MGT 4471 Central State University Ethnic Diversity and Leadership Discussion

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Leadership Diversity Specialist (Job D) Discusses the challenges and opportunities of leaders in an organization as it relates to one of the following:Week 3: Ethnic differences

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Chapter
5
Values, Ethics,
and Character
Introduction
In Chapter 4 we examined many facets of power and its use in leadership. Leaders
can use power for good or ill, and a leader’s personal values and ethical code may
be among the most important determinants of how that leader exercises the various sources of power available. That this aspect of leadership needs closer scrutiny
seems evident enough in the face of the past decade’s wave of scandals involving
political, business, and even religious leaders who collectively rocked trust in both
our leaders and our institutions. Even in purely economic terms, in 2010 the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners estimated that businesses around the world
lose $2.9 billion every year to fraudulent activity.1 Further, in the 2016 presidential
election one party’s nominee consistently referred to his opponent as “Crooked
Hillary” while his own character and ethics were themselves questioned throughout the election—and continue to be. In the face of this distressing situation, it is
not surprising that scholarly and popular literature have turned greater attention to
the question of ethical leadership.2
Leadership and “Doing the Right Things”
In Chapter 1 we referred to a distinction between leaders and managers that says
leaders do the right things whereas managers do things right. But what are the
“right things”? Are they the morally right things? The ethically right things?
The right things for the company to be successful? And who says what the right
things are?
Leaders face dilemmas that require choices between competing sets of values
and priorities, and the best leaders recognize and face them with a commitment to
doing what is right, not just what is expedient. Of course the phrase doing what is
right sounds deceptively simple. Sometimes it takes great moral courage to do what
is right, even when the right action seems clear. At other times, though, leaders
face complex challenges that lack simple black-and-white answers. Whichever the
143
144 Part Two Focus on the Leader
Leadership cannot just
go along to get along. . . .
Leadership must meet
the moral challenge of
the day.
Jesse Jackson,
American civil rights
activist
case, leaders set a moral example to others that becomes the model for an entire
group or organization, for good or bad. Leaders who themselves do not honor
truth do not inspire it in others. Leaders concerned mostly with their own advancement do not inspire selflessness in others. Leaders should internalize a strong set
of ethics—principles of right conduct or a system of moral values.
Both Gardner and Burns have stressed the centrality and importance of the
moral dimension of leadership.3,4 Gardner said leaders ultimately must be judged
on the basis of a framework of values, not just in terms of their effectiveness. He
put the question of a leader’s relations with his or her followers or constituents on
the moral plane, arguing (with the philosopher Immanuel Kant) that leaders
should always treat others as ends in themselves, not as objects or mere means to
the leader’s ends (which does not necessarily imply that leaders need to be gentle
in interpersonal demeanor or “democratic” in style). Burns took an even more extreme view regarding the moral dimension of leadership, maintaining that leaders
who do not behave ethically do not demonstrate true leadership.
Whatever “true leadership” means, most people would agree that at a minimum
it is characterized by a high degree of trust between leader and followers. Bennis
and Goldsmith described four qualities of leadership that engender trust: vision,
empathy, consistency, and integrity.5 First, we tend to trust leaders who create a
compelling vision: who pull people together on the basis of shared beliefs and a
common sense of organizational purpose and belonging. Second, we tend to trust
leaders who demonstrate empathy with us—who show they understand the world as
we see and experience it. Third, we trust leaders who are consistent. This does not
mean that we only trust leaders whose positions never change, but that changes are
understood as a process of evolution in light of relevant new evidence. Fourth, we
tend to trust leaders whose integrity is strong, who demonstrate their commitment
to higher principles through their actions.
Another important factor affecting the degree of trust between leaders and followers involves fundamental assumptions people make about human nature. Several decades ago Douglas McGregor explained different styles of managerial
behavior on the basis of people’s implicit attitudes about human nature, and his
work remains quite influential today.6 McGregor identified two contrasting sets of
assumptions people make about human nature, calling these Theory X and
­Theory Y.
