Search results

The purpose of this paper is to discuss an interview with Dr Deborah Poff – world renowned Scholar, Ethics Scholar, Founder and Editor of major ethics journals, and a university leader – on ethical leadership and the role of scholars.

This is a personal interview with a world renowned ethics scholar on ethical leadership.

Being good when bad is easier and will be received better is an extremely tough thing to do. Leadership without integrity may work for you and sometimes for those around you, but in the long run, compromising on goodness trust and integrity is harmful.

Dr Poff’s ideas come from a lifelong study of leadership and ethics. Her writing is world renowned and of valuable information for all scholars of leadership and ethics.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ethical perspectives of leadership humility. Jim Collins, in his seminal work, Good to Great, noted that all great organizations are led by “Level 5 leaders (L5Ls).” These leaders exhibit fierce resolve, but incredible humility. This paper examines the nature of humility and its assumptions associated with 12 frequently cited ethical perspectives. Humility builds high follower trust and commitment so often lacking in the modern organization. The paper identifies four practical contributions for scholars and leaders who seek to understand the role of humility in leadership effectiveness.

This paper is a conceptual paper which relies heavily on research from the current literature about leadership, trust, and humility.

This paper compares humility with 12 well-regarded ethical perspectives and presents humility as an ethically-relevant leadership construct that helps leaders to build trust, commitment, and followership.

Because this paper is not an empirical study, it does not present research information, propositions, or hypotheses.

This paper suggests that leaders can be more effective if they come to understand the implicit ethical nature of leadership and the importance of humility in building trust.

Although Collins’ research about great organizations identified the importance of Level 5 leadership 15 years ago, very little has been written about the nature of humility as a leadership virtue. More importantly, this paper is among the first to identify the relationship between ethics and humility for L5Ls.

Social responsibility (SR) in accepting the obligation to resolve the many troubling problems facing tomorrow’s generations is essential if those problems are to be effectively addressed. The purpose of this paper is to identify the nature of SR for business, academic institutions, government, religious institutions, and individuals.

This paper is a conceptual paper which relies heavily on the current literature about social obligations for five major organizations: business, academic institutions, government, religious institutions, and individuals.

The paper provides the standard of the virtuous continuum and the Hosmer decision-making model to explain why leaders, organizations, and individuals must be more responsible to be perceived as virtuous leaders, complete with 50 examples of action to be taken.

As this paper is not an empirical study, it does not present research information.

This paper suggests that organizations can be more effective if they come to understand the responsibilities and stewardship of social responsibilities entrusted to them.

The paper expands on Hosmer’s research and incorporates a virtuous continuum in examining the responsibilities of leaders, organizations, and individuals. More importantly, this paper is among the first to identify specific steps organizations and individuals can take in addressing the challenges and problems facing the world of in key aspects of society.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the values of Chinese university students as future leaders and employees in a global economy. Despite the fact that China’s role in the world economy has become increasingly important, little has been done to examine the nature of tomorrow’s Chinese business leaders.

A values survey was administered to business major students at a Tier 1 Chinese university and data were collected from 984 respondents to test five hypotheses relevant to values for Chinese youths.

This study suggests that today’s Chinese business students view traditional Chinese values through a lens influenced by western cultural and economic thinking as well as positive and negative impacts from rapid economic development.

This paper is an empirical study based on a survey being administered to Chinese university students in two major cities in China. A limitation would be that all Chinese youth of the same age may not have the same values as this set of university students, or even those of Chinese students from a different region of China.

This paper is among the first to identify the current cultural values of the younger Chinese of university age population.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the relationships between self-efficacy and self-awareness and the moral obligations of leaders in understanding and developing these personal qualities. As leaders strive for excellence, self-efficacy and self-awareness can empower them to unlock their own potential and the potential of their organizations and those with whom they work.

The paper integrates research of self-efficacy and self-awareness as they pertain to ethical leadership and presents six propositions that increase leadership effectiveness, create value for the organization, and develop leaders considered my trusted by others.

The authors argue that greater understanding of self-efficacy and self-awareness is important for individual growth and can enable ethical leaders to empower themselves, their colleagues, and the organization in which they work.

This research presents six propositions concerning self-efficacy and self-awareness and their influence on effective leadership that can be tested in future research. The ethically based nature of self-efficacy and self-awareness merits additional academic research and practitioner application.

This paper provides valuable insights to scholars and practitioners by proposing six propositions that will allow leaders to increase their effectiveness and add value to the organization.

Ethical leaders add value by continuously improving themselves. Ethical leaders owe it to others and themselves to be more effective through a greater understanding of self-efficacy and self-awareness.

