Leadership is the act of influencing people in an organization to work towards the achievement of set goals and objectives collectively. Moreover, ethics in leaders involves the values, beliefs and morals from individual and collective perspectives, and when followed, they can increase organizational performance. Ethical leaders act as an example to their followers in an organization and are seen as honest and just, respect their subordinates, serve others and build the community. It is important to note that every home, community and organization have things that are right and others wrong; therefore, an ethical leader should know what is morally acceptable. Because an organization should be focused on their strategic goals and vision, a leader should know how to communicate the vision and influence the followers to achieve it.
How Strategic Vision Would Apply to an Organization for A Leader
It is important to note that organizations must be prepared for the future and know what skills and equipment they need to achieve their long-term vision. Clearly, businesses have recently been operating in changing environments due to advanced technologies and emerging diseases like Coronavirus; therefore, they must be prepared. For instance, businesses that had not implemented technologies had huge challenges during the Covid-19 period of lockdowns and others had to adopt them abruptly, which was costly.
Because of these changing trends, most businesses operate under flexible strategies, which help them adapt quickly to the current environment and face competition. Furthermore, a strategic leader plays an essential role in achieving the vision by creating a climate that influences employees’ behaviour, attitude and motivation. The strategic leader should diagnose the environment where the business is and where they want it to go; they must make their values fit the organizational value and also communicate the vision to the followers. Therefore, the vision should be made clear and precise for the employees to understand and pursue it. Additionally, a leader should know to communicate the vision to employees so that they can embrace it and work towards its achievement.
Ways That a Leader Can Effectively Communicate Their Vision and How to Improve On Listening Skills
Oedekoven, Lavrenz, & Robbins (2018) states that many causes of problems in an organization are caused by poor communication. Additionally, in their study, the authors reveal that effective communication happens only when the receiver has understood the message and their feedback is also received. Therefore, employees need to understand the vision for them to work to achieve it. It means that communication skills are essential in sharing the vision with the employees. Again, leaders should be at the forefront to manifest ethics in communicating the visions to the employees with respect, honesty and discipline. When effective communication is made, the vision shifts from the manager’s thing to “individual or our vision”. Again the employees can identify themselves with the company, and although they work in different departments, they will have a similar direction and achieve the same goal. A leader then must be ready to receive inputs from others, uses diverse questioning techniques to acquire more insight and encourage participation in the matters, apply active listening, solve any communication problem between group leaders and employees and continuously review daily operations and provide instruction and directions (Oedekoven, Lavrenz, & Robbins, 2018).
Furthermore, to improve listening skills, a leader can listen to both verbal and non-verbal cues used by the speaker and make the speaker know that you are listening by using signs. Moreover, a leader can ask open-ended questions, reframe what the speaker is saying and agree with the speaker’s opinion to his reframing. This gives the speaker hope that a solution is near. A leader should refrain from negative judgements, which can make him not consider what the employees are expressing. Moreover, the leader should ensure he demonstrates an understanding of the speaker’s feelings and avoid interrupting the speaker as he presents his concern. Defensive language should also be avoided for communication to be effective. Receiving feedback from a leader shows care for the employees, and it will also encourage them to raise their concerns in the future, which builds a good relationship between them and the leaders.
How Motivation Can Impact Leadership
Motivation is a crucial role of leadership, and pursuing it can lead to increased performance because it changes employees’ knowledge, skills and effort to high productivity. Everyone has had people who motivate and inspire them to work hard and achieve a specific goal or become something in life. The management always wants the organization to perform well and increase sales and profit; therefore, they should pursue this vital aspect. Studies have shown that transformational leaders perform well in motivating employees, mainly focusing on intrinsic motivation (Khan et al., 2020). However, it is essential to note that not all motivation strategies work for all employees. Employees can be motivated by different things, so the leader must know what motivates his team. Leaders should be good role models and watch what they say because words can encourage or discourage them. They should provide an environment of motivation where the employees are listened to, and their issues are taken into consideration.
How High Ethical Standards and Ethical Leadership Apply to Organizations On a Global Level
Businesses operate in society, and they have an impact on society, and also, society affects them. Businesses have economic, legal, corporate and social responsibilities. Business ethics relates closely to the legal system because there are laws that govern them. Although organizations have their values and beliefs, individuals still neglect them and commit unethical mistakes. Therefore, employees must practice the values because an organization generally does not act unethically but with individuals within the organization. It is important to note that any unethical conduct reported in an organization affects its reputation and competitiveness. It is, therefore, a very sensitive matter because people are concerned about ethical businesses and activities worldwide. Ethical matters help an organization maintain a sound connection between external and internal stakeholders (Soni, 2020).
Additionally, universally accepted ethical values apply to organizations globally and can regulate the conduct of individuals. These include laws and regulations, accurate and truthful financial statements and public and employee safety. The use of universal values allows no zero tolerance for violations by any organization. It, therefore, involves the organization responsible for its actions. For instance, with the increasing global warming and climate change concerns, businesses must be sensitive to the environment, and it is unethical to pollute the environment. Violating environmental regulations can cause the closure of businesses and the arrest of responsible leaders.
Additionally, corruption, unfair pricing, illegal activities and lack of social responsibilities have been raising the matter in the world of business (Soni, 2020). Leaders should therefore regulate their followers not to conduct or propose unethical matters; they should lead in practising ethical behaviours that agree with the organizational values, universal values, their consciousness and heroes. It is also important to note that the application of ethics by the management and leaders flows down the hierarchy of organizational leadership to the low-level employees. This means that the leaders highly influence the practice of ethics in the whole organization.
Conclusively, leadership involves influencing and motivating people to work collectively to achieve a set vision, goals and objectives. Additionally, organizations are focused on the future, so they develop a strategic vision to know what they need to achieve. Leaders are required to understand where the company is and where it should be in the future and then organize resources and communicate the vision to the employees. Furthermore, organizations have values, beliefs and morals that are believed to be right or wrong, making up business ethics. Leaders are supposed to make the values to be absorbed by other employees as also they are good examples. Moreover, there are also universal values which are rules and regulations, policies, truthful preparation of financial statements and public and employee safety that organizations must follow without violation.
References
Khan, H., Rehmat, M., Butt, T. H., Farooqi, S., & Asim, J. (2020). Impact of transformational leadership on work performance, burnout and social loafing: A mediation model. Future Business Journal, 6, 1-13.
Oedekoven, O., Lavrenz, J., & Robbins, D. (2018). Leadership essentials: Practical and proven approaches in leadership and Supervision (Peregrine Pathways) eBook:
Soni, V. D. (2020). Art of managing business ethics with global perspective. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development ISSN, 2456-6470.
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