Defining and exploring the notion and nature of ‘character’
Exploring the notion and nature of character in Leadership
Ordinarily in discussing on the topic of oleadership management, the fcus relies mostly on communication skills, people skills, vision, intelligence, business acumen and to an extent even boldness. However, none of these qualities are relevant without the functional leadership quality of a good character (Fairhurst, 2016). Good character is the prerequisite of leadership, in simple word good character is a reflection of trust, which helps in building trust and relationship with the people, without trust people would not follow the leader, failing the entire premise of the leadership. Thus, it becomes pivotal for leaders to demonstrate good character in their leadership to win the trust, faith, respect and love of its employees and followers (Normore & Brooks, 2014).
Good character in the initial days of leadership has been defined ait as the person who scored extremely high on integrity, responsibility, compassion and forgiveness. It implies that a person who speaks only half of the truth, a person who cannot be trusted in ordinary situations and a person who looks for a scapegoat to pass on the blame is the reflection of bad character of the leader. It is interesting to note that, a person who has developed high trust among his employees is a reflection of a good character, the qualities which make a person highly trust worthy are:
- They always do what they say and stand by the promises they make and never fails to deliver (Choi, 2015).
- Show high consistency in their behaviour even in the times of adversity.
- These people are brutally honest and trustworthy.
- The choices these people make are thoroughly examined and well considered.
- These people believe in co-creation and do focus on common good and not just the good of the individual himself (Sandis & Taleb, 2015).
Plethora of management experts and leaders in the past have described character is nurtured more than being natural. The four essential building blocks to the development of strong character in the leader are:
Self-Discipline and Moral Courage
This is the act of doing what is right, every single time, irrespective of the consequences. It is also to practice self-control in one’s own behaviour to curtail the desires. Moral courage is the ability of the leader to face his fears, challenges, risks and danger of standing for what is right. Mahatma Gandhi showed character of self-discipline and moral courage in his leadership and always stood up for what is right, without any fear or apprehensions (Ciulla, 2014).
Core Values
In simplest terms, it is the values with which the leader most resonates with. In organization context some of these core values can be; Integrity, compassion, harmony, belonging/caring, respect and many more.
Sense of true identity
This is the true understanding of an individual about himself and valuing one’s own belief.
Integrity
Considering and exploring the ethical, values and beliefs dimensions of character
Integrity is undoubtedly the strongest building block of character of a person; it is the practice of aligning ones actions, feelings and thoughts with values.
Thus, the above literature shows the importance and the notion of strong and good character as a contributing element towards great leadership. It also demonstrates that a character can be converted into a trait by implementing and creating an actionable plan for the character value. Character builds trust which in turn helps in building a strong relationship with the employees and the followers.
Exploring the ethical, values and beliefs dimension of character
As mentioned earlier, character is highly nurtures than being in the inherent nature of the human individual. The character is shaped by the ethical, values and beliefs dimensions of an individual. Leaders in the past and present have demonstrated high ethical values and beliefs system in their respective organization. Values are defined as deep rooted and social shared beliefs which form the basis to guide and individual on his path of leadership. The underlying rationale for strong values is to create a set of standards which will serve as a guide to satisfy all the needs of the business organization as well as oneself. The leaders who fail to create a set of values for themselves take the organization and the followers on the path of sustained misery. Thus, values can be understood as the ideas or beliefs which guide and influence the choice of action for an individual (Winston, 2016).
Jeff Bezos of Amazon is one of the greatest visionary of his times and demonstrates high values and belief system in his character; this has largely helped him and the organization to taste such success in very short span of time. Jeff Bezos practice the value of trust in his character; it is the trust which he keeps in his employees that he has a very short span of control in the organization. He believes in decentralization, thus giving the employees the freedom to make their own decision and be accountable for the same (Cashman, 2017).
