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Prosocial Leadership Grounding Leaders in Empathetic Concern
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The development of moral and ethical leadership in practicing and aspiring leaders is essential for the success of educational institutions. Leaders demonstrate moral and ethical leadership through striving to act in a manner reflective of the best interests of students. Such leadership is guided by a personal vision reflecting values such as integrity, fairness, equity, social justice, and respect for diversity. These qualities are reflected in the 2015 Professional Standards for Educational Leaders published by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration. One’s understanding of moral and ethical leadership can be strengthened by seeing the connections between moral leadership and the related themes of transformational leadership, authentic leadership, and trust in leaders. School leaders can help to create ethical schools by developing and being guided by a vision-driven professional ethos, manifesting that ethos in interactions with others, engaging staff in the co-creating of a vision-driven school, and through advocacy in the larger community.
This article investigated the effects of leadership traits on transformation in a merged and
incorporated higher education institution in South Africa. Few studies have been conducted on
leadership traits in universities, with none linking them to transformation. The study was guided
by the traits theory, one of the systematic attempts to study the effect of leadership on
transformation. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used, the former through a
structured survey questionnaire and the latter through in-depth interviews. The questionnaire
generated a high reliability rate of 0.947, indicating a high degree of internal consistency of the
results, which reflected nearly 40% of the research participants who felt that the university
creates a platform for open debates. However, 30% of them did not feel that independent thinking
and freedom of speech are promoted, a finding partly corroborated by the qualitative findings.
It was also found that business processes were inflexible, there was no reward for performance,
unproductive change interventions were introduced and decision-making centralised, all seen
as contrary to the transformation agenda and reflecting poor leadership traits. It is hoped that the
study will assist university decision-makers under the current state of turmoil in the South
African higher education landscape to exhibit leadership traits that will bring about
transformation. The study also fills a void in the scant literature on the effects of leadership traits
on transformation in South African universities, thus contributing to the body of knowledge.
Purpose
Literature encompassing sustainable leadership and developing leaders sustainably are still in infancy (Lambert, 2011). Nevertheless indications identify leadership as a vital cog in achieving sustainable organisations. Sustainable leadership can allow a fast, resilient response which is competitive and appealing to all stakeholders (Avery and Bergsteiner, 2011a, b). Arguably, organisations’ need to stop considering leadership as a control function (Casserley and Critchley, 2010; Crews, 2010) and instead focus on dialogue and mutual-interdependency between leaders and their followers (Barr and Dowding, 2012). The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyse the concept of sustainable leadership to present a conceptual framework surrounding sustainable leadership.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper will review the existing frameworks of sustainable leadership and present a conceptualisation of the frameworks. This conceptualisation synthesises frameworks and literature surrounding the concept of sustainable leadership which involves work from Casserley and Critchley (2010), Avery and Bergsteiner (2011a, b), Hargreaves and Fink (2006), Davies (2007) and Lambert (2011). Seminal themes from the synthesised frameworks are presented in order to attempt to unify the conceptualisation of sustainable leadership.
Findings
Within leadership literature, stakeholder approaches (Groves and LaRocca, 2011; Avery and Bergsteiner, 2011a); discourses underlining the importance of relationship between leaders and followers (Barr and Dowding, 2012); and discussions about the need to develop reflexive and participative leadership models (Kopp and Martinuzzi, 2013) have become prominent. Sustainable leadership embraces all of these new components. The concept advocates organisations should shift emphasis from a traditional singular focus on finances, to a view that organisations are contributors to wider environmental and social influences (Crews, 2010; Avery and Bergsteiner, 2011a).
Originality/value
This paper explores the theoretical frameworks which surround sustainable leadership and will synthesise and present commonly referenced facets of the concept within the internal and external factors influencing sustainable leadership.
