Monday, January 27, 2020

The Personality Traits In Ethical Leadership Management Essay

The Personality Traits In Ethical Leadership Management Essay Ethical leadership is mostly about leadership integrity. This statement has triggered much controversy and is widely discussed. According to Ciulla (2004), Philosophers views ethical leadership, as how the ethical leaders should behave like. Leadership integrity of a leader is shown through the consistency of values, aims and behavior (Bloskie 1995). Leadership is defined by (Wiess 2003) as a shared process, although the values and behaviors of company founders and CEOs often frame and set the cultural tone for organization. One way to recognize a leaders value is through the vision and mission statement of a company. The personality traits in ethical leadership include integrity, trustworthiness, honesty and forthrightness or candor (Trevino et al. 2000). (Trevino Brown 2004) argues that statement as a myth and argued that the coverage of ethical leadership was too vague as it only concentrated solely on individuals character and qualities such as integrity, honesty and fairness. Recent research shows the qualities of a person contributes to the establishment of ethical leadership but it is not substantial to establish an effective ethical leadership (Trevino Brown 2004). Therefore, in this essay I will touch on the ethical concepts and theories, and the occurrence of leadership and the dimensions that is related to ethical leadership and it will thus bring about a better understanding of whether is ethical leadership is mostly about leadership integrity. With much ethical scandals evidently existing in most organization, it is comes to show that ethical dimensions is crucial to explain what is ethical leadership. What is Ethical leadership? Studies were conducted by Brown, Trevino Harrison to understand the qualities that is linked to ethical leadership. Base on the interview that they held during 2002, they defined ethical leadership as a display of normatively appropriate conduct through individual activity and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two way interaction, reinforcement and decision-making ( Brown et al., 2005). Figure 1: The matrix of moral person and moral manager dimension (Trevino, Hartman Brown 200) Unethical leadership style Hypocritical leadership Leaders who passes down influential ethical messages across to the followers(who are ethical manager) but who is recognized to be ethical themselves (they are not ethical persons) are referred to as hypocritical leaders as shown in figure 1. Hypocritical management are about ethical pretense. The problem is that by giving much emphasiz to reliability only heighten objectives of ethical problem. If a leader talks about integrity and ethical values all time but doesnt adhere by it, followers cant place trust in the leader because he fail to do what do say. Ethically silent leadership The last combination is call the legally quiet authority. It relates to leader does not belong to either strong ethical nor strong ethical zone. They may be ethical person but their stand is not clear. They dont provide obvious leadership in terms of ethics. It may be due to the leader has no awareness on how important is ethical leadership relates to organization ethical culture, or they simply just do not care about ethical issues. Ethical leadership style To establish a reputable ethical leadership successfully, it requires the executive to display the qualities of a moral person as well as a moral manager. It is essential for a leader to possess characteristics of integrity and also to be able to inculcate this quality into others in the organization. As a leader, they portray images of a role model to others in the organization, so if they set guidelines for employee to adhere by but leaders themselves dont adhere to it; employees develop negative feelings and feel the reluctance to adhere to the guideline. (Trevino et al. 2000) states that an executive must first be a moral or ethical person or else their followers will come to regard them as hypocrites when their true nature shows. This traits, behavior and decision making characteristics should be transparently evident, or else they may be misinterpreted, and the executive may not be viewed as a moral or ethical person. A leader who is neither a moral person nor a moral manager is an unethical leader. Even if you are a moral person, but it does not make you a moral manager, to be able to able strike a balance between both moral person and manager, you will need show your followers how well you support and promote companys ethics and values to your followers. This shows that in order to develop ethical leadership, the executive need to be both a moral person and manager, it works two way (Brooks Dunn 2009). (Trevino et al. 2000) discovered out that these can be achieved by having transparency in the system, role model qualities must be portrayed openly, there should be interaction on a daily basis and persuasively about ethical requirements, principals and value, using the compensation system to keep all workers responsible to ethical standard. Lets relate this to real life scenario, take for example, civil servants who is working for the government should uphold integrity in them, Public has the perceived image that all civil servants are role models to look up so if they were commit crimes that is against integrity, public will naturally see them as hypocrites and will lose faith in them as a role model. (Bandura 1986) states that if leaders do not adhere by what they stated in the guidelines, there is no reason why the followers should adhere to it. It is the virtue of a leader will religiously stick to their principles, keeps promises, admits their mistakes and adhere to through on their commitments (Bass Bass sounds 2008). Ethical leadership and ethical culture Leaders can affect cultures in many ways. They can change culture by sending down new values to the followers. What leaders do, say or any actions affects how followers think of the leaders. Clearly, employees are very responsive towards messages send in by leaders. But they personally do not know who the senior management of the organisation is; they can only make sense of it from what they hear. Therefore, leaders has to build a reputation for ethical leadership through transparency on the ethical issue and thus communicating a strong