Ethical Leadership in Three Dimensions

Is an ethical leader an oxymoron? Society demands and expects greater accountability from organizational leaders. The literature on leadership, especially business leadership, has neglected ethical issues by focusing only on those approaches and strategies that emphasize self-centred, individualistic concerns. How-ever, true and effective leadership is one in which the leader’s behaviour and the exercise of the leadership influence process are consistent with ethical and moral values. The authors argue that our understanding of leadership is incomplete, if not deformed, if it does not include the three critical dimensions of ethical leadership. He who knows the good chooses the good Socrates. Some of the most powerful people in Ameri-can business went back to school for two days and got a stem lecture on ethics and personal responsibility. ’ They were attend-ing Stanford’s Law School program of work-shops for corporate directors. Arthur Levitt