Leaders are supposed to lead. All great leaders are driven by their goals and focus. Every leader has its own style of leading their people, be it autocratic, democratic or Laissez-Faire. Leaders act, drive, listen, build accountability and over and above motivates the people to follow his/her dreams. Being ethical is a matter of perspective on which side of the bench you are in. Great leaders lead by trust, and history is witness to that be it Martin Luther King or Gandhi, a revolution which was built on a dream, built on a trust. The people have blind trust and faith in their leaders and thus they are ready to go to any extent to support their leader simply on belief. Dr. Duane C. Tway, Jr. published a dissertation called “A Construct of Trust” in which he constructed three components of trust “the capacity for trusting, the perception of competence, and the perception of intentions”.
Leaders establish a code of trust and organizations and people stand by it. If a leader fails to maintain the code or deviates it’s a breach of trust and thus leader then becomes unethical towards its followers.
On one side we have seen leaders like Hitler and Bin Laden who had led their troops to victory though it was never ethical or for a positive cause and then again we have seen leaders like Subhas Chandra Bose and Nelson Mandela leading their people towards a dream of independence. Interestingly they were too not considered as ethical by the then ruling states or companies.
Great leaders inspires actions and those actions comes from the belief. Beliefs are based on ethics, strong principles and rules of conduct. Leaders demonstrating strong character, dictates of conscience and virtues are the leaders who survive the test of the time and are called the greatest of the great.
In today’s world, it’s hard to find a great leader who drives actions through a strong sense of moral principles. Most organizations are run to make profit and leaders are inspired to grow and make profit. Ethics takes a back seat when it comes to finances and bottom line number crunching.
Nonetheless to build great organizations, you need to build people and to build people you need great leaders. Great leaders lead by example and principles of trust, faith and strong ingrained values. The journey becomes more important than the result. Ethical leadership makes that journey historical, epic.
Author
Abhirup Banerjee, Co- Founder GRIP Consulting
HR Strategist.
8412017782, abhirup@gripconsulting.net, Twitter: @abhirupthecoach, youtube: abhirupbanerjeethecoach, Instagram – abhirupthecoach