Self-efficacy and self-awareness are moral duties associated with the identities of leaders and important for leaders in understanding their own capabilities and identities. Greater knowledge of self-efficacy and self-awareness can enable ethical leaders to be more effective and create value.

The purpose of this paper is to define “beneficence” as a management concept that is the action associated with “benevolence” the intention. This paper explains how beneficence is a critical element for leaders in building trust. The authors identify how beneficence honors the ethical duties owed to followers and creates competitive advantage for organizations.

The approach of this paper is to present an extensive conceptual review of beneficence as it relates to leaders and managers and to suggest eight propositions identifying how beneficence can create competitive advantage.

The findings of this paper include eight propositions about beneficence as a source of competitive advantage.

The practical implications of this paper are for practitioners and scholars. This paper provides an opportunity for leaders to recognize the importance of translating good intentions into specific action in acting virtuously toward others. For scholars, this paper provides testable propositions for learning more about beneficence as a source of increased commitment, greater trust, and competitive advantage.

Although benevolence has been acknowledged to be a foundation of trustworthiness, benevolence is an attitude or intention. This paper explains the importance of beneficence as the action derived from benevolence as an attitude or intention to do that which benefits others.

The purpose of this research is to propose and empirically test hypotheses concerning the influence of leadership behaviors on interpersonal perceptions of trustworthiness.

Survey research is employed to assess the dimensions of leadership behavior and dimensions of trustworthiness and to determine the relationships among the leadership behavior dimensions and trustworthiness dimensions.

Factor analyses support previous research advocating three dimensions of leadership behavior (relationship development, resource utilization, and image management) and three dimensions of trustworthiness (ability, benevolence, and integrity). A structural model (LISREL), testing the relationship among the three leadership behavior dimensions and the three trustworthiness dimensions, shows that image management influences perceptions of all three dimensions of trustworthiness, and relationship development influences the benevolence dimension of trustworthiness. Using analysis of variance, the research finds that younger individuals view leaders as being more trustworthy than older individuals do.

The limitations of this study include a survey research methodology and a sample of university students.

There are consequences to leaders' actions. This study shows that perceptions of trustworthiness can be influenced by leadership behavior.

Past research suggests that trustworthiness is an important component of a successful organization. This research supports the hypothesis that leadership behavior affects perceptions of trustworthiness, which is important to researchers and managers interested in how the behaviors of leaders influence other areas of the organization.

The purpose of this paper is to further research in the leader-follower relationship by focussing on followership. Given the need to increase organizational collaboration and cooperation, this research identifies the nature of follower buy-in behaviors and characteristics and develops a continuum of increasing follower compliance to stewardship with the organization.

This research integrates the insights of highly regarded researchers into a continuum of follower compliance to stewardship and proposes 12 propositions of leaders and followers that address the importance of creating an environment for improved collaboration and cooperation which ultimately leads to increased organizational competitiveness and profitability.

A continuum of increasing follower buy-in is proposed with the first four zones drawn from past literature (indifference, acceptance, trust, and commitment) and a fifth zone, follower stewardship, being introduced in the paper. The authors argue that understanding and fostering follower behaviors along the continuum improves organizational effectiveness.

This research offers a framework of follower behaviors and characteristics and proposes 12 hypotheses of leaders and followers to improve competitiveness and profitability that can be tested in future research.

This paper provides valuable insights to scholars and practitioners by creating a framework of follower buy-in behaviors and characteristics that will allow leaders to increase the effectiveness of organizational culture, practices, and procedures. The research proposes 12 hypotheses of leaders and followers that can be tested for improving organizational competitiveness and profitability.

The paper identifies barriers to creating followership including under-investing in human capital, treating followers as means rather than as ends, thinking short-term, breaking commitments, and so on.

The research develops a solid theoretical background for categorizing and measuring follower buy-in to organizations and introduces follower stewardship to management research.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the importance of virtuous leadership and identify six characteristics that are necessary for the modern leader to be effective in an increasingly challenging and competitive world market.

Theory development.

The authors suggest that virtuous leaders possess an uncommon level of commitment to those employees whom they serve, to their customers, to their shareholders, and to society at large, the authors extend the concept of the moral continuum and identify the importance of a virtuous perspective in honoring the obligation to optimize wealth creation and enriching outcomes and relationships, and the authors suggest ten propositions about virtuous leadership that may be empirically tested by both scholars and practitioners who are interested in studying and/or applying virtuous leadership to improve relationships and build organizations.

Original article.