Introduction
In the contemporary society, ethical leadership is perceived as a significant issue for both practitioners and academicians as it is crucial in influencing the employees’ performance and behavior within the company. Empirical evidence reveals that ethical leadership significantly impacts the performance and behavior of an organization’s employees in various ways such as fostering employee commitment and enhancing trust amid the company’s employees. Ethical leadership relates to the manifestation of normatively appropriate behavior through various interpersonal relationships and personal actions, and the reinforcement of these conducts to one’s followers through fostering a two-way communication strategy and through various decision-making strategies (Wang, Lu, Liu, 2017). An ethical leader lives up to the established principles of conduct within the organization, and he adheres to the universal standards of moral conduct. Ethical leaders often employ various ethical principles in their decision-making strategies. They identify the moral standards that create a fine line between an employee’s intolerant and acceptable behaviors. These leaders serve as effective role models within the company by establishing a moral atmosphere typified by a collective perception of the acceptable and the intolerant behaviors within the workplace and by common presuppositions on how the company often responds to moral issues. Ethical leaders are obliged to establish and communicate the company’s ethical policies and codes to the organization’s employees (Wang, Feng & Lawton, 2017). To enhance my perceptiveness about ethical leadership, I interviewed Adam Dawes, a product manager at Google Inc., on his personal experience as an ethical leader. This paper seeks to outline ethical practices and leadership styles analysis in the contemporary business environment.
Interview Information
Adam Dawes has worked as a production manager within the organization for approximately eight years. He manages the OAuth authorization and authentication infrastructure at Google Inc. Adam Dawes has worked in the computer security field for almost one decade performing various duties such as building email security, fraud protection from a technological, consumer, and business perspective, spam fighting, and other policy control operations (Ullah et al ., 2017). Adam Dawes previously worked at Postini as a Product Management Director before his employment at Google. He also worked at Autodaq Inc. currently known as Openlane Inc., as a leader of the company's product development group. He holds a master's degree in business administration from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in visual arts from the University of Harvard. In his current managerial position, Adam leads approximately 2000 individuals directly and a total of 73, 994 individuals indirectly.
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As a product manager, Adam Dawes always upholds the company’s ethics while interacting with other company employees within the workplace. He relates his ethical leadership attributes during his interaction with other employees to the leader’s basic rules of conduct which include leader principle, constituent principle, outcome principle, skills principle, context principle, and the ethics principle (Suhuan, Zhiyong & Hongsheng, 2018). In his response, he specified the various strategies he employs to ensure that he upholds the company's ethics during his interactions within the workplace. The strategies include ensuring that his deeds reflect the mission and purpose of the company, respecting his co-workers, guiding employees in line with the organization's goals, values, vision, and mission, and acknowledging the different ideas and opinions presented by other employees through fostering an open communication strategy.
Adam Dawes acknowledges the practice of business ethics when training subordinates within the organization. He associates business ethics practices during employee training to its effectiveness in encouraging employees to abide by the company’s regulations and to focus on attaining the organization’s goals. Some of the ethical practices he employs during employee training programs include upholding and enforcing various company policies during the organization of various employee training programs such as hiring the training team, and upholding his integrity when implementing various decisions associated with the employee training programs. Other business ethical practices he incorporates during the training programs include exhibiting professional accountability when executing tasks related to the training program, demonstrating dedication and commitment in the assigned duties during the training programs, and being involved in the employee training process (Schaubroek et al ., 2012). He subsequently affirmed that through practicing business ethics he provides a strategic mileage that equips his staff with the knowledge and skills that enhances their understanding on how to deal with various ethical challenges and how to implement ethically effective decisions. His response also incorporated the impacts derived from the practicing of business ethics by leaders during various training programs. These impacts include the enhancement of ethical awareness amid subordinates, its capacity to enhance the establishment of a good relationship amid the employer and the employee, and its efficacy in fostering the ability of employees to understand the relationship amid business ethics and various operational issues within the organization.