Another example which shows a brilliant amalgamation of strong values and belief system in the character of a leader is Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. In the recent controversies relating to Data theft by Cambridge Analytica and the involvement of the company in influencing the result of US Presidential election, Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated strong character. Mark took the responsibility of one of the rare incident, apologized for the lacunae in the architecture of Facebook and created an action plan to prevent such things from happening in the future. This is a strong reflection of integrity, responsibility and character in Mark Zuckerberg. He did not shy away or feared the US attorneys and stood for what was right, it certainly earned him a lot of admiration and respect not only from his employees but also of Facebook users and other business leaders (Lawton & Paez, 2018).
Introducing, analysing and contextualising a range of relevant leadership theories
Leadership is the ability to build a relationship between people, which in turn is the ability to ethically influence someone, is one of the major determinants of effective leadership. Ethics play a very important role in shaping and defining the character of a leader. Ethics is not about doing the right thing every single time, it is the inherent nature of the human to act according to the circumstances. For instance, if doing ethically wrong will derive greater good for community or society, such tweak in the ethical behaviour is highly debatable. For example Steve Jobs of Apple, is a highly controversial leader. During his leadership he took couple of decisions which were ethically wrong, such as copying the patent of Xerox for creating Mouse, copying the infrastructure of Microsoft’s windows to develop the platform of IOS. Now even though it is ethically wrong behaviour demonstrated by Steve Jobs, but the bigger picture says otherwise. Steve Jobs helped Apple in coming up with most innovative products which changed the paradigm of the personal computer market. Hence, such variation in ethics prevails in the present organization ecosystem. It is advised that leadership should not use ethical leadership to prevent people from doing wrong things, but they should use to enable people to do the right things. The infusion of character in ethical leadership is setting up an example or rightness or wrongness of particular actions of the leaders.
Introduction, analysis and contextualization of leadership theories in the light of character, beliefs, values and ethics
Leadership has been in vogue much before the advent of globalization and liberalization in business organization, however in the last 100 years or so, the study on leadership has been done at great depth. A number of leadership styles have been defined and created for the better understanding and evaluation of one’s leadership style. All the style of leadership is attributed towards strong character, values, ethics and belief of an individual.
Trait Theory of Leadership
Trait theory of leadership is highly suggestive in nature, it suggest that leaders more or less have certain traits which make them an effective leaders. These traits can be seen as the reflection of one’s character. It helps to understand the trait and qualities such as integrity, respect, empathy, good decision making, ethical responsibilities and many more are the guiding character values of an effective leader (Heifetz & Linsky, 2017).
Behavioural Theory of Leadership
Introducing, explaining and applying a range of practical examples with which to illustrate the assignment
As the name suggest behaviour theories is a reflection of how they behave and what they do in order to get co-operation from their followers
Autocratic Leaders
This kind of leader make decision without involving their team members, such style of leadership is highly appropriate in fast decision making situations. More so, when the agreement of the team is not of pivotal importance to the decision being made. Such leaders have very strong character beliefs, they believe in themselves more than any other person, and are of the opinion that they are the best person suited for the job. Their character is a strong reflection of boldness, assertiveness, confident and supremacy (Beck & Cowan, 2018).
Democratic Leaders
This style of leadership is ideally suitable for medium to small scale organization. In this style of leadership, leaders take the input from the team members on the decision, and based on the input the decision is being taken. This style of leadership fits best in organization which has smaller teams and less span of control. This style of leaders is characterisation of respect and beliefs towards other and is an embodiment of sustained trust (Terry, 2015).
Laissez-Faire Leaders
Leaders following this style of leadership give the employees a good amount of power in exercising their own decisions. This style of leadership works best when the employees are highly capable and motivated towards the goals of the organization. However, this style of leadership has strong affinity of failing when the leader is lazy or distracted. Such leaders have values and beliefs which make them rely on the employees. So much that they are willing to put the business in risk. None of the leaders in the present day organizational context use this style of leadership because of its unrealistic approach towards a situation (Sosik, 2015).
Contingency Theories
Contingency theory was developed on the ideology that leadership style is highly flexible, and the leaders have to adapt to the changing circumstances in order to ensure the success of their business organization. This style of leadership suggests which leadership style will fit best in the circumstances, and accordingly a leader picks the style most relevant to the situation. Path goal theory and Fiedler contingency model are the important contingency theories. These leaders are characterized by high adaption and flexibility.
