Why Leaders Fail Ethically

Contrary to popular conceptions that ethical failures in leadership are correlated with economic downturns and other stressful market conditions, this book argues that such transgressions are an intrinsic element of leadership, as it is defined under the current prevailing paradigm. In recent years the crisis of failures in ethical leadership across organizations, particularly corporations, has been highlighted more than ever, both in academic discourse and the public sphere. Psychological maladies leading to higher number of sick leaves, general feelings of disillusionment among employees, loss of motivation and employee loyalty, even suicide (both in Western corporations and in other parts of the world) are just a few examples of how ethical failures in leadership are expressed. In order to gain original insight into the phenomenon of ethical leadership, the author explores the origins and effects of the current leadership paradigm along two dimensions: (1) a revisit of the leadership construct from a historical and philosophical perspective, with a focus on the relationship between theory and practice; and (2) the theoretical roots of the ethical component of leadership theories, identifying the reasoning behind the value system in our paradigm. Subsequently, by linking these constructs together, a meta-theory emerges suggesting that the three main ethical departure points of virtue ethics, teleology and deontology (all of which have emerged during the past three thousand years through a confluence of the Abrahamic religions’ and Greek value-systems) are the basis for our reasoning about leadership, its construct and the practice of leadership itself. Challenging traditional views of ethical leadership, the author goes beyond theory and philosophy to consider practical implications, including alternative ways to improve executive recruitment, training, and involvement of followers in decision-making; experiments like rotating leadership; and a peek into other paradigms, such as the Zoroastrianism, hence making an original contribution to the field of leadership both for scholars and practitioners.

Price brings a multi-disciplinary approach to an understanding of why leaders fail ethically.

The 21st century has seen leaders of all types failing in their efforts to earn the respect, trust, and confidence of their employees, customers, and society. This unique book explains how and why leaders fail to earn the trust of others and why ethics, integrity, and moral behaviour are so critically important for leaders of today and tomorrow. More importantly, it also provides a perspective for helping leaders to understand how they can earn the trust, followership, commitment, and extra-role behaviour so critical for success in today’s globally competitive work world.

In 2001, as a young university graduate, Dennis Gentilin became a member of a FX trading desk at one of Australia’s largest banks, the National Australia Bank. In the years that followed the desk became involved in a trading scandal that resulted in the resignation of the chairman and CEO, the upheaval of the board of directors, significant financial loss, and incalculable reputational damage. It was in this environment that the true meaning of business ethics was revealed to Gentilin. In this ground breaking book, Gentilin draws on both his personal experience and the emerging literature in the various disciplines of psychology to provide a very unique insight into the origins of ethical failures. The intellectual depth Gentilin provides coupled with his real life reflections make this book a must read for senior leaders, regulators, consultants, students and practitioners. Amongst other things, the book highlights the shortcomings associated with the traditional approaches used to explain and address ethical failures and illustrates how easily we can all, individuals and organisations alike, be complicit to unethical conduct. More importantly, it provides lessons and guidance to all leaders who aspire to build institutions that are more resilient to ethical failure.

Why do leaders fail ethically? In this book, Terry L. Price uses a multi-disciplinary approach to an understanding of immorality in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. He argues that leaders can know that a certain kind of behavior is generally required by morality but still be mistaken as to whether the relevant moral requirement applies to them in a particular situation and whether others are protected by this requirement. Price demonstrates how leaders make exceptions of themselves, explains how the justificatory force of leadership gives rise to such exception-making, and develops normative protocols that leaders should adopt.

7 Lenses has an important purpose - to provide a clear, actionable road map for leading ethically in a complex world. With a Foreword by Stephen M. R. Covey, this book takes us beyond the triple bottom line to 7 different perspectives on ethical leadership, and provides 14 Guiding Principles that help us honor them all in daily leadership. It answers: Why do even the ethics experts disagree about what ethical leadership means? What is the bigger picture that we should use as our leadership road map? What are the business benefits of intentionally using high-level ethical leadership? What can we do to be prepared for the future of ethical leadership? The examples, graphics, cases and questions provide a framework for deeply engaging constituents and building trust for the long term.

Ethical leadership does not simply emerge from a code of conduct, a good school, or a host of good intentions. It is an individual choice, or rather a series of choices that emerges from the complex interaction of personal values with social imperatives. This book explores how and why some people become ethical leaders in morally challenging and complex social environments. In Ethical Leadership, Aidan McQuade provides insight into the concept of human agency – the individual’s choice of a course of action in response to the options posed by that individual’s engagement with the social world. He puts forth a new model of human agency – the "cruciform of agency" – which recognises that the potential range of individual action emerges from the nature of the resonance that social options strike with personal thoughts. Every action adds to the individual’s personal biography in ways that influence subsequent choices by confirming or changing personal values and hopes, hence influencing the way the individual subsequently thinks about the world. In explaining the potential and limits of human agency for ethical leadership, the book establishes a basis for executives, policy makers and academics to conceptualise and develop more robust and realistic approaches for the mitigation of some of the most pressing moral issues facing humanity today. These include the inter-related challenges of modern slavery and global warming, which pose such critical threats to the Earth itself. In this book McQuade not only sets an agenda for action but empowers individual leaders to find the moral courage to better advance human rights and preserve the environment even when such action requires unpopular choices.

Do you want to make sure you · Don't invest your money in the next Enron? · Don't go to work for the next WorldCom right before the crash? · Identify and solve problems in your organization before they send it crashing to the ground? Marianne Jennings has spent a lifetime studying business ethics---and ethical failures. In demand nationwide as a speaker and analyst on business ethics, she takes her decades of findings and shows us in The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse the reasons that companies and nonprofits undergo ethical collapse, including: · Pressure to maintain numbers · Fear and silence · Young 'uns and a larger-than-life CEO · A weak board · Conflicts · Innovation like no other · Belief that goodness in some areas atones for wrongdoing in others Don't watch the next accounting disaster take your hard-earned savings, or accept the perfect job only to find out your boss is cooking the books. If you're just interested in understanding the (not-so) ethical underpinnings of business today, The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse is both a must-have tool and a fascinating window into today's business world.