In the simplest sense, Theory X reflects a more pessimistic view of others. Managers
with this orientation rely heavily on coercive, external control methods to motivate
workers, such as pay, disciplinary techniques, punishments, and threats. They assume
people are not naturally industrious or motivated to work. Hence it is the manager’s
job to minimize the harmful effects of workers’ natural laziness and irresponsibility
by closely overseeing their work and creating external incentives to do well and disincentives to avoid slacking off. Theory Y, by contrast, reflects a view that most people
are intrinsically motivated by their work. Rather than needing to be coaxed or
coerced to work productively, such people value a sense of achievement, personal
growth, pride in contributing to their organization, and respect for a job well done.
Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, seems to exemplify a
Chapter 5 Values, Ethics, and Character
There is nothing so fast as
the speed of trust.
Stephen Covey,
American author
and educator
145
Theory Y view of human nature. When asked, “How do you stand up to executives?”
Jackson answered, “Well, I just find that most people appreciate honesty. I find that if
you try not to have any pretensions and you tell the truth, you talk to them and you
treat them as collaborators, I find that studio people are usually very supportive.”
But are there practical advantages to holding a Theory X or Theory Y view?
Evidently there are. There is evidence that success more frequently comes to leaders who share a positive view of human nature. Hall and Donnell reported findings
of five separate studies involving over 12,000 managers that explored the relationship between managerial achievement and attitudes toward subordinates.7 Overall,
they found that managers who strongly subscribed to Theory X beliefs were far
more likely to be in their lower-achieving group.
The dilemma, of course, is that for the most part both Theory X and Theory Y
leaders would say they have the right beliefs and are doing the right things. This
begs the question of what people generally mean by “right,” which in turn raises an
array of issues involving ethics, values, moral reasoning, and the influence they
have on our behavior.
Values
Values are “constructs representing generalized behaviors or states of affairs that
are considered by the individual to be important.”8 When Patrick Henry said,
“Give me liberty, or give me death,” he was expressing the value he placed on political freedom. The opportunity to continually study and learn may be the fundamental value or “state of affairs” leading a person to pursue a career in academia.
Someone who values personal integrity may be forced to resign from an unethical
company. Values are learned through the socialization process, and they become
internalized and for most people represent integral components of the self.9 Thus
values play a central role in one’s overall psychological makeup and can affect behavior in a variety of situations. In work settings, values can affect decisions about
joining an organization, organizational commitment, relationships with coworkers,
and decisions about leaving an organization.10 It is important for leaders to realize
that individuals in the same work unit can have considerably different values, especially because we cannot see values directly. We can only make inferences about
people’s values based on their behavior. An interesting perspective on the importance of the consistency between one’s behavior and their values can be seen in
Highlight 5.1.
Table 5.1 lists some of the major values that may be considered important by
individuals in an organization. The instrumental values found in the table refer to
modes of behavior, and the terminal values refer to desired end states.11 For example, some individuals value equality, freedom, and a comfortable life above all
else; others may believe that family security and salvation are important goals. In
terms of instrumental values, such individuals may think it is important always to
act in an ambitious, capable, and honest manner, whereas others may think it is
important only to be ambitious and capable. The point to keep in mind here is not
just that different people often have different values. It is that their different values
sometimes lead them to behave very differently. Consider, for example, whether
146 Part Two Focus on the Leader
On the Danger of Making Small Compromises to Your Values
HIGHLIGHT 5.1
What do you think? Is it easier to stick to your values
100 percent of the time or 98 percent of the time?
That is a question professor Clay Christensen (an
expert in business innovation) posed to his students
at Harvard in an end-of-semester lecture requested
by them. The students wanted to know whether and
how the business principles he taught in class
applied to their personal lives.
One of the personal stories Christensen shared
in the lecture occurred when he played on the
Oxford University basketball team. It was a good
team, and it had been a very successful year. They
were going to play in the British equivalent of the
NCAA tournament, and they made it to the final four.
When Christensen saw the tourney schedule, however, he was chagrined: Their championship game
would be played on a Sunday. Christensen told his
students that because of deep religious convictions,
TABLE 5.1
People Vary in the
Relative Importance
They Place on Values
Source: Adapted from
M. Rokeach, The Nature of
Human Values (New York: Free
Press, 1973).
Glass, china, and reputation are easily crack’d,
and never well mended.
Benjamin Franklin
he’d made a firm commitment never to play on a
Sunday. At the time, his coach and teammates were
incredulous; after all, it would be an exception, “just
this once.” What difference would it really make?
