6. Leading with Integrity
Ethical Dilemmas
Natural tendency to react quickly to resolve
dilemma or pretend we did not notice.
 Key is to slow down the process and reflect
on the ethical and moral aspects of actions
and decisions.
 Allow yourself and others time to work
through complex problems and engage in a
process that includes reflection before action.
 Including others in the resolution leads to
feelings of empowerment.

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Chapter Overview
This chapter includes:
 A discussion of the process of creating and
sustaining ethical organizational
environments
 An analysis of the moral dimensions of
transforming leadership theory
 An examination of the ethical influences that
participants have on their organizations
through behavior modeling
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Creating and Sustaining an Ethical
Organizational Environment
Nash proposes four qualities that are necessary
for participants to advance ethical standards in an
organizational
 Critical thinking skills to analyze and convey the
ethical components of a problem or dilemma
 Possession of a high degree of integrity to stand
up for your personal and professional ethics
 The ability to see situations from others’
perspectives
 Personal motivation to do the right thing
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Ethical Decision Making
Important that a leader is prepared to receive
criticism, see members revolt, and perhaps
experience a decline in membership.
 Not everyone in an organization is prepared
or willing to do the right thing or has a moral
orientation.
 Part of the leadership process is to fully
explain to others the problem at hand and
the basis for the action or decision.

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Core Values
All participants―positional leadership and
members alike―should be empowered to set
the tone.
 The organization’s mission or the group’s
common purpose should be the driving force
for identifying its values.
 Appointing one person to be the group’s
ethicist or when a leader acts in isolation to
handle ethical dilemmas can be
counterproductive.

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Learning from Good and Bad
Leadership
Two categories of bad leadership
(Kellerman)
 Bad as in ineffective

 Ineffective
leadership includes the failure of
achieving a desired change.

Bad as in unethical
 Fails
to distinguish between right and wrong.
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Toxic Leaders
Toxic leaders are those
 “who engage in numerous destructive
behaviors and who exhibit certain
dysfunctional personal characteristics. To
count as toxic, these behaviors and qualities
of character must inflict some reasonably
serious and enduring harm on their followers
and their organizations.”
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Examples of Behaviors and Traits
Associated with Toxic Leaders

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
Leaving followers worse off than when they found them.
Violating basic standards of human rights of their own
supporters.
Consciously feeding their followers illusions that enhance the
leader’s power and impair the followers’ capacity to act
independently.
Misleading through deliberate untruths and misdiagnoses of
issues and problems.
Insatiable ambition putting leader’s above followers’ well-being.
Enormous egos that blind leaders to the shortcomings of their
own character.
Reckless disregard for the costs of their actions to others.
Cowardice that leads them to shrink from difficult choices.
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Ethical Lapses
Individuals committed to leading with integrity
are faced with their own dilemma of what to do
when values clash with the organization’s
standards. This offers three choices:
 Ignore or put up with the situation.
 Address the situation and work to change the
organizational climate into one that is ethical
in nature.
 Leave the organization.
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Moral Purpose as an Act of Courage
Moral courage: the quality of mind and spirit
that enables one to face up to ethical
challenges firmly and confidently, without
flinching or retreating.
 Moral courage can be viewed as the
intersection of three conceptual fields:
principles, danger, and endurance.

 Example:
It took moral courage for Nelson
Mandela to be imprisoned for eighteen years in
his opposition to apartheid in South Africa.
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Assumptions about Ethical Leadership
1. Ethics is the heart of leadership.
2. All leadership is values-driven.
3. Personal values intersect with organizational
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
values.
Ethical leadership can be learned.
Ethical leadership involves a connection
between ethical thought and action.
Character development is an essential
ingredient of ethical leadership.
Ethical leadership is a shared process.
Everything we do teaches.
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Cultural Assumptions


Ethics exist in a cultural context; they are culturally
bound or culture-specific.
There is no universal agreement on what behaviors
or practices are considered appropriate, legal,
ethical, or moral across cultures.

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Example: The intentional oppression of and discrimination
against women in Saudi Arabia is considered ethical, legal,
and moral in that country but is unethical, illegal, and
immoral in the United States.
Ethics are also temporal in nature, especially in light of
changing laws and legal norms.
Corruption is a culturally constructed behavior.
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Cultural Assumptions
Personal competencies for establishing crosscultural relationships.
1. Be nonjudgmental.
2. Be flexible.
3. Listen attentively/observe carefully.
4. Assume complexity.
5. Manage personal biases.
6. Show respect.
7. Show empathy.
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Transforming Leadership Theory

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Transforming leadership is a process in which
“leaders and followers raise one another to
higher levels of morality and motivation.”
Transforming leadership involves persuasion, a
desire to change something and multidirectional
influence relationships between leaders and
participants.
Values or ideal such as peace, justice, fairness,
liberty, equal opportunity, and people’s general
welfare are expressed by transformational
leaders.
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Transformational Leadership Theory

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About the relationship and influence between
leaders and followers.
This symbiotic relationship is an interaction or
power and shared values.
Transforming leaders have the courage to
confront reality even if it is painful and have
healthy egos to withstand peer pressure.
Possessing positive self-esteem (not needing to
please others to win their favor) is a necessary
element of leading with moral purpose.
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Ethical Decision-Making Models
Several approaches to resolve ethical dilemmas
 Utilizing professional codes of conduct, rituals,
standards, constitutions, and bylaws
 Like leadership, ethics is not a neat and tidy
concept. It requires human judgment and
analysis to determine whether a situation
represents an ethical dilemma or something
else, such as a personality conflict.
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Practical Applications
Four Dilemma Paradigm Model
1. Justice vs. mercy: fairness and equity conflict
with compassion, empathy and love
2. Short term vs. long term: immediate needs run
counter to future goals
3. Individual vs. community: self vs. others or
small group vs. larger group
4. Truth vs. loyalty: honesty competes with
commitment, responsibility, or promisekeeping
 These dilemma paradigms represent values that
collide with each other.

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Kidder’s Ethical Decision Making
Model
Ends-based thinking: “Do whatever produces
the greatest good for the greatest number.”
 Rule-based thinking: Follow only the principle
that you want everyone else to follow.
 Care-based thinking: “Do to others what you
would like them to do to you.”

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Five Ethical Principles in Decision
Making
Respecting autonomy
 Doing no harm of no maleficence
 Benefiting others or beneficence
 Being just or justice
 Being faithful or fidelity

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