A good leader possesses the right values and ethics to be effective at people management. The best leaders are also able to recognise the necessity for ethical behaviour in their colleagues and employees. Great leaders demonstrate the values and ethics they expect their employees to possess, and don’t believe in a “do what I say not what I do” mentality. Effective leaders make their ethics and values clear to all who follow them by living them each day.
One of the major problems in many workplaces is a lack of trust. It’s difficult to trust managers and employers who don’t demonstrate good values and ethics in their workplace behaviour. Any leader who lets himself or herself be seen to engage in untrustworthy behaviour is one who will ultimately find their leadership undermined and will have to work hard to regain confidence.
Leaders who continually flout their own rules and demonstrate poor values and ethics will find it extremely difficult to gain and maintain employee and colleague loyalty. People don’t know what to expect from leaders who aren’t consistent, and aren’t sure of the values and ethics they should be working by. It is only through clear and visible demonstration of values and ethics that effective work situations can truly occur.
It is a great idea for all workplaces to form a code of conduct that clearly explains the values of the company and the ethics the company works by. Leaders need to internalise these values and ethics and live by them, and in doing so, inspire other employees to live and work by the same values.
When leaders fail to live up to their organisation’s code of ethics and values, they become nothing more than words on paper, respected neither by the employees or their managers. It is sometimes surprising the effect a bad leader can have on company and employee morale. Great leadership inspires people who will follow and emulate those they respect.
Some demonstrated values include: individuality, integrity, equality, responsibility, competency, accuracy, dedication, loyalty, honesty, credibility, innovativeness, excellence, quality, accomplishment, independence, interdependence, flexibility and compassion. Company leaders must choose the values and ethics which are the most important to them, and must be able to demonstrate them in their thoughts, words and actions while in the workplace.
Great leaders need to be those who others want to follow, those who offer a positive vision for the future, and those who inspire others and who are able to show others their appreciation by making them feel like valued members of a team (even when they may have done something incorrectly or may not have met a necessary company standard). When a leader is someone that others aspire to become, they are able to do their jobs most effectively, and are able to get others to do the same.
When a company has problems with management and employees, there may be conflicts between the managers and the values and ethics they demonstrate to other employees. It’s necessary that all managers and leaders in an organisation are able to work within the guidelines of the company’s stated values and ethics. If this has been done poorly in the past, it may be necessary to organise official meetings with all leaders to reinforce company values and to make it clear that it is now necessary for all company leaders to demonstrate these values to other members of the organisation.
It may initially be difficult to get full compliance, especially if managers have been left to their own devices in the past. It may be especially difficult if the owner or those further up the chain have not been demonstrating these qualities themselves. In some cases, there will need to be organisation-wide change for all managers and employees to come on board, but the pay-offs are well worth the effort.
If achieving an organisation that lives to a high standard of values and ethics seems like an impossible dream, it may be necessary to enlist the assistance of a professional trainer to come into the organisation and meet with all managers in several formal training sessions emphasising the need for great leadership with clear expectations of demonstrable values and ethics. It must be made clear that all managers and those in positions of leadership must live by and demonstrate the values and ethics specified by the company. A good leader will quickly see why this is necessary and valuable to the company.
Those who are less experienced with leadership may tackle their jobs and those working beneath them in the wrong way, and may not immediately see the benefit of demonstrating good values and ethics. This often occurs because new managers haven’t had good managers or mentors themselves, and have learned an ineffective and erroneous method of managing others. However, with the right training and a good demonstration of the benefits of value based and ethical work practices, they can develop the skills necessary to be great leaders who inspire those they work with.
A good organisation is composed of leaders who demonstrate clear ethics and values, and who inspire those who work under them to do the same. They are fair in dealing with employees, offer encouragement and advice when needed, and ensure that all employees feel like valuable members of a team. Once teams of workers all feel comfortable working within the company’s values and ethics, the organisation will be strong and effective.
Great and interesting explanation and interpretation of professional and ethics values in our multinational environments. We have to follow this above mentioned issues to growth personally among corporate organizations.
Cheers,
Pablo
Great points! Your statement, “Effective leaders make their ethics and values clear to all who follow them by living them each day,” makes a strong argument for the necessity of developing an authentic influence. As well, your comments on the impact on trust and its importance are also valuable to this discussion.
Dale
Great Info! This will be very useful for all the leaders.
It is the most ideal role model of a leader who could adopt a set of values and ethics that suit well for the organization that he/she tenuring with. Adoption of values and ethics should come with internalization in order to reflect genuineness. Many of the leaders in the multinational companies these days have taken up leadership in a philosophical approach instead of motion in action. More preacher than doer as layman would phrase it.
Values and ethics are the elements that can’t be taught or adopted because these are something of more personal. You either have the set of values or you don’t because every individual has different life experiences and upbringing. It is the experiences ones have gone through that shape the personality, which is the composer of a set of values in motion.
The leader who choose the values in order to preach on it for the sake of group conformity and uniformity, the organization will soon reach an impasses on building high trust and dynamic team. Nobody could fake the values that ones doesn’t own and the philosopher/preacher will only be perceived for being ingenuine.
As Managers drive Business, Leadership drives organisation specially if its is a multicultural, multilingual having a common vision and organisational objective. An employee may differ from each other in language, colour, caste, or country but Ethics and Values across Globe needs to be very crystal clear and uniform which itself is BRAND recognition of any organisation. In order to have a strong and effective organisation it Leaders have to live, demonstrate, inspire, influence & motivate their teams to inculcate in their minds company’s Ethics and Values For eg TATA’s……….