According to Adams, the impact of ethics in his day-to-day decision-making approaches include enhancing the clarification of the prevailing problem by identifying the uncertainties, its capacity to foster the identification and analysis of the biases, commitments, and assumptions during the decision-making process, and its efficacy in ascertaining the nature of the prevailing issue. The respondent ascribed the incorporation of ethics in his decision-making procedures to the capacity to foster the understanding of various potential effects associated with the implemented decision, and the capacity to allow the inclusion of various important stakeholders in the decision-making procedures (Neves, Almeida & Velez, 2018). In his response, Adam stated that ethics enhance his capacity to assess the probable risks and consequences associated with the considered decision and the ability to employ the company’s rules and regulations in his decision-making strategies. Lastly, Adam mentioned that ethics plays an essential role in the selection, implementation, and execution of the established action plans during the decision-making process and it allows him to consider his integrity and character throughout the process.
Promotion of ethical behavior amid his superiors, peers, and subordinates within the company is very important in the workplace. Additionally, Adam advocates for application of a number strategies to foster ethical behavior among employees. These initiatives include the establishment of the code of ethics within the organization, organizing employee ethics training programs, rewarding ethical behaviors among his subordinates, instituting disciplinary strategies, encouraging managers to lead by example. The preliminary step he employs in enhancing ethical behaviors amid the company’s employees is the establishment of a code of ethics which he considers effective in providing guidelines and directions on employee behavior (Minro & Thanem, 2018). The code of ethics is a tool that fosters the understanding of the company’s ethical regulations and rules by employees. The respondent perceives the training of employees on various ethical practices as an effective tool in enhancing the employees’ capacity to develop a perspicuous understanding of the management’s behavioral expectations from their employees. The respondent further asserted that employee ethics training advances the development of an ethical culture within the company. Adam also believes that employees need to be constantly taught on how to approach various ethical dilemmas when carrying out their respective duties.
Additionally, he maintains that rewarding an employee’s ethical behavior not only encourages the employee to uphold the organization’s ethical policies but also serves as an inspiration to other employees within the organization. Therefore, he emphasizes the need for employers to identify and reward workers who uphold various ethical practices in spite of the tempting situations (Minro & Thanem, 2018). Adam presumes that the capacity of a manager to conform to a high ethical standard when carrying out his assigned duties is significant in enhancing his credibility when conveying the company’s expectations to other employees. He perceives the establishment of disciplinary approaches for various unethical behaviors as an essential factor in promoting ethical practices within the company. He stated that “If an organization’s employee resorts to any unethical behavior or malpractice, sanctions should be imposed on them; this will help workers to understand the consequences of inappropriate behavior.”
Any leader needs to dedicate enough time to deal with and conclusively address ethical issues in his line of duty. According to Adam, he spends approximately 20 percent of his time in handling these issues that mainly involve his junior employees and company clients. He also delineates a strategy he often employs when dealing with different ethical issues. The is typified by three significant steps which include the identification of various ethical issues, the identification of alternative courses of action, and the incorporation of an ethical perspective in determining the most effective course of action (Yu-Chi, 2017).
My interviewee acknowledged that ethical/unethical behaviors impact customer relations. To support his response, he delineated the different ways in which ethics impact customer relations. He affirmed the effectiveness of ethical practices in enhancing the betterment of service quality which subsequently promotes the establishment of a positive relationship between the organization and its respective consumers. Adam presumes that ethical behaviors play a significant role in fostering customer retention within the organization (Cuilla et al ., 2018). Additionally, he related customer retention to the organization’s ability to retain its consumers over a long period. He stated that customer retention often commences during the first contact amid a company and a consumer and it continues through time. He mentioned that ethical behaviors are critical in promoting customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is the consumer’s behavioral and attitudinal tendency to prefer a particular brand over the others in the marketplace. Lastly, he stated the significance of ethical behaviors in fostering satisfaction among the company’s customers. He further associated unethical behaviors with decreased customer satisfaction, poor retention strategies, and poor customer loyalty.