Christensen stood by his principles, though, and did
not play in the championship game.
The point he was making to his Harvard students
was that, as counterintuitive as it might seem, it is
easier to stick to your values 100 percent of the time
than it is to stick to them 98 percent of the time.
Christensen explained that, tempting as it might be
to make an exception “just this once” because of extenuating circumstances, “you’ve got to define for
yourself what you stand for and draw the line in a
safe place.”
Source: C. M. Christensen, “How Will You Measure Your
Life? Don’t Reserve Your Best Business Thinking for Your
Career,” Harvard Business Review, July/August 2010,
pp. 46–51.
Terminal Values
Instrumental Values
An exciting life
Being courageous
A sense of accomplishment
Being helpful
Family security
Being honest
Inner harmony
Being imaginative
Social recognition
Being logical
Friendship
Being responsible
someone decides to share with others (for example, the boss) a challenging but
potentially constructive opinion about the organization. Whether the person
speaks up or not depends, in part, on her values. If “sense of duty” were more important to the person than “getting ahead,” then she would be more likely to speak
up than if the reverse were true.12
Various researchers have said that the pervasive influence of broad forces
like major historical events and trends, technological changes, and economic
Chapter 5 Values, Ethics, and Character
147
c­ onditions tends to create common value systems among people growing up at a
particular time that distinguish them from people who grow up at different
times.13,14,15 They attribute much of the misunderstanding that may exist between
older leaders and younger followers to the fact that their basic value systems were
formulated during different social and cultural conditions, and these analyses offer
a helpful perspective for understanding how differences in values can add tension
to the interaction between some leaders and followers.
Zemke is another researcher who has looked at differences in values across
generations and how those value differences affect their approaches to work and
leadership.16 Following is his delineation of four generations of workers, each
molded by distinctive experiences during critical developmental periods:
The Veterans (1922–1943): Veterans came of age during the Great Depression
and World War II, and they represent a wealth of lore and wisdom. They’ve
been a stabilizing force in organizations for decades, even if they are prone to
digressions about “the good old days.”
The Baby Boomers (1942–1960): These were the postwar babies who came of
age during violent social protests, experimentation with new lifestyles, and pervasive questioning of establishment values. But they’re graying now, and they
don’t like to think of themselves as “the problem” in the workplace even though
they sometimes are. Boomers still have passion about bringing participation,
spirit, heart, and humanity to the workplace and office. They’re also concerned
about creating a level playing field for all, but they hold far too many meetings
for the typical Gen Xer. As the Boomers enter their retirement years, they take
with them a work ethic characterized by ambition, an achievement orientation,
and organizational loyalty.17
The Gen Xers (1961–1981): Gen Xers grew up during the era of the Watergate
scandal, the energy crisis, higher divorce rates, MTV, and corporate downsizing;
many were latchkey kids. As a group they tend to be technologically savvy, independent, and skeptical of institutions and hierarchy. They are entrepreneurial
and they embrace change. Having seen so many of their parents work long and
loyally for one company only to lose their jobs to downsizing, Xers don’t believe
much in job security; to an Xer, job security comes from having the kinds of
skills that make you attractive to an organization. Hence they tend to be more
committed to their vocation than to any specific organization. In fact, the freeagency concept born in professional sports also applies to Xers, who are disposed to stay with an organization until a better offer comes along. Among the
challenges they present at work is how to meet their need for feedback despite
their dislike of close supervision. Xers also seek balance in their lives more than
preceding generations; they work to live rather than live to work.
Millennials (1982–2005): This is your generation, so any generalizations we
make here are particularly risky! In general, however, Millennials share an optimism born, perhaps, from having been raised by parents devoted to the task of
bringing their generation to adulthood; they are the children of soccer moms
and Little League dads. They doubt the wisdom of traditional racial and sexual
148 Part Two Focus on the Leader
categorizing—perhaps not unexpected from a generation rich with opportunities
like having Internet pen pals in Asia with whom they can interact any time of
the day or night. As they move into the workplace, Millennials are seeking
teamwork, security, and work–life balance.18 As “digital natives,” Millennials
bring to the workplace sharing habits born of extensive experience with social
media; their comfort level with transparency of action may well have a profound
long-term effect on the workplace.19 Of more concern, many college professors
perceive Millennials to lack drive and a sense of accountability yet still expect
positive evaluations despite marginal effort.20
Question authority, but
raise your hand first.