In addressing foundational perspectives, proponents of the current positive psychology movement typically
identify Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Gordon Allport as precursors and ancestors. This article demonstrates that the Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler preceded the aforementioned ancestors of positive psychology and could be viewed as the original positive psychology. Following a brief overview of key ideas from Adler’s Individual Psychology, the authors specifically address two foundational tenets of Adler’s theory that particularly resonate with those from positive psychology and then address more broadly the remarkable common ground between Adler’s mature theoretical ideas and the positive psychology movement.
Management leader's capacity to think strategically is a key to exceedingly higher performance level. Broad work knowledge combined with extensive work experience is a right recipe to develop strategic thinking ability. Organization's internal environment coupled with allied organizational elements can either support or restrict the higher cognitive process of the individual which is responsible for smart thinking. Leaders, considered as the builders and reformers of the organization's internal environment, possess the ability to enhance and establish stronger connection between organizational processes and the team workerś ability of learning to think strategically. The collection of activities including; specialized training, skill enhancement and learning initiatives can provide leaders with the skills to enhance the strategic thinking of the work teams they lead.
This paper is a critique of the dominant functionalist discourse in authentic leadership theory, which shapes the manner in which we perceive authentic leadership development. As an alternative, I offer adopting dialogical philosophy as a theoretical lens for conceptualizing authentic leadership development. Drawing on various dialogical communication works, I explore how dialogical pedagogy can be used to improve authentic leadership development. I suggest eight components of dialogical pedagogy that can be adopted in authentic leadership development: self-exposure, openmindedness, empathy, care, respect, critical thinking, contact, and mutuality. The advantages, limitations, and implications of dialogical pedagogy for authentic leadership development are then discussed.
The leadership identity development (LID) grounded theory (Komives, Owen, Longerbeam, Mainella, & Osteen, 2005) and related LID model (Komives, Longerbeam, Owen, Mainella, & Osteen, 2006) present a framework for understanding how individual college students develop the social identity of being collaborative, relational leaders interdependently engaging in leadership as a group process (Komives, Lucas, & McMahon, 1998, 2007). Challenges to applying and measuring this stage based developmental theory are discussed and recommendations are included.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss human trafficking within the broader framework of socio-economic inequality. The presence of socio-economic inequality in the world creates a system where those in power very easily dominate and take advantage of those people without power. One of the most serious contemporary effects of inequalities between and within nations is the phenomenon of global sex trade or human trafficking for the purposes of sex. Deriving from unequal power relations, human trafficking is a serious global crime that involves the exploitation of many, but mostly females and children. This paper provides an extensive discussion of inequality and its links with human trafficking as contemporary slavery. In conclusion, the paper provides a list of selected intra-national and multi-national service organizations that are adopting strategies for combating trafficking through the reduction of social and economic inequality. Implications for social welfare advocates and international collaborative efforts are highlighted.
This paper summarized the findings of a qualitative study that examines the perceptions of ethical leadership held by those who perceived themselves to be ethical leaders, and how life experiences shaped the values called upon when making ethical decisions. The experiences of 28 business executives were shared with the researcher, beginning with the recollection of a critical incident that detailed an ethical issue with which each executive had been involved. With the critical incident in mind, each executive told the personal story that explained the development of the values he or she called upon when resolving the ethical issue described. The stories were analyzed through the use of constant comparison, which resulted in the development of two models: (1) a framework for ethical leadership illuminating valued aspects of ethical leaderships and the value perspectives called upon when making ethical decisions, and (2) a model explaining how the executives’ ethical frameworks developed. The paper concludes with a brief discussion on virtue ethics, experiential learning, and human resource development.