Notably, Mr. Adam selected his teams based on individual ethical codes of the members. The ethical features he believes complement a successful team includes trustworthiness, excellence, honesty, transparency, competency, loyalty, integrity, respect, and courtesy. Also, to ensure the establishment of reliable and sound decisions, Adam advises leaders to develop decisions and execute policies that contemplate on the probable effects on all stakeholders and to employ the use of transparent and accountable procedures in various decision-making processes. He also encourages them to uphold their integrity during various decision-making strategies and to operate under the values of “fair action.” Additionally, he advised other leaders to support and encourage the diversities in criticism, arguments, and opinions and to work in the employees and consumers’ best interests through designing products and services that aim to satisfy the employees and customers’ needs as opposed to the company’s needs.
With regards to social responsibility, Mr. Adam claims that his stipulated guidance fosters the company management’s obligation to protect the society’s interests by urging the leaders to work in the best interests of their respective consumers and employees. Additionally, he reiterated the importance of a sound ethical code of ethics by all employees especially with the ever increasingly competitive business environment. He highlighted the code of ethics’ effectiveness in guiding the behaviors of employees within the organization, its effectiveness in reinforcing the company’s values and culture among employees, and its capacity to minimize the inconsistent and subjective nature of the management standards (Amiridis, 2018). He also mentioned that the effectiveness of the code of ethics might also be demonstrated in its capacity to develop public trust and to foster a positive business reputation and in its capacity to promote valuable social changes within the society. Lastly, Mr. Adam argues that the code of ethics enhances the company’s capacity to comply with the complex government laws and that it fosters the dissemination of the company’s expectations to its associates and its respective employees.
To effectively enforce the company’s code of ethics, the interviewee emphasized the need for leaders to communicate the company’s code of ethics to the employees using a variety of methods, establish the potential disciplinary actions for unethical behaviors, conduct employee training programs on ethics, and develop an employee protocol for reporting unethical behaviors. Other effective strategies presented by the respondent include the designing of a reward system for employees who uphold the company’s ethics and the incorporation of work ethics in the performance appraisals of employees. He summed up by emphasizing that ethics relate to the set of moral principles, values, or standards of behavior which aims to guide the conduct or behavior of employees at their respective places of work (Yu-Chi, 2017).
Analysis of the Interviewee’s Leadership Style
As a leader, Adam Dawes employs the transformational leadership style in his management strategies. He uses various techniques and strategies to enhance the self-efficacy of his followers, to empower his followers, and to influence their attitudes, norms, and values by the organization's mission and goals. Under the transformational leadership style, Adam seeks to better the condition of his followers to effectively attain the organization's goals. He incorporates four behavioral forms which include individualized consideration, intellectual simulation, inspirational motivation, and idealized influence (Suhuan, Zhiyong & Hongsheng, 2018). Adam Dawes may be typified further as an authentic transformational leader. He demonstrates a strong moral character, the concern for others, and various ethical values that are deeply rooted in the company’s vision (Munro & Thanem, 2018).
Conclusion
Ethics is a global phenomenon that is considered important to all organizations. Ethical leaders always demonstrate a great ethical concern and awareness towards all the company’s stakeholders, and this includes the company’s employees. Leaders are, therefore, obliged to develop an ethical-friendly workplace environment for all workers, communicate ethical issues, act as appropriate role models, and establish a mechanism that seeks to encourage the implementation of the organization’s ethical standards. Companies should employ efforts that aim at hiring ethical employees by focusing on both technical and ethical skills during the recruitment screening procedure. Information on the ethical behaviors of potential employees may be obtained from integrity tests, background checks, reference checks, and resumes. Organizations ought to ensure that all company workers are involved in all ethics training programs; this will subsequently serve as an opportunity for workers to learn and assess the significance of ethics on the performance of the organization. Ethical leaders ought to punish unethical conducts and reward ethical conducts. They should make decisions that aim to compensate and promote employees who display both ethical and technical expertise.
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