Heifetz's Perspective on Ethical leadership
o A psychiatrist who observed world leaders.
o His approach emphasizes how leaders help followers confront conflict and effect changes from conflict. It is about helping followers deal with conflicting values that emerge in rapidly changing work environments and social cultures.
o His approach deals with values.
o Leaders must utilize authority to immobilize people to face tough issues.
o The leader provides the holding environment in which there is trust, nurturance, and empathy.
o The leader's duty is to assist followers in struggling with change and personal growth.
Burns's Perspective on Ethical leadership
o Transformational leadership places a strong emphasis on followers' needs, values, and morals.
o It involves attempts by leaders to move followers to higher standards of responsibility.
o It is the responsibility of the leader to help followers assess their own values and needs in order to raise them to a higher level of functioning, to a level that will stress values such a liberty, justice, and equality.
Greenleaf's Perspective on Ethical leadership
o He developed a paradoxical approach to leadership called "Servant leadership" in 1970s
o It gained increased popularity in recent years.
o It has a strong altruistic ethical overtone and emphasizes that leaders should be attentive to concerns or their followers.
o He argued that leadership was bestowed on a person who is by nature a servant. The way an individual becomes a leader is by first being a servant.
o A servant leader focuses on the needs of the followers and helps them become more knowledgeable, more free, more autonomous and more like servants themselves.
o Servant leader has a social responsibility to be concerned with the have-nots and to recognize them as equal stakeholders in the organization.
o Greenleaf places a great deal of emphasis on listening, empathy, and unconditional acceptance of others.
o Many of these ethical theories emphasis that the relationship between leader-follower is an "ethical" one and it s related to the "caring principle"(Gilligan, 1982).
Principles of ethical leadership
Northouse has listed five principles of ethical leadership. Actually the origins of these
can be traced back to Aristotle. These principles provide a foundation for the development of
sound ethical leadership. According to these principles ethical leaders respect others, serve others,
are just, are honest and build community. To be an ethical leader, we must be sensitive to the
needs of others, treat others in ways that are just and care for others.