A strong ethical leadership is the only way to shape long term ethical behavior.
I have 15 yrs. in middle management, and had several department heads during that time., We had a strong written code of ethics and had ethics training on a regular basis.
The people who chose to disobey the code were not punished, and in some cases they were rewarded when their actions resulted in a benefit to the organization.
So if the leadership is not ethical, the employees and management can violate the code of ethics at will without fear of having to accept responsibility for their actions. Bad management promotes bad management.
An ethical leader holds everyone accountable and promotes only ethical people. As the management ranks fill will ethical people, they will reward and promote other ethical people.
SuperTramp · 5 years ago