Nowadays the role of ethics in the sphere of business running is especially centralized through its influence on productiveness and quality of performed work. Leadership is considered to be one of the basic features to be developed in the process of working experience obtaining; it is necessary to underline the fact that true leaders are concentrated on the evaluation of ethics promotion within the company’s management for the purpose of reaching stabilization and team work aimed at annual outputs increase.
Ethical leader is to direct his principle activities at creating a ‘good society’ within business staff. One is to stress that Aristotle’s statement, ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.’ (Heathfield, 2008) In most cases ethical norms and regulations are completely ignored by companies’ executives; as a result the principle of professional unity and common work is broken leading to business effectiveness fluctuations. Thus, Susan Heathfield in the article ‘Leadership Values and Ethics’ stressed the idea, that ‘A lack of trust is a problem in many workplaces. If leaders never identified their values in these workplaces, the mistrust is understandable.’ (Heathfield, 2008). The trust is created on the basis of values identification and sharing; in accordance with Heathfield the concept of trust as a part of business ethics consists of competence perception, trusting capacity, and intentions perception.
Myron Curry (2004) managed to underline the importance of ethics as the basic guide to choice making. The author stressed that in most cases people perceive ethics as the element of their private life rather than business sphere operation; as a result grave ethical mistakes are observed which can lead even to bankruptcy. For example, ENRON company business management was based on ethics display, neglecting and ignoring norms and standards identifying appropriate ethical behavior of the employees and top management. (Curry, 2004)
It is necessary to underline the fact that modern business sphere is more concentrated on the introduction of special ethical policies, trainings and programs; current employment process is closely connected with the ethics checking of newcomers in order to evaluate ambitions and mentality of the candidates. In order to become a true leader in business sphere it is necessary to concentrate on the development of the following qualities: innovativeness, accuracy, individuality, dedication, flexibility and collaboration. (Heathfield, 2008) The establishment of ethics policy through leadership has certain advantages for the company; top position of ethics in company’s management is considered to be the basic methods for employees’ convincing as to their appropriate ethics perception during business dealings. High employees’ commitment and morale are considered to be beneficial for business operations leading to higher staff motivations and profits. Besides, the policy introduction improves social responsibility and makes the employees focus on short term results of their business dealings.
The analysis of business ethics and leadership role gave an opportunity to realize their interdependence with profitability, quality and outputs provided by the companies. Leaders bear responsibility for ethics promotion within the company’s structure through special ethics programs and trainings introduction. The articles analyzed demonstrated the problems caused by ethics ignorance and neglect; it is necessary to stress that the downfall of major companies, such as ENRON, predominantly resulted from ineffectiveness of ethical norms accommodation; modern business sphere is to be on the way to making ethical methods be the background of management development.
References
Curry, M. (2004). Ethics in the Workplace. Business Training Media.
Heathfield, S. (2008). Leadership Values and Ethics: Secrets of Leadership Success.