generally, ethical leadership is a leadership style and known as the actions, honesty and the trust that the leaders have. We could divided it into two parts leadership and ethical behavior. The leadership is in the process of directing, inspiring and motivating the individual to do the right things and complete the inspired tasks. (Sarwar. 2013). At the same time, the leaders are required for ethical behavior in their attitudes and interactions. The evidence suggests that ethical leader behavior can have important positive effects on both individual and organizational effectiveness (Rubin et al 2010: 216-17). A high ethical standard in the organisation can helps to develop strong harmonious working relationships between the employees and leaders. Also it could reduce employee turnover and increase job satisfaction and has a positive effect on productivity. What’s more, the ethical leadership could enhance the effectiveness capacity of the firm in achieving the goal. (Ghahroodi, 2013)

Although the ethical leadership can have positive impact on organizational effectiveness, it does not mean that all the organizations suit this strategy. The leader must establish a culture of ethics behavior in the workplace and manage this culture well and keep it alive. (Erin. 2012) Moreover, one of the important disadvantage of the ethical leadership is lack of management support. For instance, if the senior employees want to apply their own version of ethical, it will have a conflict with leader and cause confusion in the workplace. Meanwhile, according to Kvalnes (Kvalnes, 2012). the ethical leader usually faced with dilemmas during the course of their work. The reason is that the ethical decision may not be the beneficial decision for the organization, due to some effective outcome to the enterprise may against the ethical issue. Another challenge for ethical leadership is the difficult process about training and development for leaders becoming the real ethical person. (Ghahroodi, 2013)

 

Related to my industry- automotive industry. The relationship between ethics leadership and automotive industry is quite close. Nowadays, most of the automotive companies are facing the challenges that automobiles should be economical to drive, earth friendly and priced to sell, even including Ford, General Motors and Bavarian Motor Works (BMW). It is not about the economic reason. It is due to the ethical factor. However, if their leader owned ethical leadership, they need to rethink and retool the strategy. They do not have the necessary to do so, but if they did there will be beneficial for their organisations. (Cindy. 2009).

Tesla is a new American automobile company, which sell designs and sells the electric cars. The leader of Tesla Elon Musk has well understood the ethical leadership. Although he knew the difficulty and cost of producing the electric cars, he resisted on his dream and ethics that is environmental to our earth. When Tesla decided to entry the Chinese market, Elon make a decision that they would not follow the old standard that the American automotive company would charge twice price as much as in the America. He preferred to doing things differently and follow the ethics. Finally, he made the price at $121,400 for its high-end Model S electric car. While other big auto firms offer discount to attract China buyers, Tesla is the first to make the price clear and open to consumers, which is the same as the overseas markets. This ethical action help Tesla win the applause of Chinese consumers. A survey on one of the most popular Chinese site QQ.com, which had more than 80,000 votes, showed that over ninety percent of consumers supported Tesla’s move. (Adam, 2014). So the ethical leadership can not only have important effects on individuals but also is of benefits to the organisations.

In summary, we can say the leader is a person that manage, direct, inspire, motivate and influence a group of people to complete the tasks effectively no matter in automotive industry or any other industries. To be a leader, the basic requirement is able to make others follow you, so the ethical leadership become more and more popular. Furthermore, the leader must have a deep-rooted commitment to the goal even if no one to follows them. In a word,the leader is essential and important for the organisation.

 

 

Sarwar.C. (2013). ‘Future of Ethically Effective Leadership ‘. Journal of Business Ethics. Mar2013, Vol. 113 Issue 1, p81-89. 9p. 7 Charts.

 

 

Erin.S. (2012). ‘What Are the Key Elements of Ethical Leadership in an Organization?’. [online]. Available from: < http://smallbusiness.chron.com/key-elements-ethical-leadership-organization-16742.html > [Accessed 17/03/2014]

Kvalnes, O. (2012) ‘Ethical Navigation in Leadership Training’ Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics.

 

Ghahroodi. H. (2013) ‘Examining Ethical Leadership and Its Impacts on the Followers’ Behavioral Outcomes’ Asain Social Science 9(3).

 

Cindy.B. (2009). ‘Ethics and the automotive industry’. [online]. Available from: < http://www.examiner.com/article/ethics-and-the-automotive-industry >. [Accessed 16/03/2014]

 

Adam.J. (2014). ‘Carmaker Tesla wins China fans with ‘fair’ price strategy’. [online]. Available from: < http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/04/us-china-tesla-idUSBREA131KM20140204 > [Accessed 16/03/2014]