Unethical Leadership in Business

Unethical Leadership in Business

Thesis statement: This research paper discusses the negative impacts of wrong leadership on followers’ performance and organization.

Abstract

This paper offers theoretical insight into the recent developments in the definition of destructive leadership. This study seeks to study the impacts of the abusive supervision on job performance to the formal styles like appraisals, supervisor rating, and self-rating. In this context, the concept of unethical leadership centered on the leaders’ behavior is explored and used to clarify this academic problem. This paper also speculates that the wrong administration in business increases followers’ deviance and their perception of injustice and politics in the organization. Some of these behaviors portrayed by leaders are tyranny and supportive-disloyal management conduct. This paper will offer a relation between leadership and study on harassment, aggression at work as well as exploitation. This paper also looks into the biblical view of leadership and how Christians view the issue of unethical leadership.

Introduction

Unethical leadership is an example of much managerial misconduct in organizations. The effects of these misconducts in several theoretical works. A good example is Schilling (2013) provided an analysis that integrated various thoughts of unethical leadership and their outcomes.  Their results have shown that there is a negative correlation between poor governance and labor output. Supervisors are crucial sources of ethical guidance to the workers and expected that they should serve as good examples. Trevino (2005) explained that leaders should be responsible for developing moral values and establishing ethical standards that guide the behavior of the employees. When reinforced with harmonious company practices, procedures, and rules, these standards then become part and parcel of the organization’s system and philosophy. On the contrary, when neglected or compromised, misbehaviors are allowed to flourish in the organization. As Schaubroek et al. (2007) shown in their study that supervisors with unethical leadership behaviors may harm the staff’s behavior and emotional across the organization.

Unethical leadership can thus be defined as dishonest and unfair indulgent in fraud and other illegal actions, lack of empathy, responsibility, being self-centered, manipulation, and misusing others. Ethical leader is found to reduce employees’ misconduct bullying and deviance behavior by always mind in the employees’ wellbeing and having a positive correlation with employees’ misconducts. The unethical responses of staff may vary significantly from aggression and revenge and counterproductive behavior towards the organization. Researches have also shown that victims of bullying have lower emotional wellbeing, colleague support, low self-esteem, and little supervisory support. Additionally, they asserted that unethical leadership drains employees’ self-esteem and end up in ego depletion. Followers are more prospective to inspect top-ranking leaders’ reactions to misconduct as well as other irrational practices related to the organization.

The issue of unethical leadership is very complex and, therefore, essential to reflect on the intentions of leaders while defining the concept. It could be unintentional harming of others or can be a very deliberate objective of a leader to harm the subordinates. It should also consider the aspect of behavior violated by thee leader, i.e., moving a violation of standards or passively supporting others to violate organizational regulations. One should also find whether the mistreatment is repetitive, systematic, permanent aspects, or they are just occasional single and isolated cases of unethical leadership. It is also essential to distinguish whether unethical behavior is related to the leaders’ traits or encompassed in the organization’s moral standards. Therefore, this paper is designed to report on the impact of wrong leadership on workers on the organization’s performance. Some aspects considered are politics, favoritism and superiority, and the role of leaders in role modeling.

Methods and materials

After doing a thorough review of the available literature concerning the subject, it was evidence authors had used so many terms to refer to this kind of leadership.  Only a few academic works have focused on describing leadership in the context of ethics, but the majority embarked on negative control. Among these are the works of  Brown and Mitchell (2010) and Warren et al. (2012). These two pieces of literature have developed a notional reflection of unethical leadership, while Brodbeck and Eisenbeib (2014) focused on the results of how workers from varied cultural backgrounds see the wrong direction.

Brown and Mitchell (2010: 588) defined unethical leadership as behavior and decisions made by organizational leaders hat are illegal and violate the proper standard, and that brings about wrong actions by followers. The definition responds to the problems associated with leadership. One of these problems is a different understanding of morality, which is unusual in various cultures, societies, and religions. The authors also argue that unethical behavior should not only be attributed to the leadership personality traits, but the leader may also engage in supporting the unethical practices of others without taking part in unethical behavior.