Bob Thaves,
cartoonist
Some research has looked at how the values of Gen Xers impact the leadership
process at work. One clear finding from this research involved the distinctively different view of authority held by Xers than previous generations. “While past generations might have at least acknowledged positional authority, this new generation
has little respect for and less interest in leaders who are unable to demonstrate that
they can personally produce. In other words, this generation doesn’t define leading
as sitting in meetings and making profound vision statements, but instead as eliminating obstacles and giving employees what they need to work well and comfortably.”21 Gen Xers expect managers to “earn their stripes” and not be rewarded with
leadership responsibilities merely because of seniority. Often that attitude is interpreted as an indication of disrespect toward elders in general and bosses in particular. It may be more accurate, however, to characterize the attitude as one of
skepticism rather than disrespect.
Lest we overemphasize the significance of intergenerational differences,
however, consider the results of a scientific sampling of over 1,000 people living
in the United States that found little evidence of a generation gap in basic values. Indeed, the director of one of the largest polling organizations in the world
called the results some of the most powerful he had seen in 30 years of public
opinion research. They showed, he said, that even though young people have
different tastes, they do not have a different set of values than their elders.22
Considering the weight of scholarly research on value differences across generations, it’s been said that the idea of a generational gap in values may be more
popular culture than good social science.23 That is consistent with results from
a study that found “overwhelming consistency” in the ways managers from different generations evaluated the importance of various leadership practices as
well as proficiency in them. The study concluded that Boomers, Xers, and Millennials in the managerial workforce are much more similar in their views of
organizational leadership than they are different. 24 A very personal example
of similarity in values between two generations of leaders is presented in Profiles in Leadership 5.1.
Moral Reasoning and Character-Based Leadership
Until now our discussion has focused primarily on the content of people’s values—
that is, on what people claim to value. Related to this are matters concerning how
people think and act concerning matters of right and wrong, to matters of moral
Chapter 5 Values, Ethics, and Character
149
Aung San Suu Kyi
PROFILES IN LEADERSHIP 5.1
In 1991 Aung San Suu Kyi already had spent two years
under house arrest in Burma for “endangering the
state.” That same year she won the Nobel Peace
Prize. She was not released from house arrest until
2010, and in 2012 was elected to Parliament. In 2016
she was named state counselor in Myanmar (formerly
Burma), a position even above the country’s presidency. Suu Kyi has become an international symbol of
heroic and peaceful resistance to government oppression. But maybe no longer to everyone: Some
have criticized her role in Myanmar’s crackdown on
religious minorities in the country, some even comparing the crackdown to ethnic cleansing.
Until the age of 43, Suu Kyi led a relatively quiet
existence in England as a professional working
mother. Her life changed dramatically in 1988 when
she returned to her native country of Burma to visit
her sick mother. That visit occurred during a time of
considerable political unrest in Burma. Riot police
had recently shot to death hundreds of demonstrators in the capital city of Rangoon (the demonstrators had been protesting government repression).
Over the next several months, police killed nearly
3,000 people who had been protesting government
policies.
When hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy
demonstrators staged a protest rally at a prominent
pagoda in Rangoon, Suu Kyi spoke to the crowd.
Overnight she became the leading voice for freedom and democracy in Burma. Today she is the
most popular and influential leader in her country.
What prepared this woman, whose life was once
relatively simple and contented, to risk her life by
challenging an oppressive government? What made
her such a magnet for popular support? Impressive
as Aung San Suu Kyi is as a populist leader, it is
impossible to understand her effectiveness purely in
terms of her own personal characteristics. It is
impossible to understand it independent of her
followers—the people of Burma. Her rapid rise to
prominence as the leading voice for democracy and
freedom in Burma must be understood in terms of
the living link she represented to the country’s
greatest modern hero—her father. He was something of a George Washington figure in that he
founded the Burmese Army in 1941 and later made a
successful transition from military leadership to
political leadership. At the height of his influence,
when he was the universal choice to be Burma’s first
president, he was assassinated. Suu Kyi was two
years old. Stories about his life and principles indelibly shaped Suu Kyi’s own life, but his life and memory also created a readiness among the Burmese
people for Suu Kyi to take up her father’s mantle of
­leadership.
reasoning and character. We look first at moral reasoning and then turn our attention to the somewhat broader question of leader character.
