Discussion Question 1: Recognizing and Identifying Ethical Leadership Failures
Prior to beginning your discussion, read Understanding (and preventing) ethical leadership failures. After reading the article, give an example of one or more leadership failures that you are familiar with. You may use an organization, group, or political figure for your discussion. Describe the failure(s) in detail. Analyze how the failure(s) could have been mitigated.
Discussion Question 2: Ethical Leadership
Read the An improved measureof ethical leadership article by Yukl, Mahsud, Hassan, & Prussia (2013), as well as Chapter 7 of Gonzalez-Padron (2015). Complete the Checklist: Ethical Leadership Questionnaire, then answer these following questions from the text:
• Describe the behaviors that are most important for you to feel trust in the ethical leadership of a supervisor, manager, or company executive?
• Describe any descriptors in the list that are difficult to observe?
• Analyze how ethical leadership can be measured in an organization?
• Evaluate how personal experience with a leader (e.g., work assignments, disciplinary actions) skew your assessment of his or her ethical leadership? Cite an example based on personal experience.
PROJECT ASSIGNMENT: Developing an Ethical Culture
Prior to beginning your assignment, read Chapters 7 and 8 of the textbook, and Creating an ethical workplace (Links to an external site.). For this assignment, you will take on the role of a mid-level organizational manager. In your current job role, you have noticed that the organizational culture is contributing to some unethical decision making by subordinates and peers. You feel strongly that leadership must be not only made aware of the situation but also given appropriate solutions. To communicate with the CEO and shareholders, you must create a memo. In the memo, you will explain the issues, as well as offer appropriate solutions. For help in the format and writing style of a memo use Good example of a persuasive memo.
In your memo include:
• Header: with To, From, Date, and Subject
• Introductory paragraph
• One to two paragraphs outlining the issues.
• Three to six paragraphs describing solutions
• A closing paragraph that summarizes the information.
In the memo:
• Describe the issues of the current ethical culture
• Describe which stakeholders are affected by the issues, such as employees, shareholders, local community, society, etc.
• Formulate a plan to change the ethical culture
• Convince the CEO and shareholders of the importance of the changes
Memos are a business style of writing rather than academic. You do not need to use in-text citations in the memo. However, your work should be paraphrased rather than quoted. You must include a reference page to demonstrate the use of any resources.
Required Resources
Text
Gonzalez-Padron, T. (2015). Business ethics and social responsibility for managers [Electronic version].
o Chapter 7: Ethical Leadership
o Chapter 8: Organizational Culture
Articles
Meinert, D. (2014, April 1). Creating an ethical workplace.
o This article has descriptions of methods used to create an ethical workplace. Topics include ethical culture, manager's influence, and a discussion regarding if ethics can be taught.
Thornton, L. F. (2014, January 15). Understanding (and preventing) ethical leadership failures.
o This article is a description of how to recognize and prevent ethical leadership failures. The author examined both individual and organizational failures.
Yukl, G., Mahsud, R., Hassan, S., & Prussia, G. E. (2013). An improved measure of ethical leadership. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, (1)20. doi: 10.1177/1548051811429352
o The full-text version of this article can be accessed through the EBSCOhost database in the Ashford University Library. This article analyses the benefits of ethical leadership. It will be required to complete discussion one this week.
Accessibility Statement
Website
Good example of a persuasive memo
Accessibility Statement.