Selflessness as the key driver of Ethical Behavior – Philosophy behind Moral Leadership - Part 1

Ethics is the backbone of leadership and forms one of the cornerstone of the philosophy behind good management. Ethics is not something which is rigidly defined. It has got a fairly flexible boundary and different project situations and even different cultural norms permit different ethical behavior. Therefore is there any thumb rule by which we can ensure ethical behavior under all circumstances?

One of the key pillars in leadership is ethics and integrity. If we critically examine the term ethics in leadership context we find that it’s a term that is not very rigidly defined. It deals with the ideal behavior under different situations. Codes of ethics vary greatly in terms of the types of the activities and actions they cover and the degree of enforcement. Wherever there is a conflict of interest there is a question of ethics and integrity. Broadly the key drivers for ethical problems are threefold – Fear, Greed and Passion. The first one is well known, fear is basically preservation of self-interest. The chief motivator of fear is that “if I do not do something I shall be penalized.” Greed is also driven by self-interest, however the motive is different. Here “if I do something I’ll be rewarded handsomely.” Last but not the least, passion, is one of the biggest contributing factors in ethical problems. Passion is driven by desire to succeed and ambition to achieve new heights often at the cost of others. While passion when channelized properly can yield good results, if uncontrolled can lead to disaster. Another aspect is clearly illustrated in Mark Twain’s story, “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg”, that of weak monitoring and control and environmental factors which lead to temptations. Even an honest person has the propensity to become corrupt if the situation or environment is conducive to corruption. The cornerstone of ethics in behavioral leadership is how the a leader should behave under different situations which may create dilemmas or conflicts of interests. Dilemmas imply to do or not to do a certain action. While ethical dilemma and the response to it determine many business outcomes, the key subject of discussion here is the very concept of ethics itself – what constitutes one single thumb rule that can be applied for all situations that would cause ethical dilemmas to disappear. In short, what is the one philosophical basis that leaders should follow in order to be always on the side of morality and thereby can avoid the different triggers behind ethical problems?

Why ethics is needed

The first question that naturally comes to mind is why there should be ethics governing leadership behavior and business outcome? No doubt it is a blasphemy to question the fundamental law. If there are no ethics what is the natural result? Would the outcome be any different? The most important expectation from the leader is successful progress of the organization within the various constraints. The measure of success is mainly financial and in part atleast related to human capital, i.e. whether the various stakeholders – customer, vendor, business and employees are happy with the measures and the progress. If ethics is violated even while satisfying one or more of the above criteria and the business is still successful is there any real harm? Can ethics and integrity always lead to progress of the organization.

The hypothesis that we are going to base our proposition is that Ethics is a fundamental and non-compromising factor behind business and governance success. Lack of ethics may lead to serious and long term complications which are detrimental to the business, governance and stakeholder interests. If for instance the leader accepts adopting wrongful means for short term gains, in the long run it would lead to serious risks and even long term damages. Therefore our assumption would be that in all circumstances, ethics is the cornerstone of good leadership. Now let us ask ourselves, how to address ethical dilemma, or the situations that demand our greatest wisdom and are most challenging.