Leadership Relation to Ethics and Followership: Comparison and Contrast (Essay Sample)

Leadership Relation to Ethics and Followership: Comparison and Contrast
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Leadership Relation to Ethics and Followership: Comparison and Contrast
Leaders play a crucial role in the organization’s performance. The leaders’ ability to motivate followers or workers contributes significantly to the achievement of set goals and objectives. Similarly, ethical principles define the capabilities of a leader to direct the staff into taking a certain direction and perform tasks competently. The following shows how leaders relate to followership and ethics in an organization, contributing to its success or failure. Additionally, there are some differences depicted which do not necessarily affect their significance.
Leadership and Ethics
Leaders’ ethics highly affect the employees’ motivation, positively or negatively. Low ethical standards by executive leaders necessitate followers’ justification of poor performance and unacceptable behaviors. According to Ciulla (1998), leaders help define the behavior of the staff in an organization. Similarly, “the meter and behavior established by leaders set the pattern and establish the models of our behavior as individuals and as a group” (Ciulla, 1998, p.26). Additionally, morals constitute the emotional part of a manager. This helps him or her to deal with ambivalent situations individually or among the staff members. In ambivalence, leaders take distractive tasks in avoidance of discomfort and the unwillingness to take their executive decision-making role (Simon, 2006). Therefore, business ethics and moral principles help explain what is required as a leader and what to avoid. Despite the significant relationship between quality leadership and business ethics, there are some instances where leadership is not dictated by good morals or leaders’ ethics.
The two contrast in definition; leadership is the ability to direct individuals in a group or institution while ethics means the drive to distinguish between what is right and wrong. The success of a leader is not directly dependent of the ethical principles. Worthiness of a leader is measured only in terms of character (Ciulla, 1998). On the other hand, ethics, at individual level, are defined by actions and results from those actions.
Leadership and Followership
Studies show that “transformational and charismatic leaders” promote optimism and positivity in promotion focus by employees, which constitute to positive results (Kark & Dijk, 2007, p.516). Followers’ rights and roles in an organization describe the leaders' responsibilities. Ciulla (1998) argues, “Followers’ rights require that leaders recognize their true role within the commonwealth” (p. 33). Therefore, leaders’ decisions are highly based on the needs of their followers. Additionally, leadership can be termed as services to others. This means that leaders aim at satisfying the needs of their followers who are an important part of the leadership phenomenon (Ciulla, 1998). A great leader listens to his or her followers; accept suggestions and offer opinions and solutions. The relation between leaders and followers define the possibilities of success in any task. Leaders should focus on motivating their followers substantially for them to perform considerably. Communication should also be strengthened for access to relevant information contributing to timely and accurate decisions.
In contrast, a leader aims at motivating and provide for the needs of his or her followers, while followers aim at increasing their own satisfaction at the expense of their responsibilities. Leaders may portray high level of business ethics and motivational skills but performance rates fail to hike. This may be due to uncooperative followers.
Conclusion
Leadership, ethics and ...