Faulkner University The Challenger Disaster and Leadership Analysis Prior to beginning work on this discussion read the article Impact of Ethics on Leaders

Faulkner University The Challenger Disaster and Leadership Analysis Prior to beginning work on this discussion read the article Impact of Ethics on Leadership Standards (attached) and watch Challenger: The Untold Story Part 7 of 10 (Links to an external site.).Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV25ol-NedQ&feature=youtu.beShare what ethical situations came up in the video. Explain how the leader’s decision impacted the results of the Challenger’s mission. What ethical values did you take away from this video that you can apply in your own leadership? Your discussion post should be a minimum of 250 words.Please cite any references used. Page 18
Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 4, Issue 5, Special Issue, 2012
Impact of Ethics on Leadership Standards
Shazil Turab, Lecturer
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad, Pakistan
Fawad Kashan, Industry Liaison Officer
National Institute of Science and Technology, Islamabad
Muhammad Asif, Lecturer
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad, Pakistan
Abstract:
In this article, the researchers are trying to figure out how
important is ethics in leadership and what ethical factors
makes a leader more effective and effective. People still believe that ethics, communication, and skills collectively work
together to be an effective and efficient leadership. In this
article effectiveness and efficiency of leader is measured
based on five factors: ethical communication, ethical quality,
ethical collaboration, ethical succession planning, and ethical
tenure. Researchers believe that through practice of factors
mentioned above can result into an effective and efficient
ethical leadership.
Keywords: leadership standard, ethical communication, ethical quality,
ethical collaboration, ethical succession planning, and ethical
tenure.
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Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 4, Issue 5, Special Issue, 2012
Introduction
Leaders are the one that keep us on the right path, direction, and
can lead us in better way. When we talk about leadership, we often think
of famous individuals. We may think of great political personalities Washington, Churchill, and Roosevelt. We may think of the personalities of social movements Martin Luther King, Caesar Chavez. In fact,” leadership is
many different things to different people in different circumstances” (Ensley, Hmieleski, & Pearce, 2006). In short a leader is a character
(object) ranging from one to many different attributes with which he/she
influence others to make them their followers willingly. It is very easy to
have a vision but to accomplish it, depends upon how tough is that path
that takes you up to that vision and what strategies do you adopt to accomplish it. A character who can utilize his abilities and recourses effectively and efficiently to produce maximum output while engaging his followers is an effective and efficient leader. “An effective and ethical leader makes others feel good about themselves, as well as the work they
are doing. The leader has a vision of what she/he wants to achieve and
can communicate that vision to others in a way that makes people want
to be part of it” (Balthazard, Waldman, & Warren, 2009).
This article is based on previous findings which explain effects of
ethical communication, ethical quality, ethical collaboration, ethical succession planning, and ethical tenure over leadership standards.
Leadership standards
The leadership standard is the level at which a leader is to be seen
by followers, competitors etc. The standard of leader ship is measured
based on the different qualities an individual has and among those qualities ethics is one of them.
An effective ethical leader will create “candor“ in the work place.
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Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 4, Issue 5, Special Issue, 2012
Leaders always are willing to and have courage to bring innovation and
change. The main objective of ethical leader is to bring relation of trust.
Figure 1: Impact of Ethics on leadership
standards
Factor
F1: Ethical
Communication
F2: Ethical
Quality
Goal/Objective
Hypothesis 1: Communication enhances leadership
standards
Hypothesis 2: Ethical quality enhances standard of Leadership
Leadership
Standards
F3: Ethical
Collaborations
F4: Ethical
Succession
Planning
F5: Ethical Tenure
Hypothesis 3: Ethical collaboration has positive effect
on leadership standards
Hypothesis 4: Succession planning enhances standard of Leadership
Hypothesis 5: Ethical tenure has direct effect on leadership
Ethical communication
“Ethical communication plays vital role in enhancing leadership
standards. Through effective and ethical communication, leaders always
give proper directions. They set up standards and proper guideline for
the team. During decision making process leaders have to communicate
in groups, teams in and outside the organizations. “It is very important
for effective leader that he should be soft spoken because leaders always
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Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 4, Issue 5, Special Issue, 2012
have to convince the followers and motivate the team members through
communication skills” (Simola, Barling, & Turner, 2009).