ethic message Outcomes of ethical relationship Ethical relationships is believed to be important because of the results it is believed to impact. Constant with a social learning theory, followers replicate ethical leaders behavior because such management are eye-catching and reliable models who model normatively appropriate behavior. In addition, ethical management conveys the value of ethical requirements and use performance management systems to hold workers responsible for their performance. Employees dont have to know about the benefits and punitive measures straight but according to public social learning concept, they can learn about them by monitoring others result. Social learning theory and ethical leadership Following Brown et al. (2005), we rely on social learning theory ( Bandura, 1997, 1986) to explain outcomes of ethical leadership. Social learning theory serves as a guidance to understand why individual characteristics of ethical leadership and how external cultural factors influences followers perceived image of leader as ethical leader. According to social learning theory, for leaders to be seen as ethical leaders by their followers, they first lead an example that proves that they are dependable and trustworthy leaders to their followers. According to (Bandura, 1977,1986) social learning theory describes that based on the way individual learn by looking out for and attempting to work towards the same attitudes, values and behavior of the dependable leader. This is supported by (Kohlberg, 1969; Trevino, 1986) that most individual look up to others for ethical advice or assistance. If you are the CEO, the perceived image as seen by the followers is seen as someone who has what it on the surface you will be seen as a person who has qualities and credibility basically what it takes to be in that position, therefore the it is the status and power of a person will boost the attractiveness thus resulting in followers interest to look out for ethical leaders behavior (Bandura, 1986). Leaders have the power and authority because their position held is of a higher post as compared to the followers. Not only the status draws attention to the followers, leaders who displays acts of care and concern and giving fair treatments plays a part in the attention for followers and gives positive motivations. Studies have shown that encouragement plays an essential part in modelling effectiveness because followers focus on those who controls essential resources and to rewards and punishments. Employees can learn about what is acceptable or undesirable by focusing on how other business members are honoured or disciplined and control their own answer as a result Critical view on ethical leadership styles There are three leadership theories that overlap the ethical leadership domain, Transformational, spiritual and authentic theories of leadership all address the moral potential of leadership in some way. Transformational leadership Burns (1978) recommended that transformational leadership as moral leadership because the leaders inspire their followers to look beyond self-interest and perform and work towards goals together. Kaungo Mendonca (1996) recommended that transformational authority engaged ethical influence process, while transactional leadership did not. But bass(1985) recommended that transformational control could be ethical or unethical based on their inspiration. Authetic leadership Authetic leadership are leaders who are deeply aware of how they think and behave and are perceived by others a being aware of their own and others value/moral perspective, knowledge, and strengths; aware of the context in which they operate; and are confident, hopeful, optimistic, resilient, and high on moral character (Avolio, luthans walumbwa 2004). Self-awareness, openness transparency and consistency made up of authentic leadership. And also being motivated by good end concepts and issues for others is essential to authentic authority. Authetic leadership are capable of evaluating uncertain ethical issues, watching them from several viewpoints, and aiming choices with their own ethical concepts. Like transformational leadership, authentic leadership seems to overlap with ethical leadership in terms of personal features. Spiritual leadership Spiritual leadership comprised of the concepts, behaviours and habits that are necessary to motivate ones self and others so that they have a sense of spiritual survival l through contacting and membership: (Fry, 2003, p.711) Spiritual leadership has also been described as occurring when a person in a authority place symbolizes spiritual concepts such as reliabililty, loyalty, and humblness, developing the self as an example of someone who can be reliable, depended upon and admire. Spiritual leadership is also confirmed through actions, whether in personal indicative exercise or in ethical, sympathetic, and well-mannered treatment of others, (reave 2005) Thus, ethical leadership is clearly related to, but unique from these leadership concepts. I have described ethical leadership and articulated how it overlaps with, yet is unique from other related theories of authority. Conclusion: In conclusion, I disagree with the statement that ethical leadership is mainly about leadership integrity. Integrity only plays a part in establishment of a reputation leadership it is not sufficient enough as it requires more than just strong personal qualities or virtue. Not only should you have leadership integrity, followers must be led from the leaders on how to be ethical, it is not just enough to be a ethical person who makes good choices, a reputation for ethical leadership requires leaders to continually communicate ethical values to the followers and make sure they abide by it. Failure to develop a reputation for leadership, it will mostly likely end up as ethically neutral. Therefore, we can say that communication from the leaders is very crucial, they need to be aware of their actions, what they say, and what they do is constantly viewed from their followers. As mentioned in the social learning theory, in nature followers look up to leaders because they have status and po wer, if a leader do not abide by the guidelines they set the trust from the followers will be gone which thus result in followers losing trust and faith in their leaders. You need to be both a moral manager and a moral person in order to achieve a reputable ethical leadership

