Thoughts on Leadership (part 1): Ethical leadership

If you are or see yourself as a future leader, the term “leadership” must have triggered a certain number of thoughts in your mind, and I am not an exception. In preparing myself for becoming a leader in the FMCG industry, a series of several blogs will be dedicated to exploring different aspects of leadership and reflecting on my own leadership journey, which hopefully will be useful for those of you who share the same career passion as mine.

Ethical leadership – The ‘Why’

“Ethics lies at the heart of all human relationships and hence at the heart of the relationship between leaders and followers” (Ciulla 2004: xv)

Talking about leadership, I would like to dedicate this first blog to ethics in leadership – an aspect that is already important to any individual, and even more crucial to leaders (Ciulla 2004). Especially when it comes to the FMCG industry where I am determined to become a manager in, it is probably vital for leaders to be ethical and make ethical decisions because FMCG products affect people’s lives on a daily basis.

This blog will firstly introduce the concept, the two perspectives and a model of ethical leadership; followed by examining the impacts of ethical and unethical leadership on individuals and organisations with real examples of FMCG managers.

Definition of ethical leadership

For those who are new to the term ‘ethical leadership’, the following definition may help:

“Ethical Leadership is 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” (Brown, Treviño, and Harrison 2005: 120).

From the definition, ethical leadership is firstly the leaders’ demonstration of a set of standard values and beliefs (normatively appropriate conduct) through their own actions and interactions with others. Secondly, ethical leadership involves the leaders making their employees demonstrate the same conduct by ‘selling’ the ideas to them and let them have their own voice (two-way communication); having rewards policies and disciplines (reinforcement); and making ethical decisions.

Perspectives of ethics

For application of ethics in leaders’ decision-making, two perspectives of deontological and teleological ethics will be introduced. According to BBC (2014), teleological approach includes 2 principles:

• Whether an act is ethical or not depends only on its consequences
• If an act produces more good consequences than another, it is more ethical.

Leaders taking teleological perspective predict potential consequences of decisions, then choose the act with maximum good consequences. For example, when a subordinate is not eligible for a promotion, a teleological leader may choose to make up another reason for refusal in order not to demotivate the person, even though normally telling lies is a bad thing.

(Kaplan Financial 2012)

Meanwhile, deontological approach believes:

• Whether an act is ethical or not depends on the nature of the act itself
• Acts are ethical or unethical in themselves, regardless of their consequences.

This perspective suggests that leaders consider what action is right, and only do the right thing. If the manager in the example above follows deontological principles, he will definitely choose to tell his subordinate the truth.

Not surprisingly, both perspectives have two sides. While it is good that leaders examine possible consequences when deciding, teleological approach can be problematic because it is hard to predict future consequences and compare the goodness of different possible results (BBC 2014). Although deontological perspective provides clear guidance for decision-making, its absolutism may not be useful for complicated situations (BBC 2014).

A model of ethical leadership

Northouse (2013) introduced 5 principles of respect, service, justice, honesty and community, providing a model for developing ethical leadership.

(Northouse 2013)

The model suggests that ethical leaders respect other people’s values, beliefs and decisions;  serve their people by prioritising staff welfare becoming stewards of the organisation’s vision; treat all of their followers equally and fairly; tell the truth and stay authentic to others; and are concerned with the common good of society.

A perfect example of an ethical FMCG leader who satisfies all these principles is Paul Polman – CEO of Unilever – a giant FMCG conglomerate. He shows his respect and fairness when spending time interviewing entry-level candidates; and stating that leadership is not about himself but about service to others (Cunningham 2015).

“It is not about yourself. If you are fortunate enough to be in our position, you probably belong to the 2 percent of the world population that is well educated, financially independent, can do what they want, can live and work where they want. If you belong to that 2 percent, then it is your duty to put yourself to the service to the other 98.” (Cunningham 2015)

He contributes to the community by setting the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (Boynton 2015); while honestly admitted that he could not make it happen alone without the contribution of all Unilever staff (Confino 2013).