Moral reasoning refers to the process leaders use to make decisions about
ethical and unethical behaviors. It does not refer to the morality of individuals per
se, or their espoused values, but rather to the manner by which they solve moral
dilemmas.
Values play a key role in the moral reasoning process because value differences
among individuals often result in different judgments regarding ethical and unethical behavior. In addition, fundamental and dramatic changes occur during young
adulthood in how people define what is morally right or wrong. Those individuals
whose moral judgment develops most are those who “love to learn, seek new challenges, who enjoy intellectually stimulating environments, who are reflective, who
150 Part Two Focus on the Leader
make plans and set goals, who take risks, and who take responsibility for themselves in the larger social context of history and institutions, and who take responsibility for themselves and their environs.”25
Of course, not everyone fully develops their moral judgment. For example, research suggests that whereas most people believe they behave ethically, there is
considerable reason to believe that they are significantly more biased than they
think and that their actions fall short of their self-perceptions of ethical purity.
Several unconscious biases affect our moral judgments, and paradoxically, the
more strongly one believes that she is an ethical manager, the more one may fall
victim to these biases.26 That is probably one reason why in business and government many organizations are developing practical programs to develop moral
decision-making competence among their leaders.27
We take it for granted that the effectiveness of any such programs to develop moral
decision making depends a lot on the quality of our understanding of the process itself, and recent research suggests that the psychological processes involved are more
complicated than you might imagine. Perhaps this should not be surprising given that
philosophers long have disagreed over the essential nature of moral judgment. Philosophers such as Plato and Kant believed mature moral judgment to be an essentially
rational process whereas other philosophers, such as David Hume and Adam Smith,
believed that emotions are at the heart of moral judgment (no pun intended!). Joshua
Greene, a Harvard psychologist, finds research support for both views. He has proposed a dual-process theory of moral judgment wherein moral judgments dealing
primarily with “rights” and “duties” are made by automatic emotional responses
whereas moral judgments made on a more utilitarian basis are made more cognitively.
Greene’s methodology is fascinating and includes brain-imaging studies while people
are pondering dilemmas similar to those featured in Highlight 5.2.28,29
Studying Moral Judgment: The Trolley Problem
HIGHLIGHT 5.2
The trolley problem, originally posed by philosopher
Philippa Foot, involves two different dilemmas, a
“switch” dilemma and a “footbridge” dilemma.
In the switch dilemma a runaway trolley is racing
toward five people who will be killed if the train does
not change course. You can save these five people
by diverting the train onto another set of tracks. That
alternative set of tracks has only one person on it,
but if you divert the train onto those tracks that person will be killed. Is it morally permissible to switch
the train onto the other track and thus save five lives
at the cost of one? According to Greene’s research,
most people say yes.
In the footbridge dilemma the trolley is again
heading for five people. You happen to be standing
next to a large man on a footbridge spanning the
tracks, and if you push the man off the footbridge
and into the path of the trolley you can save the
other five people. Is it morally permissible to push
the man into the path of the trolley? According to
Greene, most people say no.
These results pose a challenge for moral philosophers: Why does it seem right to most people to sacrifice one person to save five others in the first
situation but not in the second? Greene’s answer to
that puzzle is his dual-process theory mentioned in
the text.
Chapter 5 Values, Ethics, and Character
151
Although moral dilemmas like the trolley problem are useful for scholarly and
heuristic purposes, the scenarios may seem far from our everyday experience. A far
more common yet still challenging ethical dilemma involves choosing between
two “rights.” Rushworth Kidder has identified four ethical dilemmas that are so
common to our experience that they serve as models or paradigms:30
• Truth versus loyalty, such as honestly answering a question when doing so
could compromise a real or implied promise of confidentiality to others.
• Individual versus community, such as whether you should protect the confi•
•
dentiality of someone’s medical condition when the condition itself may pose a
threat to the larger community.