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Bank and Fidelity

In the ever changing banking industry, First Fidelity Bancorp had grown to be one of the largest holding companies of eight financial institutions and over 500 branches. Their growth has been through the acquisitions of other smaller institutions and internal growth generated by strong relationships with customers. This growth has come at a cost and First Fidelity has been left with a complicated mix of systems, operations, and organizational culture. First Fidelity allowed the eight financial institutions to operate totally independent of each other and the corporate office solely managed the integration of the financial reporting responsibilities. The non-integration of systems and operations has also left First Fidelity with higher costs and the need to make changes which will allow them to be competitive in the future. By the early 1990’s First Fidelity had begun to integrate some of the operational functions, but had yet to connect them further. Due to changes in banking regulation, the US government had begun cracking down on new rules on financial reporting, asset quality, and capital requirements for the banks. The government wanted better controls from upper management and the only way First Fidelity could accomplish this was to integrate systems, management, and combine all eight financial institutions into a more consolidated with less autonomous feel. Management made this their highest priority and put a strict deadline of 18 months on this task. This deadline put two major decisions directly ahead of First Fidelity, organizational structure and method of achieving the full integration. In order to evaluate the full impact of their decision on organizational structure changes, First Fidelity looked at the following criteria: †¢ Cost Effectiveness †¢ Responsiveness to Business Needs †¢ Responsiveness to Individual Needs †¢ Ability to Standardize Products and Service Offerings †¢ Ability to Support Outsourcing Options †¢ Ability to Support Acquisitions †¢ Service/Quality Orientation/Incentives While these criteria would decide what organizational structure First Fidelity would have, they also had to decide how the rationalization and consolidation plan should be conducted, internally, through the use of consultants, or through outsourcing. First Fidelity saw outsourcing as the most viable solution to their problem and felt it would best serve the company by achieving the goals in the desired time frame. First Fidelity has recognized several potential outsourcing vendors and determined the advantages and disadvantages of each vendor. Their decision now must be to select the proper vendor who will provide them not only with the services needed to move them through the rationalization and consolidation process, but one which will provide quality services and cost savings to First Fidelity for years to come. Changes to Organizational Elements The major change First Fidelity will be forced to deal with is the change to their organizational structure and hierarchical relationships within the firm. Prior to the rationalization plan, First Fidelity operated as eight separate financial institutions. Decisions were made independent from each other and there was no single person to oversee all operations from the holding company point of view. When Don Parcells was put in charge of all operations, and improvements were needed immediately, he put a plan in place to consolidate functions and make First Fidelity a more cost efficient organization. In order for this to become a success, First Fidelity was going to first have to restructure their separate cultures into a single unified culture. Parcells was planning on consolidating the separate operations and systems which the eight banks used. To make this a success, all parties need to be thinking in the same direction and accepting of the upcoming changes. Parcells task of unifying First Fidelity under these same systems would not be a success if the current management did not understand the reasoning behind the changes and understand the â€Å"big picture† of increased profits and long-term sustainability of First Fidelity. Current management would also be forced to deal with changes in management structure. This will give the First Fidelity corporate office more control over the eight banks and ensure the banks operate in a consolidated manner once the initial changes are implemented. Systems Integration The importance of systems integration goes well beyond the cost efficiencies First Fidelity hopes to experience. The system changes will put one face on the eight financial institutions and will provide them with the ability to accomplish many of the goals mentioned before under the criteria for organizational structure changes. First Fidelity should also take this opportunity to take advantage of the best practices which can be found through their analysis of their own internal operations and systems, external competitors, and the potential third parties they are analyzing for outsourcing opportunities. As the 25th largest bank holding company, First Fidelity has the potential to take advantage of improvements in technology. By decreasing their transaction costs through technology, First Fidelity’s high volume will allow them to take advantage of economies of scale. An integration of systems will also make First Fidelity a much more attractive candidate for merger activity. They will either be able to expand and make new acquisitions integrate more smoothly into the First Fidelity family, or make themselves more attractive as an acquisition target. Outsourcing at First Fidelity First Fidelity is in a very difficult situation. The short time period in which First Fidelity has to turn around its operations and systems does not ffer First Fidelity many options. They are seeking a simple solution to a problem which should have been addressed a decade earlier when they had begun merging the banks under one holding company. When considering the use of outsourcing, businesses should not rush this decision and should analyze what functions and how important these functions are to the business. As a general rule, core functions should not be outsourced to third party vendors. Only non-core functions should be considered, and only when significant cost savings will be made and the vendor offers a long-term, high quality service which will not have a negative impact on the customers of the outsourcing firm. First Fidelity needs to consider whether their systems and operations are part of their non-core functions and will truly add value through cost savings. Long Term Implications of First Fidelity Decision First Fidelity’s decision to outsource will have long term implications on the future of their banking operations. When First Fidelity began investigating the decision to outsource in 1990, one important variable would be the future of banking and which technologies would be the future of bank operations. The upcoming jump in the use of technology in banking will have a major impact on the systems necessary to be successful in banking. This offers even greater risk for outsourcing, since First Fidelity will be giving up much of their control of their technology. The Decision and Future of First Fidelity. First Fidelity did decide to use EDS as the company which will handle their software systems and data center operations. The contract was valued at $450 million over ten years and was considered the largest outsourcing contract for financial institutions at that point in time. In 1996, First Fidelity merged with First Union, in what was then considered one of the largest mergers in the banking industry, and made First Union an imposing force in banking along the east coast of the United States. One of the major factors for the merger was to add additional economies of scale to First Union’s operations and to decrease the high costs of technology which banks were experiencing. First Fidelity’s decision to integrate their systems in 1990 came at an integral point in time for the bank holding company. It provided them with cost savings and made them a strong acquisition target by un-complicating their systems and making their operations more efficient.

