Which is More Important in Improving Ethical Values in an Organization?
Leader behavior would be most effective in improving the ethical values in an organization. It has always been said that the best way to lead is to lead by example, and leading an organization should be no different.
CEOs, in particular, play a major role in influencing the values and culture of an organization. The direction that they provide contribute lot to the success of a company (Melcher, 2009).
They can affect their organization’s operations by sharing the different values they have. These personal values include their beliefs on the acceptable modes of conduct that is appropriate for a given situation. These values would serve as principles to guide behaviors.
In addition, a CEO’s values influence the organization’s culture, which in turn influences the member’ behavior, as well as the organization’s efficiency and growth (Melcher).
As an example, leaders who value self-direction – having independence, expressing free thought, and making one’s own choices – are likely to lead highly innovative organizations. On the other hand, leaders who value benevolence -- establishing supportive relationships, attending to other people’s needs, and showing concern for them – tend to lead highly supportive organizations whereas leaders who value security – maintaining predictability, preserving order, and having stability – are likely to lead highly bureaucratic organizations.
Moreover, the outcomes are directly related to the leader’s values. For example, leaders who value security are not likely to lead the organization in taking risks or fostering creativity. In the same manner, leaders who prioritize their employees’ needs tend to be conflicted about promoting other incompatible goals such as sales growth.
Although having a code of ethics is good, its effective implementation still relies largely on the organization’s leader. Similarly, the effectiveness of employee training will rely on how well the organization’s leaders are able to monitor their employees’ learning from the training. In the end, it all goes back to how effective the leadership is.
Every Leadership Act Affects Stakeholders
A stakeholder is “an individual or a group that has one or more of the various kinds of stakes in the organization” (Carroll & Buccholtz, 2011, p. 66). These can include customers, employees, stockholders, as well as the society, the media, special-interest groups, suppliers, competitors, and the community.
Stakeholders can be affected by the practices, policies, and decisions of an organization and vice versa.
This is especially true of leaders who represent the organization and who are largely responsible for the direction that the organization takes.
It s then important for leaders to methodically evaluate their decisions in terms of the standards of conduct to make the moral dimensions of their choices clearer (“Components of an Ethical Decision,”2011).
A person of character has a moral obligation to consider the moral implication of the decisions they make toward others. Every stakeholder has a moral claim on the decision maker, in this case the leader.
For example, in a software company a department manager might all of a sudden decide to take a vacation during the week of a software release. Such a decision can possibly have an impact on the different stakeholders involved. For example, if the manager is a QC manager and his or her subordinates suddenly encounter a critical decision that needs to be made. However, since the QC manager is not around then this can delay the work of the QC testers. As a result, the developers who are waiting for the test results from QC would have their work delayed, too. In the long run, this might delay the entire release, which can make the company’s leaders lose credibility with the clients. If the clients had a critical need for the new software version then their operations can be disrupted, too. Finally, it can affect the company’s revenue as well as the employee morale.
It can then be said that a leader’s act, no matter how simple or complex, can affect various stakeholders.
References
Carroll, A.B., & Buchholtz, A.K.(2011). Business and society: Ethics, Sustainability, and
Stakeholder Management. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Components of an Ethical Decision: Commitment, Consciousness, and Competency. (2011).
Retrieved from http://josephsoninstitute.org/business/blog/2010/12/components-of-an-
ethical-decision-commitment-consciousness-and-competency/
Melcher, K. (2009). How CEO values affect company performance. Retrieved from
http://www.degarmogroup.com/index.php/2010/06/how-ceo-values-affect-company-
performance-2/
