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Leadership Ethics: Mapping the Territory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Joanne B. Ciulla
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Abstract:

In this paper I argue that a greater understanding of the part of ethics in leadership will improve leadership studies. Debates over the definition of leadership are really debates over what researchers think constitutes good leadership. The ultimate question is not “What is leadership?” but “What is good leadership?” The word good is refers to both ethics and competence. Research into leadership ethics would explore the ethical issues of current leadership research, serve as a critical study of the field, analyze and expand normative theories of leadership, and develop new theories, research questions and ways of thinking about leadership.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , January 1995 , pp. 5 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1995

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References

Notes

1 The best of these articles will be discussed in a separate annotated bibliography. I owe a debt of gratitude to Litt Maxwell, a University of Richmond librarian, for helping execute this literature search.

2 These Kohlberg-type studies can be interesting for leadership ethics if you put all these studies together. However, taken one by one, they give a very small snapshot of a group. Kohlberg’s work on moral development also has the problems that Carol Gilligan has articulated. A number of philosophers also have problems with Kohlberg’s description of the highest stage of development. Nonetheless, some of the most fascinating research that uses this approach is cross-cultural. For example, see: Sara Harkness, Carolyn Pope Edwards & Charles M. Super, “Social Roles and Moral Reasoning,” A Case Study in a Rural African Community,” in Developmental Psychology, Vol. 17, No. 5, 1981, pp. 595–603. Also see: Anne Marie Tietjen & Lawrence J. Walker, “Moral Reasoning and Leadership Among Men in a Papu New Guinea Society,” Developmental Psychology, Vol. 21, No. 6, 1985, pp. 982–992.

3 Many areas of leadership literature from psychology focus on different types of relationships. For example contingency theories focus on the relationship of the leader and the group in a given situation. See: Fred Feidler, A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967) and Victor H. Vroom and Paul W. Yetton, Leadership and Decision-Making (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973). The vertical dyad linkage model focuses on dyads such as the relationship between leaders and managers. See: Fred Dansereau, Jr., George Graen, and William J. Haga, “Vertical Dyad Linkage Approach to Leadership within Formal Organizations: A Longitudinal Investigation of the Role Making Process,” Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 13 (1975, pp. 46–78.

4 Some of the most frequently cited ethics texts in leadership articles and books are from business ethics. The reasons for this might be that researchers are often in business schools, business ethics texts are written for a broad audience and the content of business ethics research into managerial ethics and organizational ethics is relevant to leadership.

5 Joseph Rost, Leadership for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Praeger, 1991), p. 172.

6 James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy (New York: Random House, 1986). Mark Pastin, The Hard Problems of Management: Gaining the Ethics Edge (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1986). I am not arguing about the quality of these books, but rather the quantity of research done by Rost.

7 The chapter also contains pronouncements and generalizations are not well supported. For example, he says “The first thing that I want to emphasize is that the ethics of what is intended by leaders and followers in proposing changes may not be the same as the ethics of those changes once they have been implemented. This troubling distinction is not often developed in books on professional ethics, but it does turn up time and time again in real life.” (Rost, p. 168) A number of Kantians who write about professional ethics would take issue with this claim.

8 Rost, p. 177.

9 Ibid., p. 77. The works cited in his argument are Robert Bellah, et. al., Habits of the Heart (New York: Harper & Row, 1985); William M. Sullivan, Reconstructing Public Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); and Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984). Rost seems to miss the point that all three of these books are reapplications of older traditions of ethics. Bellah et. al. and Sullivan make this point clear in their books. Rost does not discuss virtue ethics in this chapter, so it is not clear whether he means to discard this too when he rejects “ethical theory.”

10 Ibid., p. 177.

11 Bass, Bernard M., Bass & Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership 3rd edition (New York: The Free Press, 1990). The quotes are taken from the back jacket of the book.

12 From James MacGregor Burns’ book, Leadership (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1978).

13 J. Weber, “Managers and Moral Meaning: An Exploratory look at Manager’s Responses to Moral Dilemmas,” Proceedings of the Academy of Management, Washington, DC, 1989, pp. 333–337.

14 K.W. Kuhnert & C.J. Lewis, “Transactional and Transformational Leadership: A Constructive/Developmental Analysis,” Academy of Management Review, Vol. 12, 1987 pp. 648–657.

15 M.F. Peterson, R.L. Phillips, & C.A. Duran, “A Comparison of Japanese Performance maintenance measures with US. Leadership Scales,” Psychologia—An International Journal of Psychology in the Orient, Vol. 32, 1089, pp. 58–70.