Purpose – To show that relationship duration enhances the effect of transformational leadership on follower's terminal value system congruence and identification (cognitive outcomes), but not on attachment and affective commitment (affective outcomes). Design/methodology/approach – Data for this study were collected from the principal and 144 teachers of a prominent high school in western India. The principal and the teachers answered the value survey. The teachers also answered questions on transformational leadership and outcomes. Findings – The positive effect of transformational leadership on the outcomes is enhanced by the duration of relationship between leader and follower in the case of congruence and identification, but not in the case of attachment and affective commitment. Research limitations/implications – The entire sample of teacher-respondents had a common leader (the school principal); this study needs to be replicated across a larger set of leaders to confirm the findings. Practical implications – Transformational leaders, by spending more time with followers, would be able to change their cognitive framework including value systems and identities. On the other hand, time spent with a follower may not make any difference when it comes to enhancing affective outcomes. Originality/value – Burns distinguished between heroes (emotion-based) and ideologues (values-based). The leadership that stops only at the hero level and does not proceed to the ideological level is pseudo-transformational. This study demonstrates the role of relationship duration in leaders becoming heroes or ideologues. Transformational leadership is not complete without the enduring change in values and identities.
Psychology has traditionally placed more emphasis on the negative than positive aspects of human behavior. The positive psychology movement, since its beginnings in 1999, has made major advances toward correcting this imbalance. Research inspired by the movement now spans an impressive range of topics, including many that are absolutely essential to a comprehensive psychological understanding of human nature. The present special issue provides a sampling of some of the best work in the area. All but the first and last articles come from presentations at the Second International Positive Psychology Summit, held in 2003 in Washington, DC. This sample can be supplemented by the chapters that have appeared in several recent anthologies of contemporary research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Hypothesized that heightening ingroup cohesion would increase discrimination toward an outgroup. This prediction was not supported. Instead, it was found that for the most part, only high cohesiveness elicits differential biases toward ingroup and outgroup. 44 male undergraduates were randomly assigned to pairs in either a low or high cohesiveness condition. The experimental task was a modified Prisoner's Dilemma game where the participants were 2 dyads rather than 2 individuals. Members of high-cohesive groups were more cooperative toward comembers than toward an outgroup; moreover, they evaluated their comembers more positively than outgroup members. In contrast, low-cohesive groups failed to exhibit either tendency toward greater ingroup favoritism. Results are tentatively interpreted in terms of a cognitive differentiation hypothesis suggesting that (a) cohesiveness leads group members to cognitively differentiate ingroup from outgroup and (b) ingroup-outgroup differentiation is a necessary and sufficient condition for eliciting intergroup bias. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Posted 3/2000. The previously unstudied emotion of elevation is described. Elevation appears to be the opposite of social disgust. It is triggered by witnessing acts of human moral beauty or virtue. Elevation involves a warm or glowing feeling in the chest, and it makes people want to become morally better themselves. Because elevation increases one's desire to affiliate with and help others, it provides a clear illustration of B. L. Fredrickson's (see record
2000-03082-001) broaden-and-build model of the positive emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article presents a theory of potentially universal aspects in the content of human values. Ten types of values are distinguished by their motivational goals. The theory also postulates a structure of relations among the value types, based on the conflicts and compatibilities experienced when pursuing them. This structure permits one to relate systems of value priorities, as an integrated whole, to other variables. A new values instrument, based on the theory and suitable for cross-cultural research, is described. Evidence relevant for assessing the theory, from 97 samples in 44 countries, is summarized. Relations of this approach to Rokeach's work on values and to other theories and research on value dimensions are discussed. Application of the approach to social issues is exemplified in the domains of politics and intergroup relations.
An edited volume covering research on leadership development in organizations.
Contemporary theories have generally focused on either the behavioral, cognitive or emotional dimensions of prosocial moral development. In this volume, these three dimensions are brought together while providing the first comprehensive account of prosocial moral development in children. The main concept is empathy - one feels what is appropriate for another person's situation, not one's own. Hoffman discusses empathy's role in five moral situations. The book's focus is empathy's contribution to altruism and compassion for others in physical, psychological, or economic distress. Also highlighted are the psychological processes involved in empathy's interaction with certain parental behaviors that foster moral internalization in children and the psychological processes involved in empathy's relation to abstract moral principles such as caring and distributive justice. This important book is the culmination of three decades of study and research by a leading figure in the area of child and developmental psychology.