Warren et al. (2012:6) base their argument on the issue of unethical leadership on theories of ethics of justice, utilitarianism, and ethics of virtues. They defined unethical leadership as supervisory behavior that violates the normative standards of the workers and the organization. They also clarified that the criterion used to distinguish the right or wrong in leaders’ response is from the universal ethical principles. They focused on the violation of the employees’ rights, invested interest, inequity, and unfair treatment of staff at the expense of the organizational interest. Besides this discussion of the character of an unethical leader, destructive leadership is also essential. Writers use destructive leadership because it serves as an alternative to many leaders that use style related to wrong administration.

Discussion

The role of leaders is to promote ethical and positive behavior in employees to achieve organizational goals. Incorporate politics and deviant behavior, workers’ deviance is a voluntary behavior that violates corporate value standards and thus hampers the wellbeing of the organization and other members. Such actions include but not limited to prolonging the working hours to receive overtime pay and removing the organization’s assets. It is, therefore, seen as a source of significant damage to companies and leads to losses. Organizational politics is, therefore, actions that lead to personal gains rather than the interest of the organization. In a highly politicized organization, employee’s motivation, career progress, and wellbeing are put at risk by other influential members seeking to defend their selfish interests. The employee’s benefits and compensation may be tied to the relationship with high ranking members of the hierarchy Braton et al. (2004). Under these circumstances, the organization’s climate becomes more political. Therefore people are more likely to adopt self-serving styles, whereby they may unite to safeguard their interests. Borrowing from Adams’s theory of equity, employees reciprocate their behavior to maintain and restore fairness.

Beliefs of injustice in an organization also provoke personal feelings of dissatisfaction. These hostile emotions motivate employees to restore equity by changing their behavior and attitudes towards the organization and work. They also ravage to the unjust actions by doing things that will harm the organization Dalal (, 2005). Therefore the absence of fair-decision making mechanisms in an organization by high ranking members depletes the employees’ perception of fair distribution of rewards, leading to negative feelings of dissatisfaction. This feeling of dissatisfaction contributes significantly to employees’ deviance and sabotage.

Leadership has been identified to be the factor that drives in shaping subordinates’ behavior. In particular, the lack of ethical leadership contributes significantly to assistants’ dissatisfaction than any other element in organizations. Leaders tend to influence their followers through interactions and socialization, and therefore the ethics of the leader are devolved to the lower hierarchical leadership levels of the organization Schaubroeck et al. (2012). Therefore the behavior of leaders is seen to influence followers’ behavior at all levels of the organization. Leaders with unethical behavior will thus create an environment where the employees will also be deviant or immoral. Harris et al. (2007) Argue that when employees view their working environment as unfair and biased. And everything is tied to politics with the organization rather than rules and regulations. Organizational justice is considered to be dysfunctional. The figure below shows the relationship between unethical leadership and deviance of the employees.

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Employees look unto the leaders to show course and lead the process of achieving the workers’ objective. Leaders are also tasked with the obligation of setting principles for conduct and moral values that champion actions and the process of justice for the followers Brown et al. (2005). Besides, organizations whose leaders have demonstrated fairness and trust among the workers have reported positive outcomes such as absenteeism and high staff turnover rates. When creating ethical norms in an organization, one aspect that a leader should have is credibility, that is, the leader must be competent and believable. The behavior of the leader is a great model tool that carries the prospects of the organization’s culture and climate of the organization. Research done by Davis and Rothstein (2006) indicates that leaders who portly right behaviors are the primary reason why most employees’ would also behave ethically. In addition, social perceptions are essential in understanding the profound effects the organizational leaders can have on employees, and the attribution employees may make about their ethical decisions. Drawing from the casual attribution theory, Yulk (2002) explains that supervisors tend to attribute the major causes of poor performance in an organization towards internal forces or the subordinate’s efforts or lack of skills. Others blame external factors that are beyond the employees’ control, like a lack of resources.

A leader’s hierarchical level and moral reasoning also play an essential role in workers’ attribution about unethical behaviors. Leaders at the top hierarchical level tend to have served longer with the organization, and most of them may develop the “old boy attitude.” Most of these leaders have a unique responsibility for shaping the organization’s values. Top leaders are also able to make crucial decisions touching the solidity of the business. These leaders also have access to essential information that other employees do not have. Although some researchers have found a negative relationship between top leadership and proper reasoning, Harris (1990) thought that senior leaders are usually less tolerant of misconduct than supervisors. Harris also added that since the top leaders are in charge of solving ethical dilemmas, they are likely to be firm with issues of misconduct than supervisors.

