Public Leadership Ethics: A Management Approach by J. Patrick Dobel

Author:J. Patrick Dobel [Dobel, J. Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Leadership, Public Affairs & Administration, Political Science, Business & Economics, General
ISBN: 9781351049320
Google: 931aDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-05-11T12:57:40+00:00

5

Leadership Values

Managers are the ethics teachers of their organizations. They leave a legacy of people they influence for good or bad. Whether managers intend to teach or not, they deeply influence the ethical life of the organization, and people will be better or worse because of their presence. It comes with the territory. This reality means managerial leaders embody stewardship of the ethical values and mission of the organization.

This range of values elaborates the cognitive and emotional architecture needed to embrace values and mission and then promise to act upon them. They describe the ethical dispositions, character attributes, virtues and values that persons need to commit to values and norms and guide decisions and implement actions based upon them. They present an internal checklist for oneself to examine one’s own actions or when balancing a team’s composition and ethical capacity. They recall and deepen the understanding of character attributes and values mentioned in Chapters 2 and 3 on public integrity and leading.

This range of values and character traits serves as a reference point in the space of self-reflection. Being aware and attending to the values and character attributes permit individuals not only to assess their own ethical stances but also to consider what they should focus on in educating and managing the organization. Different situations may require different weights for values, such as courage or fidelity for line regulators facing recalcitrant businesses who try to resist or bribe them, or the need for honesty and accounting in ensuring that line staff facing unreasonable quotas are not tempted to compromise reporting records. Understanding and reflecting upon the range of values permits an evolving weighting and fit with situational demands.

Managers and leaders are obliged to self-consciously exhibit the foundational values of their institutions. In doing this, they need to model the basic ethical dispositions and practices that operational values and culture depend upon. These cumulative concerns come home to a set of values that leaders need to enact as the basis of their leading.

These values must be relentlessly stated and modeled at the senior level and reinforced all the way down to the supervisory level. If the values and mission only exist at the top in an unread “mission statement,” they are meaningless and become sources of disenchantment, scorn and cynicism. These values anchor daily self-aware leading.

This constellation of values explains the dispositions, temperaments, virtues and articulated values that individuals must possess to act with sustained commitment to values when facing adversity and the daily friction of organizational life. This listing consolidates dimensions that are mentioned throughout this analysis. They pull forward aspects of integrity and managing a culture and build a psychological scaffolding for persons and groups to sustain the emotional and cognitive clarity and strength to act. Recalling these values and traits makes them inner cognitive and emotional resources for people. Individuals can recall and focus upon them as a source of motivation; as a focus for perception and scanning a situation; and as a standard to guide decision making. They provide emotional and ethical weight to the standards a person deploys.

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