In a time when public discourse is becoming coarser and more combative, believers have an opportunity to demonstrate Christian character by practicing civility. Civility is more demanding than manners. Manners are codes by which we move smoothly through the world and secure our place in society. Civility, on the other hand, has a moral component; it asks us to sacrifice for the wellbeing of the community. Civility is fueled by curious empathy and involves self-restraint. It falls into the domain Lord John Fletcher Mouton called the domain of “Obedience to the unenforceable.” The language we use and how we use language is a good barometer of how developed our civility skills are. Our task of building our capacity for civility is aided by an understanding of how we have become so politically divided as a nation. The Scriptures provide a sound rationale for building our capacity to practice civility. Biblical anthropology, instructions to the exiles in Babylon, along with texts about loving our neighbor and having regard for others in our congregations, all cast the qualities of civility as part of Christian character.
Neoclassical economics is based on and structured around the notion of homo economicus. The theory of consumer choice, the theory of the firm, industrial organization, and welfare theorems all require the assumption that agents act in accordance with the scheme of individualistic rational optimization. In this context, our contribution is threefold. First, we delimit the notion of homo economicus according to five characteristics or dimensions. Second, we critically review this anthropological scheme from five distinct approaches, namely, behavioral economics, institutional economics, political economy, economic anthropology, and ecological economics. Third, we conclude that the scheme of homo economicus is clearly inadequate and deficient. However, despite its inadequacies, it remains one of the fundamental pillars of the neoclassical paradigm in economics, which allows us to discuss why we have not yet overcome this paradigm.
Purpose
This paper aims to outline the prosocial leadership development process for guiding pedagogical and social justice course goals as a means to foster prosocial leadership values within the millennial generation.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is guided by a social justice framework and proven classroom pedagogies as a means to align millennial characteristics within the four stages of the prosocial leadership development process.
Findings
An educational rubric is provided as a means to guide classroom pedagogies, course goals and millennial characteristics through a prosocial leadership development process.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is conceptual in nature, and therefore, theoretical correspondence remains speculative.
Practical implications
The research in this paper provided guidelines for educators to use pedagogical practices as a means to develop prosocial values as a basis for organizational leadership behaviors.
Social implications
This leadership development process when facilitated through proven pedagogical techniques (guided by established social justice curriculum goals) and is within the context of millennial characteristics (those born between the years 1982 and 2005) becomes catalytic in empowering leaders to be a remedy for the world’s environmental and social challenges.
Originality/value
This paper connects characteristics of millennials to a prosocial leadership development model.
New mindsets and innovative thinking (ABIS, 2017; Moon, 2013, 2014, 2015; Moon, Walmsley, & Apostolopoulos, 2018) are needed to deliver on everything from good health and well-being to affordable and clean energy. This chapter reviews the latest trends globally to tackling pressing social and environmental problems (2016–2018), focuses on a sample of 100 projects, mapped against the UN SDGs and evaluated on their ‘innovation’ and scalability and selects 25 projects related to ‘circular economy’ solutions for a more in-depth consideration. The projects cover a range of applications including Buildings, Food, Energy, Transportation, Resources and Education. The key research question is: what strategic policy support is needed for enterprise & entrepreneurship education to develop the necessary multi collaborative and cross disciplinary mindsets and skills that such projects require? Reference is made to global risks and sustainability solutions, skills needed for the green economy and implications for enterprise development and entrepreneurship education. Findings reveal the need for new measures of eco and social mindset that will support the development of the creative and innovative solutions necessary for tackling the UN SDGs.
This chapter considers the interconnections between prosocial leadership, religious motivation, and stewardship. Prosocial leaders, as defined by Ewest T (Prosocial leadership: understanding and developing prosocial behavior in individuals and organizations. Palgrave McMillian. Publication Pending, London, 2017b), are servant leaders who are motivated by and respond to their own empathy and, without regard to punishment or reward, act altruistically to improve the welfare of those they serve. Prosocial leaders are central to developing stewards who are holistic leaders that lead themselves, their fellow employees, and their organizations to financial, social, and environmental sustainability. This prosocial orientation sometimes comes at a cost to these leaders as they sacrifice personal goals to enable those they lead to reach new levels of success.
