BLOG 1 – ETHICS AND LEADERSHIP

 

“Ethical Leadership is defined as “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement and decision-making”… [and] the evidence suggests that ethical leader behavior can have important positive effects on both individual and organizational effectiveness” (Rubin et al 2010: 216-17).                  

This blog will evaluate the extent of which ethical relationship between leaders and their followers matter, and argue for and against the importance of the connection between leader approaches and the impact on the overall organizational and individual outcome in airline industry.

 

• Ethical Leader Example

To run any successful business leaders and management should perform morally and ethically to achieve an optimum long-lasting result.  Hence, leader’s top objective and main characteristics should be moral ethics, doing the right thing, guiding followers to the right path, and influencing followers on doing the right thing; which help achieve individual goal and organization’s vision (Giacalone & Promislo, 2015).

The legendary leader of Virgin Airlines Richard Branson is a great example of how ethical leaders should be, where he combines his highly competitive approach to ethical practices to achieve the best outcome. 1990’s deregulation gave airlines the ability to operate without government restriction and compete more freely, which was an incentive for Branson to execute his strategic thinking (Thriroux & Krasemann, 2009).

According to Bloomberg (2009), organizations value strategic thinking and execution the most in leaders as demonstrated in the graph of what organizations value in leaders.

• Analyzing best practices for new managers or leaders entering their chosen industry

Airline leaders’ best practices are to create positive benefit to both leader and organization, demonstrate legitimate principles, and create a strong rapport with clients and aim for their full trust. For example Gary Kelly, Ex-Chairman and CEO of Southwest Airlines is another ethical leader example where he used to always emphasize leaders to listen first then respond and that employees should come first. To support his statement, his employees were the highest paid in the industry while their executives were not (Mueller, 2009)

• Unethical Leader Example

Moreover, authors believe that company’s approach is directly related to its leader’s values; and therefore, leaders should create a highly ethical culture to maintain ethical actions and results (Knights, 2014). However, after judging the results; the unethical behaviors by United Airlines Jeff Smisek are primarily due to pressure in meeting his individual and company’s unrealistic objectives, and the desire to keep the position of being the airline’s CEO for as long as possible. In addition to that, Jeff Smisek caused many loses to the airline which they never witnessed before from 2007-2009 and generally airlines cannot afford any loses in client compensation since the profit margin is relatively low.  Moreover, breaching any code of ethical conduct in employee’s rights or customers can cause a huge financial damage to the company’s health, reputation, customer’s loyalty, and potential investors (Mullins, 2013).

Jeff Smisek failed to meet Kantian’s ethical approach of “Respect for Persons” where by cutting costs and operating regional airlines, the company jeopardizes passengers and crew safety. The airline sells tickets and claims that the airplane and crew members are theirs whereas they have leased an entire flight from a regional low cost carrier and mislead customers by providing false flight details.

• Deontological and Teleological Theories, their benefits and limitations

Deontological act considers every action ethical; as long as the leader acts based on his/her principles regardless the results (Mullins and Christy 2013). Moreover, results are judged based on leader’s intentions and justifications rather than actions. An example is when a Swiss charity [Christian Solidarity International] intended to help save children slavery in Sudan and were paying $35 and $75 a head which caused for an increase in number of enslaved children chosen to get free money, and led to more damage than help in the society (Ciulla, 2003).

On the other hand, teleological perspective looks at the results to base the judgment of the action.(Price, 2000). In cases where leaders assume their acts are ethical but according to teleological perspective turns out to be unethical. Such as the case of Thabo Mbeki in 2000, the president of South Africa when he stated that it is indefinite that HIV caused AIDS to support his citizens that are tested to be 20% of total population positive for HIV, and that pharmaceutical companies are the ones that claiming this and making money from it (Garret, 2000). His unsupported statement caused a big chaos among citizens and public health experts, which made his action unethical regardless the intention.

However, both theories has strengths and weaknesses. Deontological theory prevents wrong actions and praise good ones, but without considering the consequences of the acts may lead to wrong decisions (Ochieng’-Odhiambo, 2009). Teleological theory base its assessment on the consequences, which lead to make fair decision, however it is very difficult to predict these consequences.