When key members of the organization are implicated in misconduct scandals, employees scrutinize how the top leaders will react to the misconduct as well as other organizational practices. The third-party perception of the fairness of punishment is also an essential factor of consideration as the observers or rest of the workers make the more substantial portion of the organization workforce. Besides, researchers found a positive relationship between punishment severity and perception of justice. Researchers also found out that violators with low-performance records are usually judged as more deserving of the punishment than those with good performance records.

Unethical leadership is also seen through nepotism. Nepotism is the practice of showing favors to family members or close friends in employment or promotion. Most employees have a negative opinion about organizations’ nepotism. Nepotism has also posed the question of moral appropriateness for couples to work in an organization. Research has also identified that most beneficiaries of nepotisms are less productive. When employees get a chance to comment on the unethical behaviors of their organization’s leadership, fear emerges in the employees, and this affects what they say.  This fear includes the fear of losing the job and fear of being viewed as the whistle-blower. In a culture of mistrust, employees may feel that there is no one to trust. The employees also feel that they may be targets if they talk about bad leadership.

The bible also provides an insight into spiritual leadership, which is a view of the metaphysical world. God has used religious leaders like Abraham, Moses, Judges,  David, kings, peter, Paul, and Jesus Christ. The bible also provides examples of such leaders and models of leadership principles, mostly in the book of proverbs. Beliefs have it that the indication of a good leader has followers, and therefore without following leadership is nothing. Leadership is explained in (proverbs 14:28). Leadership is, therefore, the ability to influence others rather than the office that one holds. Leadership was evidence when apostle Paul was being transported to Rome, their ship was caught on storms and almost sank. At that critical moment, Paul took charge, and his leadership saved the boat and everyone in it.

Successful leaders usually seek wise advice from others. (Proverbs 15:22) “Take good advice and watch your plans succeed, but refuse good counsel and watch your plans fail.” It is essential to understand that being a leader does not mean that one knows everything; however, the option of seeking assistance from others is always available. For example, when Rehoboth despised his father’s advice, his ignorance cost him half of his kingdom (1 Kings 12). Moses heeded to his father in law’s help, and this saved his leadership (Exod.18). Effective leaders, therefore, must oppose misconduct and also uphold the highest ethical standards predominantly in the issue of money and sex.

For a Christian follower, all people are, without exception, ethically flawed. In other words, Jesus is telling leaders that it is not possible to develop integrity, honesty, fairness, kindness, and moral judgment by trusting in personal strength. One needs to have some more than will and good intentions. Jesus said that muscles and willpower does not make anything happen but repentance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In the world, however, leadership is seen as being about leadership position, status, and power, and later on, when one gets this position, it is abused. Most leaders use these positions for their benefits. In Matthew 23, the Pharisees exploited their leadership positions to gain celebrity fame and honor.

Although Christian’s view on the issue of leadership ethics is almost similar to that of the secular world, there is markedly vast difference between the two. For example, the temporal leadership models aim at accumulating wealth for self-gains, while for the Christian models, the goal is to have people conform to his covenant and to bless the families on earth. Additionally, the secular leadership aims at attaining measurable success, but for the Christians, the goal cannot be measured until in the judgment day of God.

Conclusion

Although there is some factual overlap among the literature reviewed, most of the findings in unethical leadership were in line with the previous studies. The study confirmed that the wrong administration has a significant effect on followers’ organization deviance and, consequently, their productivity. The research also revealed that the extent of unethical leadership plays a vital role, followed by the perception of politics and, lastly, justice in nurturing deviance in the organization. The result indicated that the understanding of politics predicted by unethical leadership and judgment of injustice in organizations. Although researchers have made significant success in discussing this field, there is still an opportunity for future research.

References

Brown, M., & Mitchell, M. (2010).  Ethical and Unethical Leadership: Exploring New Avenues for Future Research. Business Ethics Quarterly, Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/25763039

Bello, S. M. (2012). Impact of unethical leadership on employee job performance. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3(11).

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Einarsen. S., Aasland. M. S. & Skogstad. A. (2007). Unethical leadership behavior: A definition and conceptual model. Leadership Quarterly,18 (3), 207-216. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2007.03.002

Eisenbeiß, S. A., & Brodbeck, F. (2014). Ethical and unethical leadership: A cross-cultural and cross-sectoral analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 122(2), 343-359.

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