16 P. Steidlmeier, The Paradox of Poverty: A Reprisal of Economic Development Policy (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1987).

17 Bass & Stogdill, p. 906.

18 This is not to say that articles that are cited in Bass & Stogdill are not good, but rather, they are focused studies that taken together would not give the reader much of a perspective on ethics as it pertains to leadership.

19 For example, John Gardner is well known in the leadership area. His leadership paper, ‘The Moral Aspect of Leadership” was published in 1987. Burns’ book was published in 1978 and contained a wealth of references that might have been useful.

20 Rost, p. 27.

21 Ibid., p. 3.

22 Marta Calas & Linda Smircich, “Reading Leadership as a Form of Cultural Analysis,” in Emerging Leadership Vistas, ed. James G. Hunt, B. Rajaram Baliga, H. Peter Dachler & Chester A. Schriesheim (Lexington, MA.: Lexington Books, 1988) pp. 222–226.

23 For example see, Thomas Sergiovanni, Moral Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992), p. xiii. Sergiovanni argues that “rich leadership practice cannot be developed if one set of values or one basis of authority is simply substituted for another. What we need is an expanded theoretical and operational foundation for leadership practice that will give balance to a full range of values and bases of authority.” He refers to this expanded foundation as the moral dimension in leadership.

24 John Gardner, On Leadership (New York: Free Press, 1990), p. 77.

25 Since most of my work has been in business ethics, I use that field as an example. Few philosophers would attempt to write about a topic in business ethics without doing research into that area of business, yet a number of business scholars over the years have felt no discomfort over writing about business ethics without doing research into ethics. If you look at what is considered the best work in business ethics you will not find research that is only business or only philosophic ethics. A good example of the ideal mix is Ed Freeman’s and Dan Gilbert’s Ethics and Strategy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1988).

26 Extensive work has been done on leadership in political science, but this research is not well integrated into this the business/psychology literature. One might argue that because the discussion of leadership is so much a part of political science that it is not noticeable as a separate field, except perhaps for Presidential Studies. It is, however, interesting to note that Barbara Kellerman’s anthology on political leadership is interdisciplinary. See, Barbara Kellerman, ed., Political Leadership: A Source book (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986)It draws from political science, philosophy, economics, history, sociology. Yet if one looks at the references in Bass and Stogdill, the lion’s share of them are from management and psychology and very few from political science or other fields. Extensive work has also been done on leadership in military academies. For example see, Howard Prince and Associates, eds., Leadership in Organizations, 3rd ed. (West Point, NY: United States Military Academy, 1985).

27 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970) p. 20.

28 A recent example of a leadership textbook is Hughes, Richard, Ginnett, Robert, Curphy, Gordon J., Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience (New York: Irwin, 1993).

29 James J. Hunt has published 8 collections of symposia papers on leadership. Note the language in the titles of these books, “Current Developments,” “Leadership Frontiers,” “The Cutting Edge,” “Beyond establishment Views,” and “Emerging Vistas.” One senses that Hunt is trying to capture something that keeps falling through scholars’ fingers like sand.

E.A. Fleishman & J.G. Hunt Current Developments in the Study of Leadership, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1973).

J. G. Hunt & L.L. Larson, Contingency Approaches to Leadership, (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1974).

J.G. Hunt & L.L. Larson, Leadership Frontiers (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1975).

J.G. Hunt & L.L. Larson, Leadership: The Cutting Edge (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1977).

J.G. Hunt & L.L. Larson, Crosscurrents in Leadership (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1979).

J.G. Hunt, U. Sekaran & C.A. Schriesheim, Leadership: Beyond Establishment Views (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1982).

J. G. Hunt, D.M. Hosking, C.A. Schriesheim & R. Stewart, Leaders and Managers: International Perspectives on Managerial Behavior and Leadership (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1984).

J. G. Hunt, B. Rajaram Baliga, H. Peter Dachler & Chester A. Schriesheim, “Reading Leadership as a Form of Cultural Analysis,” Emerging Leadership Vistas (Lexington, MA.: Lexington Books, 1988) pp. 222–226.

30 Kuhn, p. 20.

31 Rost, pp. 6–7.

32 In J.G. Hunt’s symposia (opus cited) and in other articles on leadership, scholars constantly lament that they have done so much studying and know so little about leadership. Yet the same scholars who lament this fact, do little to change the way that they do research.

