Leadership has captured a wide spread of attention it is believed to be either transactional or transformational. Transactional leaders are those who lead others to a social exchange according to Kotlyar & Karakowsky (2006). Transformational leaders are those who stimulate and can inspire other to achieve extraordinary outcome and by doing so they develop their own leadership capacity. Transformational leaders guide their followers by empowering and guiding them to achieving certain goals in their lives (Kouzes & Posner, 1999).
Leaders are always aware of what they value, and they do recognize the importance of ethical behavior. For one to be an outstanding leader, he must be able to exhibit both their values and their leadership style. Leadership ethics and values should be visible in daily actions. There should be trust in leaders at the work place such values should be carried everywhere a stated by Antonakis, Avolio & Sivasubramaniam (2003). If leaders experiment trust, and share their values it will lead trust. To announce one sentimental and doing the other will lead to mistrust among the leaders followers. If leaders fail to live up to expectations in terms of behaviors, they will influence the actions of their followers.
An effective leader should posses the correct values and ethics for him to manage people effectively Papa, Daniels & Spiker (2008). They should be in apposition to recognize the importance of ethical behavior in their follower or juniors. Leaders should lead by examples by doing what they expect other to do. Leaders who might flout their own rules and show poor values and ethics find it hard in controlling his followers (McQueeny, 2006). It is after clear demonstration of values and ethics that effective work situations can happen. Some values are personal and include individuality, integrity, competency, accuracy, loyalty, honesty, quality among others as argued by Reilly (2006). Leaders should choose values that will help them perform effectively and transform others mainly their followers. These values chosen by leaders should be in their thoughts, words and in everyday’s actions.
References
Antonakis, J., Avolio, B. J., & Sivasubramaniam, N. (2003). Context and leadership: An examination of the nine-factor Full-Range Leadership Theory using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. The Leadership Quarterly. 14(3).
Kotlyar, I. & Karakowsky, L. (2006). Leading Conflict? Linkages Between Leader Behaviors and Group Conflict. Small Group Research. 37(4).
Kouzes, J. & Posner, B. (1999). Encouraging the Heart. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers.
McQueeny, E. (2006). Making Ethics Come Alive. Business Communication Quarterly. 69(2).
Papa, M.J., Daniels, T.D. & Spiker, B.K.(2008). Organizational Communication: Perspectives and Trends. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.
Reilly, E. C. (2006). The future entering: Reflections on and challenges to ethical leadership. Educational Leadership and Administration. 1(8).
