Running head: ATTRIBUTES OF ETHICAL & EFFECTIVE LEADER 1

Attributes of Ethical & Effective Leader

 Attributes of Ethical & Effective Leader

“Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest”. (“Mark Twain

Quotations by Author“, n.d.)

Leadership is crucial to any organizations ethical culture as integrity (or the lack of) flows from

the top down. (Trevino & Nelson, 1995) Leaders do not command excellence, they create

excellence. Excellence is being the very you can be within the bounds of doing what is

appropriate for your organization. To reach excellence you must first be a leader of good moral

character. You must do everything you are supposed to do. Organizations will not achieve

excellence by figuring out where it wants to go, then having leaders do whatever they have to in

order to get the job done, and then hope their leaders acted with good integrity. This type of

thinking can damage the leaders reputation as well as the direction of his or hers organization.

Pursuing excellence should not be confused with accomplishing a job or task. When you do

planning, you do it by backwards planning. But you do not achieve excellence by backwards

planning. Excellence starts with leaders of good and strong character who engage in the entire

process of leadership. And the first process is being a person of honorable character.

Early on when I decided to pursue a degree Organizational Leadership, I was fortunate to have

had some leadership training throughout my career in the military as well in the architectural

field. However reflecting back on these classes and seminars were helpful and informative, but

there was not continuity to get you to the position as an effective and ethical leader. But it was at

best a wrench for the mental toolbox. I some cases, leaders are more often than not put in

position of leadership for many different reasons , but it’s been my experience that most do not

have the basic concepts and skills to be lead a team or department let alone be an Ethical &

Effective Leader. Is this their fault that they are put in this position without the proper skills to be
a leader, not really? Most leadership is “picked up on the street corners” as I like to put it. They

tend emulate the leaders around them who pass on both positive and negative leader ship traits

that more often than not are mediocre at best. Within some of the organizations I have had the

opportunity to work for, the core values were communicated by actions mostly - in the ways in

which business is conducted on a day-to-day basis, and not so much in words directly spoken or

written. I strongly advocate for demonstrating values more than written or spoken - actions speak

louder, but I also believe that written values that reinforce and support specific actions, and

specific actions that reinforce and support written values, make a powerful combination. If it is

written down and demonstrated in action, organizations can hold our feet to the fire when they

need to. Do as I say and not as I do, seem to be the status quo, at least in my experience. It is for

this reason that an Organizational Leadership education and training is paramount for Ethical and

Effective Leader in all companies, both profit and non-profit. So it is with this purpose I will

explore what I believe makes an Ethical & Effective Leader.

“Leaders know what they value. They also recognize the importance of ethical behavior. The

best leaders exhibit both their values and their ethics in their leadership style and actions. Your

leadership ethics and values should be visible because you live them in your actions every single

day.”(Heathfield, n.d.)

“A lack of trust is a problem in many workplaces. If leaders never identified their values in these

workplaces, the mistrust is understandable. People don't know what they can expect. If leaders

have identified and shared their values, living the values daily, visibly will create trust. To say

one sentiment and to do another will damage trust - possibly forever.”(Heathfield, n.d.)
The characteristics of a leader come through in our day to day interactions with those around us.

Leaders come in all shapes, styles, and forms. If you stop to think about some of the leaders that

have inspired you or even some that have infuriated you, the qualities of good leadership skills

will become apparent.

When we think about the characteristics of a leader, we often think of leaders that are dynamic,

which calls each of us to act or to follow. We could take an example, such as Hitler. He did not

have the values that we should follow, but had that inspiration that could ignite a country. If we

also stop to think about the leaders today in the US, we do not get the same vision of a leader that

has a dynamism that is hard to resist, but rather a leader that has that ‘good to great’ quality.

Often times these leaders are more quiet and reserved, embodying the vision of good leadership

skills and calling each of us to action in a subtle way that can often times leave us asking why

we’re buying what they’re selling.

The answer is a simple. The characteristics of a leader are not skills or behaviors that will be

new to those that strive to master them, but will often times be the actions we all know we should

be focused on, if we only had the time. Yes, developing good leadership skills take time, just

like perfecting an idea or delivering on a project. Without an investment of time, very few

people will have the skills to become the great leaders they envision. (Coach4Growth , 2010)

Let’s examine some if these traits in more depth. The Santa Clara University and the Tom Peters

Group noted the following characteristics as key characteristics of a leader. Don’t be surprised if

you don’t find the complexity you were expecting as leadership is often promoted as that

advanced skill few can attain.

Key Characteristics of an Ethical Leader:

 Honesty - Display sincerity, integrity, and candor in all your actions.

 Competent - Your actions should be based on reason and moral principles.

 Forward-looking Set goals and have a vision of the future. The vision must be owned

throughout the organization. Effective leaders envision what they want and how to get it.

Inspiring - Display confidence in all that you do. Take charge when necessary.

 Intelligent - Read, study, and seek challenging assignments.

 Fair-minded - Show fair treatment to all people. Display empathy by being sensitive to

the feelings, values, interests, and well-being of others.

 Broad-minded - Seek out diversity.

 Courageous - Display a confident calmness when under stress.

 Straightforward - Use sound judgment to make good decisions at the right time.

 Imaginative - Make timely and appropriate changes in your thinking, plans, and

methods. Show creativity by thinking of new and better goals, ideas, and solutions to

problems.

As you can see nothing revealed here is shocking, but skills we are all aware of, yet we take little

time to practice. Again, developing good leadership skills does take practice and a great deal of

time. If it were easy there would be far more leaders and far less managers.

As an effective leader you will need to provide each individual on your team with the necessary

tools and information related to their responsibilities, provide opportunities for each individual to

exercise their natural and acquired abilities, and support and develop your team throughout each
project or task, building trust relationships and providing necessary feedback focused on the

improvement of the team’s talents.

There are many reasons to practice ethical leadership. Here are a few examples:

• Ethical leadership models ethical behavior to the organization and the community.

• Ethical leadership builds trust.

• Ethical leadership brings credibility and respect, both for you and for the organization.

• Ethical leadership can lead to collaboration.

• Ethical leadership creates a good climate within the organization.

• If you have opposition, or are strongly supporting a position, ethical leadership allows

you to occupy the moral high ground.

• Ethical leadership is simply the right way to go.

• Ethical leadership affords self-respect.

Ethical Leadership is about raising the bar, helping people realize their potential, creating value

for the stakeholders and performing all these tasks with the intensity and importance that ethics

connotes. (Wicks, Freeman, Werhane, & Martin, 2010)

 References

Coach4Growth . (2010). The Characteristics of a Leader: Demonstrating Good Leadership

Skills . Retrieved from http://coach4growth.com/leadership-skills/the-characteristics-of-a-

leader-demonstrating-good-leadership-skills

Heathfield, S. M. (n.d.). Leadership Values and Ethics Secrets of Leadership Success. Retrieved

from http://humanresources.about.com/od/leadership/a/leader_values.htm

Mark Twain Quotations by Author. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/225.html

Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (1995). Managing Business Ethics Straight Talk About How To

Do It Right. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons,

Wicks, A. C., Freeman, R. E., Werhane, P. H., & Martin, K. E. (2010). Business Ethics A

Managerial Approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.