Leadership plays a crucial role in enabling organizations to achieve their mission and vision. Leaders are entrusted to mobilize the employees in an organization towards a common goal. Incompetent leaders in organizations can be termed as ineffective, unethical. Such leaders are rigid, intemperate, and callous. Overtime in history, research work has focused mainly on the good form of leadership such as ethical leadership, transformational leadership, and authentic leadership (Rosenbach, 2018) . The dark leadership theories have been ignored in leadership research work. The dark leadership theories tend to focus on the reality of leadership. Narcissistic leadership theory is dominated by arrogance and hostility. This leadership style is more destructive in organizations when driven by people with a high need for power. Narcissistic leaders aim to take admiration from their followers. These leaders are also unable to take critics positively. They are highly sensitive and do not tolerate dissenting opinions and slights.
Machiavellianism leadership tends to follow the approach of “the end justifies the means." This indicates that leadership deploying this approach tends to use any method in achieving their goals. Extreme Machiavellianism translates to greater harm to followers in an organization as leaders push to attain their goals and objectives. This leadership is dominated by deception, theft, physical coercion, and manipulation.
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Leaders can either cover the followers in their organizations in the darkness or illuminate their lives through the leadership tactics they deploy in organizations. The concept of light and shadow exhibits the difference between immoral and moral leaders (Johnson, 2018) . Leaders in organizations cast shadows when they exhibit masterly ethical challenges in leadership. On the other hand, they cast shadows when they exhibit actions such as abuse of power, mismanagement of information, and failure to assume their responsibilities. Several negative behaviors such as insider training, theft of funds from companies, and evading taxes are associated with some leaders in the contemporary organization leadership (Smith et al., 2016) . All the traits indicate ethical failures. Such leaders are said to cast shadows due to the darkness they create in organizations. Poor and faulty decision-making and limited experience in running organizations also encompass casting shadows.
Self-centered leadership is one of the destructive leadership behaviors commonly manifested through greed, narcissism, and pride. Selfish and self-centered leaders have limited empathy towards their followers. Identification of dysfunctional motivation comprises essential steps in providing greater insights into shadow leadership. However, well-adjusted leaders can also cast shadows. Deficiency in ethics also results in casting shadows. Leaders unintentionally cast shadows due to limitations of skills, experience, and knowledge. The failure to understand the process of making ethical decisions.
Ethics are at the heart of any leadership approach. Any assumption of the benefits of leadership translates into assumption of ethical burdens in leadership. There are many ethical issues in contemporary leadership. The ethics and compliance initiative in 2018 on the global benchmark on workplace ethics indicated that approximately 30% of the employees in the United States observed a form of workplace misconduct and ethics violation every year (Rosenbach, 2018) . There are several ethical dilemmas in leadership. There are various laws that require organizations to act ethically by avoiding harassment and discrimination of workers. Organizations adhering to ethics also facilitate the recruitment of a diversified workforce and develop policies and training programs to ensure equal opportunity for all employees within an organization. The implementation of these EEOC guidelines poses a major ethical dilemma in leadership.
Some employees who violate the standard operating procedures in organizations tend to mistake disciplinary action for harassment and discrimination. This is a major ethical dilemma in leadership. The second aspect of the dilemma concerns job applicants' skills and qualifications. As much as the leadership may want to recruit a diverse workforce, the limitation of skills is a major hindrance (Smith et al., 2016) . Recruiting employees from the same race or ethnicity may be interpreted as unethical. Leaders and managers face a trade-off in sacrificing skills and qualifications to achieve diversity in the workforce. To solve these dilemmas, the organization's leader regularly emphasizes the organization's standard operating procedures and the consequences of violating the procedures. Leaders work in collaboration with affected individuals in the organization.
The week's reading has had a huge impact on my competency and abilities in making ethical decisions in the future. Making ethical decisions is a sensitive process that requires a high level of commitment, consciousness, and competency. Commitment encompasses a desire to do the right thing without regard to the associated costs. The consciousness aspect encompasses awareness to apply moral convictions and acting consistently to daily behaviors. Ethical decision-making should be data-based. There is a need to collect and evaluate information to facilitate making ethical decisions. Collection and evaluation of information help to forecasts risks and develop alternatives that bear minimal risks to the organizations. Ethical decisions play a crucial role in demonstrating respect, fairness, responsibility, and sustaining trust in leadership.
The members of the public expect public figures to serve as examples through demonstrating ethics and accountability in leadership. Public figures are expected to make ethical decisions and moral choices. Some public figures cast shadows through demonstrating inconsistency and demonstrate favoritism towards some followers over others. Public figures aim to brighten the lives of their followers selflessly. One of the renowned public figure who continued his efforts in serving humanity through improvement of habitats and humanity carter center was former president Jimmy Carter despite brain cancer diagnosis. Other public figures such as Pope Francis inspired many catholic followers through his humble lifestyle and compassion towards the poor people.
References
Johnson, C. E. (2018). Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow . Sage Publications.
Rosenbach, W. E. (2018). Contemporary issues in leadership . Routledge.
Smith, W. K., Lewis, M. W., & Tushman, M. L. (2016). Both/and” leadership. Harvard Business Review , 94 (5), 62-70.