Through ethical and effective communication leaders have to face
different challenges in a day to day life which could be in a form of conflicts. It is the moral responsibility of leaders to remove all these conflicts
from teams. “Leaders are the one that keep us on the right path, right
direction, and can lead us in better way” (Gardner, Fischer, & Hunt,
2009).
Culture also plays important role in ethical communication and leadership. It’s the culture which is actual surrounding set of standards which
leaders have to follow. Motivation is also important in ethical communication. “Motivational behaviors refer to those behaviours which promote
team members exerting continued effort, especially in times of difficulty.
Behaviours indicative of this category include reward and recognition of
performance as well as behaviours which insure that the needs and values of members are met through the provision of support for individuals
and their efforts” (Shawn Burke, et al., 2006). Leader’s behaviour is important for team cohesiveness that might be influenced by societal culture. There are no studies known to us exploring this moderating influence of societal culture. “Assumptions about relationships between leadership and team processes are generalized to other cultures, both in
management literature and management training programs” (Wendt, Euwemab, & Emmerik, 2009).
Communication standard means all the norms which all the individuals have to follow in an organization. In communication standards they
usually define the truthfulness, openness, availability and accessibility.
Leaders always communicate through those standards that they stand
accountable for. They usually use an e-mail or an office memo because
these are the two ways which can be used for inters office communication and is accountable.
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Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 4, Issue 5, Special Issue, 2012
Ethical quality
“Ethical quality means to bring the standard of excellence and meeting the standards through quality, when we talk about quality we always
think about cost because quality and cost has direct relationship. Quality
always pays its cost, and ethical quality means that ethical leaders should
always understand the three factors which ensure the global market and
competitiveness of an organization which are as below.

Quality product

Quality customer service

Quality delivery” (Morgeson & DeRue, 2006).
When we think about quality we always think about innovation and
leaders always try to push their followers so that they could bring innovation in the product. Most of the leaders try to implement the standard
and implement the procedures of six sigma and lean production . Most
leaders use the process of supply chain management so that they can remove the bottle neck and fast the process Bob Galvin, Chairman of
Motorola, implemented Six Sigma throughout the company in the early
1980s. Just two years after launching Six Sigma, Motorola was honoured
with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award” (Shawn Burke, et al.,
2006).
Quality stands means to bring perfection in product line and quality
control usually leaders try to implement the concept of total quality management and use of six sigma, during the production life cycle, there are
checks and controls of different points and usually they do the sampling
to control the quality, there are also some set standards which leaders
make sure the companies are following those like ISO (international
standard organizational).
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Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 4, Issue 5, Special Issue, 2012
Ethical collaboration
Ethical leaders always try to pick the most proper person for the
work to get it done they always try to hire the perfect person for the
right job, and they also hire from the other companies wise leaders always try to concentrate and address issues which are in organization ,solve problems of the organization . The leaders who make collective and celebrative decision always makes better decision for the organization, effective and ethical collaboration is only possible when the legal
advisors or leaders are more open and fluid, as we know that risk is always associated with the organizations and they hire the legal advisors
and experts who can guide the leaders the legality of the process and
job. So “when leaders are making decisions they always consult with
there advisors and if the advisors are more fluid its more chances of ethical collaboration” (Lyons & Schneider, 2009).
As we know this is the era of cut throat computation and companies
are trying to hire the right and perfect person for the perfect job before
giving any responsibilities companies usually check the knowledge and
skills so that they can evaluate weather the person is enough competent
that he will be able to deliver.