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Business Buying Center Essay

A.Describe the different roles in a business buying center. Then identify each member of the buying group in a medium-sized company that purchases components and assembles small household appliances. A business buying center is described as all persons involved in any aspect of a company’s buying activity (source: page 186, Contemporary Marketing). A business buying center is also known as a decision making unit or DMU and can be further defined as a group of employees, family members, or members of any type of organization responsible for finalizing major decisions, usually involving a purchase (source: Financial Times Lexicon: http://lexicon.ft.com/decision-making-unit). In a business setting, major purchases typically require input from various parts of the organization, including finance, accounting, purchasing, information technology management, and senior management. Highly technical purchases, such as information systems or production equipment, also require the expertise of technical specialists. In some cases the buying center is an informal ad hoc group, but in other cases, it is a formally sanctioned group with specific mandates, criteria, and procedures. The employees that constitute the buying center will vary depending on the item being purchased. There are typically five roles within any buying center. For purposes of this assignment, a buying center for a medium-sized company that purchases components and assembles small household appliances could be described as follows: 1.Influencers who try to affect the outcome decision with their opinions. An Influencer would also set specific buying specifications for the company. This group would guide evaluation as well. 2.Deciders who have the final decision. The Deciders also choose the good or service. They may need to involve another person with more formal authority 3.Buyers who are responsible for the contract. Buyers also secure the good or service. 4.Users of the item being purchased. Users are the people who will actually â€Å"use† the good or service. 5.Gatekeepers who control the flow of information that all buying center members will review. (Sources: http://books.google.com/books?id=wAMsaLJoykYC&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130 and source: page 186 and 187, Contemporary Marketing)

Thursday, January 2, 2020

The Documentary Hypothesis Of The Bible - 1026 Words

The Documentary Hypothesis Throughout the decades the traditional belief of the author of the first five books in the Hebrew Bible is believed to be Moses. The Pentateuch is the first division of the Hebrew Bible which consists of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Contrary to traditional belief, it is thought that the Pentateuch is a conglomeration of early written documents. The Documentary Hypothesis explains the issues of how and why the Pentateuch was written. The Documentary Hypothesis presents four source documents the Yahwist document, the Elohist document, the Deuteronomist document, and the Priestly document as the basis of the first five books in the Hebrew Bible that would later form the Pentateuch as the world knows it today. The oldest document is the Yahwist document or J document. The J document is believed to be written in 1,000 BCE. During this time the J document was in the midst of the rising monarchy. The author of J demonstrates several themes throughout their writing. For example, there is a theme of brothers in conflict with each other, wives who cannot conceive children, a cycle of sin and punishment, and psychological insight to the people in the document. The writing style of the Yahwist document is narrative. The author arranges the document as if he or she is telling a story. Another consistent theme the J author uses is the term Yahweh for God. Using Yahweh to describe God allows the reader of the document to believe GodShow MoreRelatedEssay on The Documentary Hypothesis: Past and Present1333 Words   |  6 PagesThe subject of this paper has at least five names. Documentary Hypothesis and JEDP Theory are the most common. In this paper, this scholarly position will always be referred to as Documentary Hypothesis with a few exceptions. 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AUTHOR J This author was identified as J for using word Yahweh or Jehovah for the name of God. Also there is an interesting theory that author J was a woman. Of course, there are statements that prove it. First of all I want pay