Transactional Leadership
Transactional style of leadership focuses on power and influence, and such leaders believe that people do things for reward and for no other reason. Such leaders reward the employees for their good task, and punish them for the wrong things. Leaders here focus on building and designing jobs on the basis of rewards. Such style of leadership is not effective when it comes to building relationship with the employees. This style of leadership is characterised by the elements of being practical, passionate towards work and having strong values towards work.
Providing an Introduction and Conclusion which are succinct and probing within the assignment response
Transformational Leadership
Transformational style of leadership is the contemporary style of leadership practised by the leaders in the present day. These leaders work with their subordinates to identify the needed change in the organization. They create a vision for the organization and translate the same into the culture of the organization. These types of leaders have the ability to bring transformation in the organization by the virtue of their relationship with the employees, ability to influence and inspire people and their vision. Jeff Bezos is a leader who practices transformational leadership, and he is characterized by empathy, passion for the work, change agent, relationship builder, reliable and visionary (Arthur, 2015).
All the theories mentioned here, reflects that all the leadership styles are characterized by certain beliefs, values which form the core of the leadership style. The character displayed by these leaders is thus a reflection of beliefs, values and ethics.
Practical examples to illustrate the character of the Leaders
Enron was an American company with interests in energy, commodities and services and based in Houston. Enron leadership is an example of toxic and unethical leadership which resulted in the insolvency of the company. Jeffrey Skilling, the CEO at Enron formed a close team of executives who indulged in unfair trade practices by boasting the financial figures of the company. The leadership made his team inflate the share prices by poor financial reporting, hiding debts in billions of dollars. They made a huge profit in shares due to this activity, and before anyone could realize the wrong doing and stop it, huge money in the tune of millions was lost for the shareholders of the company. This shows the unethical behaviour which promotes self-interest over others and is a reflection of destructive leadership. Such leaders do not have any moral and ethical obligation towards their followers and demonstrate bad character (Kiel, 2015).
Another example is of Jack Welch, who with his transformational and participative style of leadership led the company to great success. Jack Welch leadership is the articulation of his vision, passion towards the vision and moving forward on the path of sustained growth for GE. Jack Welch believed that organization at times fails to withstand the pressure to be in the competition, thus they deviate from ethical practices. Jack Welch on the other hand, felt otherwise, he believed that strong ethics, character and value in the longer run will do much good for the society and its people. In the similar manner, Bill Gates always focussed on the concept of sustainability; he believed that to be sustainable in the longer run, the leader has to demonstrate strong character in their business conduct. Bill Gates in his entire tenure never ever indulged in any unethical practices, even on a spat with Apple, he took a moral high ground and continued with his innovation. This, in true sense, is the essence of a good leader, whose leadership style is a true reflection of his good character (Katou, 2015).
Exploring the role and impact, and relate to the assignment, of relevant philosophical paradigms
Role and Impact of philosophical Paradigm
Modernism in leadership developed in the early 19th and 20th century in the west and is based on the typical behaviour of leaders in the present day organization. Such leaders are characterised by modern values, characters, traits, sympathies and adhere to what is important. They at times tend to overlook ethical consideration in leadership for the greater good of the society. Steve Jobs in all respect was a true modern leader; they adapted the qualities of a contemporary leader and took Apple to the Zenith of success. A modern leader has the added responsibility of focussing on sustained innovation, as the number of innovation in the last couple of decades has risen exponentially. Thus, their roles become more challenging and demanding in the present organizational context (Daft, 2014).
Critical management on the other hand is early style of leadership; it states that the present day leadership is prone to plethora of challenges and problems, which hamper the ability to take decision in critical situations. Critical management is evolved by the study of classical Greek, Medieval and Modern social scientific ideas which are the key features of leadership in the past and present. However, in the present day, Critical management has been transformed to modernism leadership, where the leaders use the present day character traits and values to create success in the organization (Pardey, 2016).