33 Rost p. 6.

34 Ibid

35 Ibid., p. 99.

36 The theory of meaning that I have in mind is from, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, tr. G.E.M. Anscomb 3rd ed. (New York: Macmillan 1968) pp. 18–20 and p. 241.

37 Rost, p.47 from: B.V. Moore, “The May Conference on Leadership,” Personnel Journal, Vol. 6, 1927, p. 124.

38 Ibid., p.47 from: E.S. Bogardus, Leaders and Leadership (New York: Appelton-Century, 1934) p. 5.

39 Ibid., p. 48 from: Reuter 1941 p. 133

40 P. 50. The bracket part is Rost’s summary of the definition from: C.A. Gibb, “Leadership,” in G. Lindzey (ed.) Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. 2, 1954, pp. 877–920.

41 P. 53. From: M. Seeman, Social Status and Leadership (Columbus: Ohio State University Bureau of Educational Research, 1960), p. 127.

42 P. 59, R.N. Osborn & J.G. Hunt, “An Adaptive Reactive Theory of Leadership,” in J.G. Hunt & L.L. Larson (eds.), Leadership Frontiers (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1975), p. 28.

43 P 72. From S.C. Sarkesian, “A Personal Perspective,” in R.S. Ruch & L.J. Korb (eds.) Military Leadership (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979), p. 243.

44 P. 102.

45 Burns criticizes leadership studies for bifurcating literature on leadership and followership. He says that the leadership literature is elitist, projecting heroic leaders against the drab mass of powerless followers. The followership literature, according to Burns, tends to be populist in its approach, linking the masses with small overlapping circles of politicians, military officers and business people. (See Burns p, 1979, p. 3).

46 One’s choice of a definition can be aesthetic and/or moral and/or political (if you control the definitions, you control the research agenda).

47 Rost, p. 161.

48 Leaders carry their own normative baggage in their definitions. For example:

“A leader is a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do, and like it.” (Harry Truman)

“Clean examples have a curious method of multiplying themselves.” (Gandhi)

‘Whatever goal man has reached is due to his originality plus his brutality.” (Adolf Hitler)

“If we do not win, we will blame neither heaven nor earth, only ourselves.” (Mao)

These examples are from G.D. Paige’s book, The Scientific Study of Political Leadership (p.66). They are taken from Barbara Kellerman’s, Leadership: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986), pp. 71–72.

49 This is from Ron Heifitz’s book manuscript Leadership Without Easy Answers (Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 17–18.

50 See, Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge (New York: Harper Collins, 1985) p. 45.

51 The leader/manager distinction is a troublesome one in the leadership literature. One problem is that leadership is a hot word these days and the current trend is to put leadership in the title of books on traditional management subjects. If we look at the formal positions of leaders and managers in organizations, the leader’s job requires a broader perspective on the operation and on the moral significance of policies and actions of the organization (this is part of the “vision thing”). The manager’s domain of perspective is usually more narrowly defined as people whose job is to ensure that a set of tasks are completed. In ethical terms this element of leadership boils down to thinking about actions in terms of how they impact on the organization as a whole and in the long run. In the ethics seminars that I have run for corporate managers, I have noticed that the managers who tend to take a big picture view of particular ethical problems are most often the ones who have been identified as having the greatest leadership potential. So Bennis and Nanus do seem to be right. However, it is not that managers are unethical, but rather that they have a narrower moral perspective that is in part dictated by the way in which they respond to the constraints and pressures of their position. Managers are also subject to Kant’s old adage that ‘ought implies can.’

52 Here Aristotle’s discussion of excellence (areté) would be useful. Aristotle says that excellent actions must be good in themselves and good and noble. See the argument in Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, BK. I sections 6–8 (1096a12–1098b8). Later in book II sections 13–16 (31104b), Aristotle argues that a virtuous person has appropriate emotions along with dispositions to act the right way. Virtue then is being made happy by the right sort of thing.

53 See E.A. Fleishman, “The Description of Supervisory Behavior,” Personnel Psychology, Vol. 37, pp. 1–6.

54 Results from the earlier and later Michigan Studies are discussed in, R. Leikert’s books, New Patterns of Management (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961) and The Human Organization: Its Management and Value (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967).

55 See P. Hershey and K.H. Blanchard, The Management of Organizational Behavior, 5th edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993).

56 It would be worthwhile to look at some of the studies and ask how the subjects with high/high orientations solve ethical problems. Do they tend to find themselves trapped in between deontic and consequentialist approaches to the problem? Are people who score high on the task scale consequentialists when it comes to approaching ethical problems? etc.