• Ethical Leadership Model

Branson reflects well the 4-V Model of ethical leadership’s pillars where he has high personal core values, draws well to team members the expected actions, quality of service to provide, and how things should be done. Moreover he communicates well his vision to his followers which can be seen on how the company operates and the high ranking of staff satisfaction.

• Impact of leadership behavior on individual and organizational effectiveness
• Followers consider leaders as their role model and they mirror their mind-set and approach.  Therefore, leaders are held responsible for their follower’s behavior, motivation, guidance, & productivity, organizations performance, and organizations ethics (Collier and Esteban, 2007)
• Recommendations for managers on how to use knowledge of effective ethical behavior to produce better results

Company leaders are recommended to create Balance-Score cards to measure the ethical effectiveness of their behavior by identifying both financial and non-financial objectives.

Non-financial objectives are important for long-term goals to achieve company’s objective and strategies which are of significant value to company’s worth. However, some measures like economical falls cannot be counted as leader’s responsibility, and financial measures can be used for setting short term benefits.   Moreover, the measures of high value should assess all employee related issues, competencies, innovation, and brand value. For example assessing customer’s satisfaction can help improve loyalty then revenue which are followed by attracting more investors.

Managers can use also consider Freeman’s stakeholder theory (1984), which states that business should consider the interest of all groups that can possibly be affected by company’s decisions and actions in creating company’s strategic policies.

To produce better results, airline industry is also recommended to develop corporate responsibility program to address issues of public concern, and highlight that the company is respecting the world. The program should focus on the environment and show commitment of minimizing pollution, local communities that can cover charity funding and investment programs, diversity by recruiting diverse workforce, and health and well-being to ensure safety on flight.

 

List of References

• CIPD (2013) Employee Outlook: Focus on Trust in Leaders [online] available from:<http://www.cipd.co.uk/binaries/6348%20EO%20Focus%20Trust%20in%20leaders%20WEB.pdf> [20 May 2016]
• CIPD (2013) Leadership [online] available from: <http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/factsheets/leadership.aspx#link_1> [20 May 2016]
• Collier, J., Esteban, R. (2007) Corporate Social Responsability and Employee Commitment: Business Ethics: A European Review [online] available from:<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8608.2006.00466.x/abstract;jsessionid=17D0B7A97E5013D8F15F84C43AA606FD.f04t03?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false&gt; [20 May 2016]
• Ethical leaders must create an environment where ethical behavior is a norm, encouraged, and rewarded (Ragatz, 2011)
• Freeman, E. (1984) Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. 1^st Cambridge University Press: Cambridge
• Giacalone, R. and Promislo, M. (2015) Handbook of Unethical Work Behavior: Implications for Individual Well-Being. 2^nd New York: Routledge
• Kim, W., Brymer, R, (2011) The effects of ethical leadership on manager job satisfaction, commitment, behavioural outcomes, and firm performance [online] available from:<http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0278431911000417/1-s2.0-S0278431911000417-main.pdf?_tid=c718d24e-b285-11e3-903b-00000aacb360&acdnat=1395577519_9ae7b35de72927130df4c0118a0ecbb0>[20 May 2016]
• Knights, J. (2014) Effective 21^st century organisations require everyone to be a leader [online] available from:<http://www.cipd.co.uk/blogs/cipdbloggers/b/research-blog/archive/2014/01/09/effective-21st-organisations-require-everyone-to-be-a-leader.aspx> [20 May 2016]
• Miller, J. McCartney, C., Baron, A., McGurk, J., Robinson, V. (2011) Sustainable Organisation Performance: What Really Makes the Difference? [online] available from:<http://www.cipd.co.uk/binaries/5287STFfinalreportWEB.pdf> [20 May 2016]
• Mueller, T. (2009) Southwest airlines CEO kelly on luv leadership and employee and customer satisfaction [online] available from: <http://www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu/2009/10/southwest-airlines-ceo-kelly-on-luv-leadership-and-employee-and-customer-satisfaction> [11^th June 2016]
• , T, (2013) HR should encourage ethical leadership, says Ian Muir [online] Available from: <http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/hro/news/1141260/hr-encourage-ethical-leadership-ian-muir> [20 May 2016]
• Observer (2014) Bankers and ethics are mutually exclusive [online] available from: <http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2014/feb/16/letters-private-sector-bonus-culture> [20 May 2016]
• Ochieng’-Odhiambo, F. (2009) Foundations of Ethics: A Critical Reader in Moral and Social Philosophy. 1^st Nairobi: University of Nairobi Press
• Ragatz, J. (2011) TheChallenge of Ethical Leadership. 1^st BROKER WORLD: New York

Collaboration

We have a famous saying in Bahrain that says one hand cannot clap; only two can.