Conclusion
Leadership has evolved in the last couple of decade and have adopted the shape and traits of the modern day society. In the present day of organizational context, leaders have to be highly flexible and adaptive to the changing circumstances. The true strength of leadership lies with the times of testing waters, a great leader is one who effectively comes out of tricky business situation by virtue of its strong ethical conduct and demonstrating strong character values. Values and beliefs in a leader vary from leader to leader and also depending on their leadership style. Transformational leaders for instance have a character which is a reflection of their vision, respect and trust towards the employees and is standing firm on the pillars of sustained innovation. Plethora of business leaders in the past has demonstrated such high character values which helped them in taking the organization on the path of sustained growth. Thus it can be said with utmost confidence that strong character, ethics, values and belief of the leader is the prerequisite of efficiency and effectiveness of leadership ability.
Introduction
Leadership is both a research area and application of practical skills to motivate, influence and lead the individual to achieve the organizational goals and objectives. Leadership is one of the strongest contributing factors behind the sustained growth and success of the organization. The role of leadership in the present day situation is not an easy one, they have to be flexible in their leadership style and have to be dynamic to adapt to ever changing situation(Boaks & Levine, 2015).. Character, values, beliefs and ethics are the pillars on which leadership stands, the pillars reflect the true essence of leadership. Leader have a clear understanding of what they value, they recognize the importance of ethical behaviour in their business conduct, which forms the value system of their leadership style. Leaders are expected to demonstrate visibly high standards of ethics, values, belief and character in their leadership style to effectively lead the organization by influencing and motivating people (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).
The underlying report is an extension of the preamble mentioned above, it will focus on the extent to which a leader reflect and engage with the ideas of character, values, ethics and beliefs in his leadership style. It will be interesting to explore the challenges and the consequences of operationalizing such ideas and approaches in everyday organizational context.
References
Arthur, J., 2015. Of good character: Exploring Virtues and Values in 3-25 Year-olds. Andrews UK Limited.
Beck, D.E. and Cowan, C.C., 2014. Spiral dynamics: Mastering values, leadership and change. John Wiley & Sons.
Boaks, J. and Levine, M.P. eds., 2015. Leadership and Ethics. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Cashman, K., 2017. Leadership from the inside out: Becoming a leader for life. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Choi, S.Y., 2015. The Effects of Ethical Management on Social Workers’ Organizational Effectiveness-With Focus on the Mediating Effects of Superior Ethical Leadership and Employee Ethics. International Information Institute (Tokyo). Information, 18(5B), p.2033.
Ciulla, J.B. ed., 2014. Ethics, the heart of leadership. ABC-CLIO.
Daft, R.L., 2014. The leadership experience. Cengage Learning.
Fairhurst, G.T., 2016. Reflections on leadership and ethics in complex times. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 24(1), pp.61-69.
Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Heifetz, R. and Linsky, M., 2017. Leadership on the Line, With a New Preface: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Change. Harvard Business Press.
Katou, A.A., 2015. Transformational leadership and organisational performance: Three serially mediating mechanisms. Employee Relations, 37(3), pp.329-353.
Kiel, F., 2015. Return on character: The real reason leaders and their companies win. Harvard Business Review Press.
Lawton, A. and Páez, I., 2018. Developing a framework for ethical leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 130(3), pp.639-649.
Normore, A.H. and Brooks, J.S. eds., 2014. Educational leadership for ethics and social justice: Views from the social sciences. IAP.
Pardey, D., 2016. Introducing leadership. Routledge.
Sandis, C. and Taleb, N.N., 2015. Leadership Ethics and Asymmetry. Leadership and Ethics, p.233.
Sosik, J.J., 2015. Leading with Character 2nd Edition: Stories of Valor and Virtue and the Principles They Teach. IAP.
Terry, L.D., 2015. Leadership of public bureaucracies: The administrator as conservator. Routledge.
Winston, K.I., 2016. Review of Prudential Public Leadership: Promoting Ethics in Public Policy and Administration. By John Uhr. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