Paul Polman

Impacts of ethical leadership on individual and organizational effectivesness

Rubin et al (2010) found out that leaders’ ethical behaviours result in increased pay fairness and group citizenship behaviours, thus improving employees’ satisfaction and performance. To organisations, ethical leadership creates a trusting and fair environment (Xu, Loi and Ngo 2016), and likely leads to a ‘clean’ reputation and profits (Makris and Rowe 2015). This is proved by how Paul Polman’s ethical leadership influenced Unilever. Despite volatile business environment, Unilever  delivered 4.1% underlying sales growth in 2015 (Unilever 2016) and ranked the 9^th Best place to work in the UK in 2016 (Glassdoor 2016).

Meanwhile, unethical leadership can lead to increased employees’ unethical work behavior; decreased productivity; bad brand image and even the end organisations (Brown and Mitchell 2010). For example, William Pinckney – CEO of Amway India, an FMCG direct-selling giant – was arrested in 2014 for unethical circulation of money, which badly affected the company’s reputation (The Times of India 2014).

William Pinckney

Conclusion and recommendations

This blog has touched on the Why, What, How, and What If of ethical leadership with real examples in FMCG industry. To become an ethical leader who drives organisations’ success, one is recommended to both act ethically and promote ethics to his subordinates; make flexible use of deontological and teleological perspectives in decision making; and follow the 5 principles suggested by Northouse.

 

References

BBC (2014) Consequentialism [online] available from <http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/introduction/consequentialism_1.shtml [06 June 2016]

BBC (2014) Duty-based ethics [online] available from <http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/introduction/duty_1.shtml> [06 June 2016]

Boynton, A. (2015) Unilever’s Paul Polman: CEOs Can’t Be ‘Slaves’ To Shareholders [online] available from <http://www.forbes.com/sites/andyboynton/2015/07/20/unilevers-paul-polman-ceos-cant-be-slaves-to-shareholders/#3a378fdf40b5> [06 June 2016]

Brown, M. and Mitchell, M. (2010) ‘Ethical and Unethical Leadership: Exploring New Avenues for Future Research’, Business Ethics Quarterly, 20(4), 583-616.

Brown, M.,  Treviño, L., and Harrison, D. (2005) ‘Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing’ Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97, 117-134.

Ciulla, J. (2004) Ethics, the Heart of Leadership. 2^nd edn. USA: Praeger

Confino, J. (2013) Interview: Unilever’s Paul Polman on diversity, purpose and profits [online] available from < http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/unilver-ceo-paul-polman-purpose-profits [06 June 2016]

Cunningham, L. (2015) The tao of Paul Polman [online] available from <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2015/05/21/the-tao-of-paul-polman/> [06 June 2016]

Glassdoor (2016) Best Places to Work [online] available from <https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Award/Best-Places-to-Work-UK-LST_KQ0,22.htm> [06 June 2016]

Kaplan Financial (2012) Ethical theories [online] available from <http://kfknowledgebank.kaplan.co.uk/KFKB/Wiki%20Pages/Ethical%20theories.aspx [06 June 2016]

Makris, N. and Rowe, W. (2015) ‘Ethical Leadership Then and Now’, Ivey Business Journal, 9-11.

Northouse, P. (2013) Leadership : Theory and practice. 6th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

The Times of India (2014) Amway India CEO William S Pinckney arrested [online] available from < http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Amway-India-CEO-William-S-Pinckney-arrested/articleshow/35627169.cms [06 June 2016]

Unilever (2016) Annual Report and Accounts Overview [online] available from <https://www.unilever.com/investor-relations/annual-report-and-accounts/> [06 June 2016]

Xu, A., Loi, R. and Ngo, H. (2016) ‘Ethical Leadership Behavior and Employee Justice Perceptions: The Mediating Role of Trust in Organization’ Journal of Business Ethics, 134 (3) ,493-504.

 

 

 

Curious

What really is curious? Why does CIPD believe that it is an important behavior of HR professionals? These are the questions I had when knowing ‘curious’ is the required topic of this blog. After reading thoroughly the descriptions by CIPD, I realized that my questions could be perfect evidence of my curiosity because I tried to understand the concept in depth, not just by common sense. Looking back at my Term 1 at CULC and having some serious reflection, I am glad that I demonstrated curiosity in my study as well as extracurricular activities.