Short term versus long term, such as how a parent chooses to balance spending time with children now as compared with investments in a career that may
provide greater benefits for the family in the long run.
Justice versus mercy, such as deciding whether to excuse a person’s misbehavior because of extenuating circumstances or a conviction that he or she has
“learned a lesson.”
Kidder offers three principles for resolving ethical dilemmas such as these:
ends-based thinking, rule-based thinking, and care-based thinking.
Ends-based thinking is often characterized as “do what’s best for the greatest
number of people.” Also known as utilitarianism in philosophy, it is premised on
the idea that right and wrong are best determined by considering the consequences
or results of an action. Critics of this view argue that it’s almost impossible to foresee all the consequences of one’s personal behavior, let alone the consequences of
collective action like policy decisions affecting society more broadly. Even if outcomes could be known, however, there are other problems with this approach. For
example, would this view ethically justify the deaths of dozens of infants in medical
research if the result might save thousands of others?
Rule-based thinking is consistent with Kantian philosophy and can be characterized colloquially as “following the highest principle or duty.” This is determined not by any projection of what the results of an act may be but rather by
determining the kinds of standards everyone should uphold all the time, whatever
the situation. In Kant’s words, “I ought never to act except in such a way that I can
also will that my maxim should become a universal law.” Lofty as the principle
may sound, though, it could paradoxically minimize the role that human judgment
plays in ethical decision making by consigning all acts to a rigid and mindless commitment to rules absent consideration of the specific context of a decision (“If I let
you do this, then I’d have to let everyone do it”).
Care-based thinking describes what many people think of as the Golden
Rule of conduct common in some form to many of the world’s religions: “Do what
you want others to do to you.” In essence, this approach applies the criterion of
reversibility in determining the rightness of actions. We are asked to contemplate
proposed behavior as if we were the object rather than the agent, and to consult
our feelings as a guide to determining the best course.
152 Part Two Focus on the Leader
It’s important to emphasize that Kidder does not suggest any one of these principles is always best. Rather, he proposes that it would be a wise practice when
considering the rightness of an action to invoke them all and reach a decision only
after applying each to the specific circumstances one is facing and weighing the
collective analyses. In other words, one principle may provide wise guidance in one
situation whereas a different one may seem most helpful in a different one. There
can be such critical yet subtle differences across situations that all three principles
should be applied tentatively before any final course of action is chosen.
Although most of the research and training applications pertaining to ethical
behavior have focused on the essentially cognitive process of moral reasoning, it is
important to recognize that the ability to make reasoned judgments about ethically
laden situations does not guarantee a person will act ethically (witness the case of
athlete Lance Armstrong, who after many years of public lies to the contrary finally admitted he had long taken performance-enhancing drugs to win his many
Tour de France races; or consider the notorious and career-damaging “sexting” by
New York politician Anthony Wiener).
Research has identified four particular biases that can have a pervasive and corrosive effect on our moral decision making. One of these is implicit prejudice.
Although most people purport to judge others by their merits, research shows that
implicit prejudice often distorts their judgments. The insidious nature of implicit
prejudice lies in the fact that people are by nature unconscious of it. When someone is queried, for example, about whether he or she harbors prejudice against, say,
Eskimos, the individual answers based on his or her self-awareness of such attitudes. Some people are overtly racist or sexist, but offensive as such prejudice may
be, it is at least something known to the person. In the case of implicit prejudice,
however, judgments about some group are systematically biased without their
awareness.
This has been documented in a fascinating series of experimental studies
­designed to detect unconscious bias.31 These studies require people to rapidly
­classify words or images as “good” or “bad.” Using a keyboard, individuals make
split-­second classifications of words like love, joy, pain, and sorrow. At the same
time, they sort images of faces that are black or white, young or old, fat or thin
(depending on the type of bias being examined). The critical results indicating
implicit prejudice involve subtle shifts in reaction time in associating a particular
image (such as a black face) with “good” words. People who consciously believe
they have no prejudice or negative feelings about particular groups, say black
Americans or the elderly, are nonetheless systematically slower in associating
“good” words with those faces than they are in associating white or young faces
with them.
Another bias that affects moral decision making is in-group favoritism. Most
of us can readily point to numerous favors and acts of kindness we’ve shown toward others, and we understandably regard such acts as