57 According to Gary Yukl, the only consistent findings that have come from this research is that considerate leaders usually have more satisfied followers. See, Gary Yukl, Leadership in Organizations, 2nd edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989), p. 96.

58 Old metaethical problems such as David Hume’s problem of drawing an ought from, G.E. Moore’s naturalistic fallacy, and more recent discussions of ethical realism take on a certain urgency in applied ethics. I find that the more work that I do in applied ethics the more I lean towards the position that moral discourse is cognitive in that it expresses propositions that have truth value. However, I am still uncomfortable with drawing moral prescriptions from “scientific” studies of leadership. I have not really worked out a coherent position on these points of moral epistemology. For a good discussion of these issues see, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, editor, Essays on Moral Realism (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1988). I find David Wiggins’ and Geoffrey Sayre-McCord’s articles on ethical realism to be particularly compelling.

59 This is the argument that the sciences provide explanation and the humanities understanding. See chapter 1 of G. H. von Wright, Explanation and Understanding (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1971).

60 In most journal articles, authors, including this one, offer stipulative definitions. These definitions make clear how concepts are being used in the paper. They are not meant to be universal definitions.

61 We need a better picture of what a leader ought to be in order to educate and develop leaders in schools and organizations.

62 Burns uses the terms transforming and transformational in his book. However, he prefers to refer to his theory as transforming leadership.

63 I think that Burns is sometimes overly sanguine about the universal truth of these theories of human development.

64 James MacGregor Burns, 1978, pp. 42–43.

65 Rost, 1991, p. xii.

66 I am very grateful to Professor Burns for the discussions that we have had on the ethics of leadership. Burn’s reflections on his work as a biographer, have lead me to this conclusion.

67 For example, see Burns’ discussion of Roosevelt’s treatment of Joe Kennedy, pp. 32–33.

68 One of the problems with using the values approach to ethics is that it requires a very complicated taxonomy of values. The word value is also problematic because it is encompasses so many different kinds of things. The values approach requires arguments for some sort of hierarchy of values that would serve to resolve conflicts of values. In order to make values something that people do rather than just have, Milton Rokeach offers a very awkward discussion of the ought character of values. “A person phenomenological experiences “oughtness” to be objectively required by society in somewhat the same way that he perceives an incomplete circle as objectively requiring closure.” See Milton Rokeach, The Nature of Human Values (New York: The Free Press, 1973) p. 9.

69 Ibid., p. 426.

70 Ibid., p. 3

71 P. 426.

72 The third test has an Aristotelian twist to it. The relationship of leaders and followers and the ends of that relationship must rest on eudaimonia or happiness that is understood as human flourishing or as Aristotle says “living well and faring well with being happy.” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I (1095a19) from The Complete Works of Aristotle Vol. II, edited by Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) p. 1730.

73 Burns, 1979, p. 424.

74 Bernard Bass, Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations (New York: Free Press, 1985).

75 Judith Rosner, “Ways Women Lead,” in Harvard Business Review, Nov./Dec. 1990. pp. 99–125.

76 Jay Conger, The Charismatic Leader: Behind the Mystique of the Exceptional Leader (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989) p. xiv.

77 Bass, 1985, p.31.

78 For example, see Robert J. House, William D. Spangler and James Woycke’s study “Personality and Charisma in the U.S Presidency,” Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 36, no. 3, Sept. 1991, pp. 334–396. Their study looks at charisma in terms of the bond between leaders and followers and in terms of actual behavior of the presidents (p. 366). The question that lurks in the background is, Is this relationship, in Burns’ terms, morally uplifting? Is the behavior ethical? and Does the process that takes place in the relationship between these charismatic presidents and their followers humanly enriching?

79 For a very provocative account of charismatic leadership from an anthropological point of view see, Charles Lindholm, Charisma (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1990). Lindholm includes several case studies, including ones on Charles Manson and Jim Jones.

80 Greenleaf takes his theory from Hesse. See, Greenleaf, Robert K., Servant Leadership (New York: Paulist Press, 1977). Hesse, Hermann, The Journey to the East (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991).

81 The Robert K. Greenleaf Center in Indianapolis works with companies to implement this idea of leaderhsip in organizations. The Robert K. Greenleaf Center, 1100 W. 42nd St., suite 321, Indianapolis, IN 46208.

82 Greenleaf, 1977, pp. 13–14.