Chapter 6

Courage and Moral Leadership

 Learning Objectives

• Combine a rational approach to leadership with a concern for

people and ethics.
• Understand how leaders set the ethical tone in organizations
and recognize the distinction between ethical and unethical
leadership.
• Recognize your own stage of moral development and ways to
accelerate your moral maturation.
• Know and use mechanisms that enhance an ethical
organizational culture.
• Apply the principles of stewardship and servant leadership.
• Recognize courage in others and unlock your own potential to
live and act courageously.
 MORAL LEADERSHIP TODAY
The Ethical Climate in Business
• Leaders face many pressures that challenge their
ability to do the right thing.
• The most dangerous obstacles for leaders are
personal weakness and self-interest rather than
full-scale corruption.
• All leaders want their organizations to appear
successful, and they can sometimes do the wrong
thing just so they will look good to others.
 Leaders Set the Ethical Tone
• Leaders carry a tremendous responsibility for setting the
ethical climate and acting as positive role models for others.
• Ethical leaders aren’t preoccupied with their own
importance.
• They keep the focus on employees, customers, and the
greater good rather than taking every opportunity to satisfy
their self-interest, feed their greed, or nourish their egos.
• Unethical leaders typically pay more attention to gaining
benefits for themselves rather than for the company or the
larger society.
Ex 6.1 Comparing Ethical versus Unethical
Leadership
 Acting Like A Moral Leader
• Leaders may put meeting economic goals ahead
of doing the right thing.
• Moral leadership doesn’t mean ignoring profit
and loss, share price, production costs but it
does require recognizing and adhering to ethical
values and acknowledging the importance of
human meaning, quality, and higher purpose.
• leaders act to build an environment that allows
and encourages people to behave ethically.
Ex 6.2 How to Act Like a Moral Leader
 Becoming a Moral Leader
• Moral leadership; distinguishing right from wrong
and doing right; seeking the just, honest, and good in
the practice of leadership.
• Internal characteristic that influences a leader’s
capacity to make moral choices is the individual’s
level of moral development.
• Preconventional level; the level of personal moral
development in which individuals are egocentric and
concerned with receiving external rewards and
avoiding punishments.
 Becoming a Moral Leader
• Conventional level; the level of personal moral
development in which people learn to conform
to the expectations of good behavior as
defined by colleagues, family, friends, and
society.
• Postconventional level; the level of personal
moral development in which leaders are
guided by an internalized set of principles
universally recognized as right.
Ex 6.4 Three Levels of Personal Moral Development
 Servant Leadership
• Leader transcends self-interest to:
-Serve the needs of others
-Help others grow
-Provide opportunities for others to gain
materially and emotionally
• Types
-Authoritarian management
-Participative management
-Stewardship
Ex 6.5 Changing Leader Focus from Self to
Others
 Authoritarian Management
• Leaders are good managers who direct and control
their people.
• Followers are obedient subordinates who follow orders.
• Power, purpose, and privilege reside with those at the
top of the organization.
• Leaders set the strategy and goals, as well as the
methods and rewards for attaining them.
• Leadership mindset emphasizes tight top-down control,
employee standardization and specialization, and
management by impersonal measurement and analysis.
 Participative Management
• Leaders have increased employee participation
through employee suggestion programs,
participation groups, and quality circles.
• Teamwork has become an important part of
how work is done in most organizations.
• The mindset is still paternalistic in that leaders
determine purpose and goals, make final
decisions, and decide rewards.
 Stewardship
• Stewardship is a pivotal shift in leadership thinking.
• Stewardship a belief that leaders are deeply
accountable to others as well as to the organization,
without trying to control others, define meaning and
purpose for others, or take care of others.
• Four principles provide the framework for
stewardship.
1. Adopt a partnership mindset
2. Give decision-making power and the authority
to act to those closest to the work and the
customer.
 Stewardship
3. Tie rewards to contributions rather than
formal positions.
4. Expect core work teams to build the
organization.
• Stewardship leaders guide the organization without
dominating it and facilitate followers without
controlling them.
• Stewardship allows for a relationship between
leaders and followers in which each makes
significant, self-responsible contributions to
organizational success.
 The Servant Leader
• Servant leadership takes stewardship assumptions
about leaders and followers one step further.
• Servant leadership is leadership upside down.
• Servant leadership; leadership in which the leader
transcends self-interest to serve the needs of others,
help others grow, and provide opportunities for
others to gain materially and emotionally.
• Servant leadership was first described by Robert
Greenleaf.
 The Servant Leader
• There are four basic precepts in Greenleaf’s
model;
1. Put service before self-interest
2. Listen first to affirm others
3. Inspire trust by being trustworthy
4. Nourish others and help them become whole
• Servant leader’s top priority is service to
employees, customers, shareholders, and the
general public.
 Leading With Courage
• Courage is the mental and moral strength to
engage in, persevere through, and withstand
danger, difficulty, or fear.
-Accepting responsibility
-Nonconformity
-Pushing beyond the comfort zone
 Leading With Courage
Courage Means Accepting Responsibility
• Leaders make a real difference in the world when
they are willing to step up and take personal
responsibility.
• Some people just let life happen to them; leaders
make things happen.
• Courageous leaders create opportunities to make
a difference in their organizations and
communities.
 Leading With Courage
Courage Often Means Nonconformity
• Leadership courage means going against the grain, breaking
traditions, reducing boundaries, and initiating change.
• Leaders are willing to take risks for a larger, ethical purpose,
and they encourage others to do so.
Courage Means Pushing beyond the Comfort Zone
• To take a chance and improve things means leaders have to
push beyond their comfort zone.
• Facing the internal wall of fear is when courage is needed
most.
 Leading With Courage
Courage Means Asking for What You Want and
Saying What You Think
• Leaders have to speak out to influence others.
• Each person admitted they had not wanted to go
but went along to please the others.
• Abilene Paradox the tendency of people to resist
voicing their true thoughts or feelings in order to
please others and avoid conflict.
• Fighting for what you believe
 How Does Courage Apply to Moral
Leadership
• Applying courage to:
-Be unconventional and do what is right
-Step up and take responsibility
-Balance:
Profit with people and self-interest with service
Control with stewardship
-Act like a moral leader
• Whistleblowing: Employee disclosure of illegal,
immoral, or unethical practices in the organization
 Finding Personal Courage
• How does a leader find the courage to step
through fear and confusion, to act despite the
risks involved?
-Believe in a Higher Purpose
-Draw Strength from Others
-Harness Frustration and Anger
-Take Small Steps
Thank You