Rowing team collaborating to win

 

My 10 weeks experience in CULC gave me the ability to reach an effective result while collaborating on group course-works with people from different cultural backgrounds. Firstly to build and maintain good relationships with my class-mates until the end of this journey, secondly to achieve the objective I came to London to pursue and complete my degree program. As for week 5 of Marketing seminar, my team and I had to create a product that does not exist in the market and work on an entire marketing plan for the chosen product and present it in front of the entire class in 30 minutes time.

Working in a group with people from different backgrounds and being able to make use of the differentiation of each party is not easy for a person that does not know how to adapt nor collaborate. Luckily, all my group members from Ukraine, Oman, India, and Vietnam are extremely collaborative. Therefore, we managed to create a product that links all our origins and satisfies the needs of enormous market segments which helped us win the challenge against our other class mates. We firstly divided the work according to each person’s capability, helped each other to maintain focus, support each other’s needs, and we ended up finishing before time and presenting in such an impressive way.

After each presentation is done, I like to give and receive feedback from my classmates in order to enhance my performance for future tasks. Moreover, I make sure to share credits for any good idea i have with my team members, as well as acknowledging their skills and contributions. I also learnt during my studies that it is important to support any decisions made by the majority of my team members even if I tend to disagree, to help complete our task in ease.

Going on our first field trip to London Excel with our APS tutor was a nice experience that made me observe how each one of my classmates are collaborative and helpful. From how we all waited for each other to leave the university’s premises together, offering seats on the tube, taking equal turns in the interview questions we had for the head of HR, and the support we gave each other on the final presentation day before going on stage.

Finally, since one of the main duties of any head of HR is to engage with employees and build good relations, it is necessary to have good teamwork and collaboration skills within you for effective performance of our future role.

Curiosity

The holy curiosity, as Albert Einstein named it, it is in every genius manners and hard to find any great master without a curious character. This great trait I have in my personality grants me an active mind and not a passive one, which I found very useful during my studies in both my previous university and now in Coventry.

My curiosity was the key driver to make me change my career path from Accounting and Finance to International Human Resource Management. I learnt what I needed to know about numbers and how to manage the costs and revenues within the organization. But it was time to understand how the organization sets its goals, objectives, and position.

My first week in CULC particularly my first lesson in Strategy Planning, gave me a brief idea on how micro and macro environmental factors have major effects on the company as a whole. It increased my curiosity even more when I started working on my first course work on GOOGLE, to want to learn about the appropriate frameworks such as PESTEL, and Porters 5 Forces that should be used to detect these factors.

Moreover, I learnt in Marketing in the Global Age lectures that marketing has evolved to be based on building a profitable relationship with customers and meet their expectations.   I became more curious about how to change the way I view products and services I receive in my daily life, from grabbing a simple cup of coffee to staying at a 5 star hotel, and to achieve that; it was mainly by paying careful attention to every word my tutors say in lectures with never hesitating to ask for further clarifications. Especially, choosing to work on Premier Inn’s marketing plan for my final course-work, I enjoyed the challenge of learning about a new industry and how to relate what has now became obvious to analyze a proper SWOT/TOWS analysis, market segmentation, targeting, and positioning.

As for my third module in my first term, APS Academic and Professional Skills; I decided to take it as my personal guideline for my future success in all the other modules and develop my skills as a future HR professional. I found the opportunity to meet the Head of HR of London Excel highly valuable, and I was very keen to put as many questions as I wanted Adam Chircop to clarify about the main duties and challenges I should be expecting in my future role.

Furthermore, during my 10 weeks in CULC I trained my mind to always relate theories to practices, facts, and most of all logic. And to do so, I find it absolutely crucial to be a good listener, and an excellent observer to generate new ideas, which made me always question myself and others and seek for logical answers for my doubts and curiosity. Likewise, collecting information is also beneficial for future opportunities and better probability of success.