Ethical Succession Planning
“In ethical succession planning leaders set up the long term vision
and mission for the organization in which they define that where they
want to be in specific time period and where they are now in planning
process leaders usually work with organization and they define the goals
and strategies which are to be targeted in the long term and they usually
follow the standards which are defined in achieving the quality” (Wendt,
et al., 2009). Succession planning enables your organization to identify
talented employees and provide education to develop them for future
higher level and broader responsibilities. Succession planning helps you
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Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 4, Issue 5, Special Issue, 2012
“build bench strength. In ethical succession planning leaders always try
to introduce training and development programs and they develop there
employees according to the organization set standards , in planning process there is also control and leaders control the employees through ethical planning because to have control on organization leaders always want
to have some action plan and without planning you cant control in organization “Teams whose leaders set high-performance goals, exhort and encourage members to adopt and achieve these goals, provide performance
strategies to achieve these goals, and model appropriate performance
strategies will display higher team efficacy and cohesion than teams with
leaders who do not engage in such activities” (Zaccaroa, Rittmana, &
Marksb, 2001) .
The purpose behind the existence of the organization is vision and
ethical leaders usually define the vision of the company before hiring
when the new employees are in the hiring phase leaders usually define
the vision and they then gave the tasks to employees to move forward as
a mission. vision and mission are the back bones of the organizations
which always keep the employees in certain direction so that they can always move on the right track .vision the track which ethical leaders always follow and always keep there followers on that track.
Ethical Tenure
“Ethical tenure means the time period for leaders to stay as a leader
in American culture it varies from four to eight years, but there are no
standards for leaders to stay as a leader for certain time frame, the tenure of the leaders always depends upon the organization growth, if the
organization is growing and its gain market share and market growth this
means the leader is successful other wise if the organization is moving
towards
down
turn.
it’s
the
ethical
responsibility
of
leader
to
quit” (Balthazard, et al., 2009)” . Industry and corporations, businesses,
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Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 4, Issue 5, Special Issue, 2012
organizations have no length of tenure. But Organizations need to decide
if their leadership, like its government counterpart, should have a shelf
life. If the company, the customers, the board of directors, and stockholders all feel that the leader of the company is ethically communicating, investing in quality, and efficiently collaborating in order to build a
succession plan, then there should be no reason to have the leader step
down, until he or she chooses so “How duration affects the amount of
time leaders spend intervening, however, is less clear. Longer events
clearly provide the leader with a greater opportunity to become involved
in the team, suggesting there may be a positive relationship between duration and time spent intervening by the leader“ (Friedrich, Vessey,
Schuelke, Ruark, & Mumford, 2009).
As we know that leaders are always have some time frame in which
they have to deliver because if they are not been able to deliver they are
not been able to survive for the long terms so strategic leaders and ethical leaders are for only for certain time frame in which they can deliver
(Dubrin, 2010).
Conclusions
“There is a lot which has been written on ethical leadership and
standards on which leaders have to perform but if you just search the dot
com world ( web pages ) you will see that leaders are only popular until
an unless they perform , there are so many books about leadership but
its very obvious to say that” (Dubrin, 2010). “Leaders don’t write books
they just do it “so leaders always have to motivation and spirit to influence the people and bring changes in environment. “Ethical leadership
has been examined from multiple perspectives. For example, ethical
leadership may be viewed as a function of leader character or it may be
viewed as a function of organizational structure or system. The view that
ethical leadership is based on leader character proposes that the ethical
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Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 4, Issue 5, Special Issue, 2012
leader must apply ethical standards and the degree that ethical standards
are neglected or applied is a function of the leader’s individual personality
characteristics and moral standards (Jones, 1995). Jones stated that to
guarantee ethical leadership a leader must be chosen according to their
high moral standards” (Ford & Seers, 2006). ”The personality characteristics of an ethical leader include self-control, purposefulness, mindfulness, and a regard for consequences. The ethical leader increases ethical
awareness and accountability in an organization. In theory, the ethical
leader would have high moral standards that would reign regardless of
organizational structure. However, even the most moral and ethical individual may be faced with conflicting demands that challenge their standards “a distinguishable set of two or more people who interact, dynamically, interdependently, and adaptively toward a common and valued
goal /objective /mission, who have been assigned specific roles or functions to perform, and who have a limited life-span of membership
“ (Zaccaroa, et al., 2001). The higher the level of leader–member exchange relationship quality within the team, the higher the level of within
-group climate agreement among team members” (Ford & Seers, 2006).
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[2]
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