Studying at CULC, I am aware that this campus is a new branch, an expansion of the main campus in Coventry. Although Coventry University is quite new itself compared to other universities in the UK, the main campus is still the root of what we are having now in London. Therefore, I have always wanted to visit it to experience the atmosphere, the setting; and to know the people and the way they teach and study there.

 

In addition, being in a group of 7 different nationalities, my friends and I often have long interesting conversations about how our countries, religions, cultures and beliefs are similar and different to each other. I still remember how surprised I was to discover that in Ukraine, men always pay all the bills when dating out, but as husbands, they do almost nothing to help their wives with housework. I feel like such conversations can last forever if we did not have assignments to discuss.

Because Human Resource Management is my current major of studying as well as my chosen long-term career path, I try to learn as much as I can from the taught modules and grab any chance I have to know more about real HR practices. Luckily, a field trip was organised for our class to interview the Head of HR of London ExCel about his duties and challenges, and we could create the interview questions ourselves! Maybe because we were too curious about his job, many extra questions were asked that sounded a bit off topic.

However, I am not only curious about things around me, but the biggest and most frequent questions I ask are about my own self. What is my identity? What do I want to do? What types of job are suitable for my capabilities? What am I good at? How good am I at it? What do I need to improve? How can I improve? Do I have any hidden potential? Thankfully, my university CULC organizes a program called High Flyers which helps students to have better self-awareness as well as self-promotion skills. I applied and desperately wanted to join the program because I believe it can help me answer my questions; and I cannot be happier that I am in now.

Last but not least, I think that I am still not curious enough, because I often prefer doing things in familiar ways than trying new methods, and sometimes I am too conservative to open my mind for new ideas. Nevertheless, being aware of my shortcomings, I know what I should do to improve, so that I can be a curious HR professional in the near future.

Collaborative

Coming to London for an MBA course in International HRM at CULC, I was quite confident about my teamwork skills thanks to a lot of practice from my undergraduate course and one-year work experience. However, now at the end of Term 1, I realized that I’ve learned so many new precious lessons about collaboration, especially from doing group works with my team AMASALA.

In Week 1, the first task I had with my group was in Marketing in which we were given one week to make a 10-minute presentation. We seemed to have no difficulty collaborating with each other because we quickly make friends, had lunch together chatting about our cultural differences, and got our work divided to each member with a specific deadline. Moreover, we created a Whatsapp group chat and it helped a lot in informing changes, asking for support and reminding deadlines. However, the actual presentation turned out to be unsuccessful because we far exceeded the time limit, which was because we did not rehearse. It was partly my responsibility because despite knowing rehearsals were important, I did not make effort to arrange one for my group. From that experience, I learn that to deliver the best group result, each member has to ensure the quality of not only his own part, but also of his teammates’ part and the overall combination.

Then, Week 6 came a big assignment of Strategy presentation. This time we got started early for better preparation, and I volunteered to design the slides and encouraged everyone to read and comment on other parts to have agreed content for the slides. Surprisingly, at the end of Week 4, we welcomed a new British member to our initial group of six international students. What’s more special is the considerable age distance between her and the rest of us, which did cause some problems. To be specific, I designed the slides in a creative way because our topic was Google, but from her perspectives, they were a bit childish. Honestly, I felt undervalued at first, but then I realized it was due to our generation gap. Therefore, we solved it by asking the whole group and following the majority’s opinion. The experience taught me that there are always potential problems due to differences of any kind, and the solution is to always show respect and prioritize the group benefits.

The latest experience of our AMASALA collaboration journey was the APS (Academic & Professional Skills) presentation. After the previous storming period, we became much more comfortable and effective together. We sat down to view through all the slides and give comments for each other, and had two rehearsals to make sure we could be within the time limit. As a result, we made a successful presentation and won the certificates by our teacher Aaron Taylor.

My team in APS presentation – It’s show time!

Hopefully the above stories help describe my journey so far with my beloved team, through which we have learned something more about how to be collaborative, regardless of how experienced we have been. Although being collaborative is not just about academic group works, I believe the lessons of trying my best, supporting teammates, keeping each other up-to-date, prioritizing mutual benefits and showing respect for others can be applied in any other types of co-operations, especially in my future working context.