Denise Stennes
Business Ethics
Chapter 5 summary
Ethical Decision Making and Ethical Leadership
Some of the most important factors of ethical decision making include Ethical-Issue
Intensity, Individual factors, Organizational Factors, and opportunity. These factors work
together to influence ethical or unethical decision making. Strong Ethical Leadership includes
different leadership styles, and important habits of strong leaders.
The first step to making an ethical decision is to recognize that an issue requires a
company or individual to choose between several alternatives that eventually will be evaluated
among stake holders as right or wrong. Ethical Issue intensity is the relevance or importance of
an issue to a company or organization. It reflects the sensitivity of the individual or company
who is faced with the ethical decision.
Individual factors that affect ethical decision making include education, nationality, age,
and Locus of control. Education is said to have little effect on how ethical a person is. It is
believed that experience contributes more to the level of ethics a person has than education does
no matter the extent of that education.
Nationality is said to also effect the ethical decision making process however, the true
effect is somewhat hard to interpret.
It was once believed that the older a person is the more ethical they are. However, new
research suggests that the relationship between age and ethics is more complicated than this.
Locus of control is the way a person perceives themselves to exist within a company.
Some people believe in external control and see themselves as having little control over there
working environment. Others believe in internal control and think they control there environment
through skill, and dedication. One study conducted found those who believed in external control
to be more ethical decision makers.
Some different leadership styles listed in this chapter were the coercive leader,
authoritative leader, affiliative leader, democratic leader, pacesetting leader, and the coaching
leader. Most successful leaders don't stick with one particular style but alternate techniques
depending on the characteristics of the given situation.
The habits of strong leaders are important and these consist of, strong personal character,
a passion to do it right, proactive, consider stakeholders interests, role models, transparent and
actively take a role in the decision making process, and are competent managers who take a
holistic view of the companies ethical culture. Strong ethical leaders need both experience and
education. They enforce the company's values, norms, and code of ethics. A good ethical leader
must be prepared to walk away from a position or company if the circumstances surrounding it
make it impossible to make the right or most ethical decisions.