Running head: USING LEADERSHIP TO IMPROVE ETHICAL PERFORMANCE 1

Using Leadership to Improve Ethical Performance

Name of the Student

Name of the Professor

Name of the Course

Date Submitted
USING LEADERSHIP TO IMPROVE ETHICAL PERFORMANCE 2

Using Leadership to Improve Ethical Performance

The current competing landscape demands high levels of innovation and flexibility

while observing the rules set aside to guide business engagement. As such, employee

motivation and performance is key to delivering the required flexibility and innovation while

ethical leadership is key to ensuring that the employees use the appropriate means to deliver

the expected performance. To this end, five questions regarding motivation, ethical

leadership, and performance were set for David Gorbea, who was the leader of choice. David

is the New York District Manager of Executive Cellular Phones. Therefore, this paper

summarizes answers to the questions and analyses the leader’s leadership, motivation, and

ethical values as distilled from his responses.

Questions

i. What has been your greatest leadership challenge? How did you approach it?

What was the outcome?

Answer: David intimated that promoting managerial effectiveness when serving

as the regional manager at Executive Sales was the greatest leadership challenge.

Such challenges included facilitating workers to develop pertinent skills such as

decision-making, being more effective at work, time management, strategic

thinking, and prioritization.

Key strategies that David used to help employees develop the skills included

adequate training, providing meaningful feedback regularly, and increased job

autonomy. Consequently, the sales results from the four stores he oversaw

improved dramatically.

ii. Describe a situation in which effective interpersonal communication skills

contributed to your success.

USING LEADERSHIP TO IMPROVE ETHICAL PERFORMANCE 3

Answer: David posited that interpersonal communication skills were critical to his

success as a store manager prior to promotion as a regional manager. Interpersonal

skills helped David understand the employees’ behavioral styles, be effective in

listening and communicating managerial directives, and understand the criticism.

iii. As a leader, what are the strategies you put in place to ensure members in your

team post optimal performance?

Answer: After securing the position of regional manager at executive sales, David

observed that setting clear expectations, training other store managers, using smart

goals, and giving regular and timely feedback were some of the strategies used to

ensure that the sales team posted impeccable performance.

iv. Could you describe individual actions that has helped convey to your employees

the importance of observing ethics and that you expected them to follow suit?

Answer: David pointed to the use of referential power action such as informal

conversation with employees regarding ethics, showing interest on ethical

dilemmas facing members of his sales teams, and addressing ethical concerns put

forward by employees to promote adherence to ethics by employees.

v. Have you come across situations where you realized that it was important to have

clear expectations for ethical practice?.What resulted in the realization? How did

you address the gap?

Answer: David lessons regarding the need to have clear expectations for ethical

practice came for his short stint as a store manager. During execution of the

duties, David noted the use of unorthodox means by employees competing to post

better sales. Such was contrary to the company’s ethical policy that previous

managers had overlooked. Consequently, he clarified and stressed the need to

USING LEADERSHIP TO IMPROVE ETHICAL PERFORMANCE 4

observe the company’s ethical code of conduct while using coercive power to

punish those who acted contrary to the provisions.

Analysis

David responses to the interview questions helped bring out his leadership,

motivation, and ethical values that had a profound effect on the company’s ethical

performance. First, David’s leadership values such as promoting employee development to

improve managerial effectiveness helped employees build requisite skills needed to compete

fairly hence reducing chances of unfair competition among employees that Yidong and

Xinxin (2013) attribute as the key cause of unethical practices in modern organizations. As

David asserted when answering the first question, facilitating employees to develop skills

such as time management and decision making helped improve their performance based on

fair competition. Secondly, interpersonal communication is another value that David

leveraged to improve ethical performance in the organization. As Boies, Fiset, and Gill

(2015) posit, interpersonal communication is a key competence that any leader must possess

so they can learn the employee behaviors, be effective listeners, and learn the way of growing

through criticism. Randall (2012) observes that learning employee behavior helps the leader

understand the strengths of team members and accord them the support needed to achieve

their goals using orthodox means.

Secondly, David motivational values reveal strategies with a profound effect on the

company’s performance as well as ethical standing. First, David recognizes the need to have

clear set precise expectations, training workers, and providing timely and effective feedback,

and proper compensation. Yidong and Xinxin (2013) suggests that motivation strategies act

as incentives for ethical standing among employees through cultivating organizational

USING LEADERSHIP TO IMPROVE ETHICAL PERFORMANCE 5

loyalty. Employee loyalty helps the management encourage employees to observe the code of

conducts set up by the company.

Lastly, David exhibited ethical values that Randall (2012) and Yidong and Xinxin

(2013) pinpointed as pivotal in shaping an ethical climate in an organization. David

highlighted the use of referent power in guiding his ethical actions while answering question

four. Such referent personal actions included informal communication with employees on

ethics as well as showing concern for the ethical dilemma that his team was facing. Randall

(2012) study emphasized on such referent actions noting that they helped the employees

identify with the leader creating an appeal to engage in ethical conduct. Likewise, while

responding to the last question, David underscored the importance of clear communication on

the ethical expectation the company expects from employees. Yidong and Xinxin (2013) had

similar sentiments noting that communicating a company’s ethical policy was key to ensuring

that employees were well aware what the management expects. Clear communication is

instrumental in getting employees into pace with the company’s ethical standing.

Conclusion

Ethics is a critical pillar of any company operating the 21st-century market with more

empowered clients demanding accountability from the business. Therefore, achieving high

ethical standards is a key goal for any company concerned with increased competitiveness in

the market. The interview with David Gorbea points out that ethical performance of an

organization is a multivariable function where leadership, motivation, and ethical values

intertwine to offer a solid ethical performance for an organization.

USING LEADERSHIP TO IMPROVE ETHICAL PERFORMANCE 6

References

Boies, K., Fiset, J., & Gill, H. (2015). Communication and trust are key: Unlocking the

relationship between leadership and team performance and creativity. The Leadership

Quarterly, 26(6), 1080-1094.

Randall, D. M. (2012). Leadership and the use of power: shaping an ethical climate. The

Journal of Applied Christian Leadership, 6(1), 28.

Yidong, T., & Xinxin, L. (2013). How ethical leadership influence employees’ innovative

work behavior: A perspective of intrinsic motivation. Journal of Business

Ethics, 116(2), 441-455.