This article argues that a common pattern and set of dynamics characterizes severe political and societal polarization in different contexts around the world, with pernicious consequences for democracy. Moving beyond the conventional conceptualization of polarization as ideological distance between political parties and candidates, we offer a conceptualization of polarization highlighting its inherently relational nature and its instrumental political use. Polarization is a process whereby the normal multiplicity of differences in a society increasingly align along a single dimension and people increasingly perceive and describe politics and society in terms of “Us” versus “Them.” The politics and discourse of opposition and the social–psychological intergroup conflict dynamics produced by this alignment are a main source of the risks polarization generates for democracy, although we recognize that it can also produce opportunities for democracy. We argue that contemporary examples of polarization follow a frequent pattern whereby polarization is activated when major groups in society mobilize politically to achieve fundamental changes in structures, institutions, and power relations. Hence, newly constructed cleavages are appearing that underlie polarization and are not easily measured with the conventional Left–Right ideological scale. We identify three possible negative outcomes for democracy—“gridlock and careening,” “democratic erosion or collapse under new elites and dominant groups,” and “democratic erosion or collapse with old elites and dominant groups,” and one possible positive outcome—“reformed democracy.” Drawing on literature in psychology and political science, the article posits a set of causal mechanisms linking polarization to harm to democracy and illustrates the common patterns and pernicious consequences for democracy in four country cases: varying warning signs of democratic erosion in Hungary and the United States, and growing authoritarianism in Turkey and Venezuela.
This chapter considers the history of research regarding leadership ethics, specifically how classical philosophical ethical theories articulate with established leadership theories. The chapter also explains how ethical leadership theories predominantly use normative ethical action theory and then resolves by suggesting how prosocial behavioral theory offers a new paradigm when considering ethical or others-directed leadership. Prosocial behavioral theory, as opposed to ethical theories, would be better suited to the identification of authentic others-directed behavior and ultimately to understanding how prosocial leaders are developed.
This book explores the behavioral phenomenon that is intended to aid in the benefit of others, known as prosocial behavior. The author combines eight years of quantitative and qualitative research to explain and delineate the antecedents to prosocial leadership and align these findings into an understandable model for prosocial leadership development. This ground-breaking text is the first to combine the elements of prosocial followership, development and altruism as essential components to leadership. It further explores the behaviors, values, and ideas leading to the formation of prosocial leadership within individuals and organizations.
After briefly explaining why social capital (civil society) is important to democracy, Putnam devotes the bulk of this chapter to demonstrating social capital’s decline in the United States across the last quarter century. (See Putnam 1995 for a similar but more detailed argument.) While he acknowledges that the significance of a few countertrends is difficult to assess without further study, Putnam concludes that crucial factors such as social trust are eroding rapidly in the United States. He offers some possible explanations for this erosion and concludes by outlining the work needed to consider these possibilities more fully.
Existing research shows that appeals to self-interest sometimes increase and sometimes decrease prosocial behavior. We propose that this inconsistency is in part due to the framings of these appeals. Different framings generate different salient reference points, leading to different assessments of the appeal. Study 1 demonstrates that buying an item with the proceeds going to charity evokes a different set of alternative behaviors than donating and receiving an item in return. Studies 2 and 3a-g establish that people are more willing to act, and give more when they do, when reading the former framing than the latter. Study 4 establishes ecological validity by replicating the effect in a field experiment assessing participants’ actual charitable contributions. Finally, Study 5 provides additional process evidence via moderation for the proposed mechanism. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings and suggest avenues for future research.
Positive leadership development offers access to a range of new theoretical and evidence-based approaches that have the potential to refine and enhance how leaders and leadership are developed in organisations. To date there is no grand unifying theory of leadership, studies on leadership development vary significantly in their efficacy (Avolio, Reichard & Hannah et al, 2009) and the evidence base continues to lag behind practitioner applications (Aguinis & Cascio, 2008). Leadership development consumes an estimated $50 billion annually (Bolden, 2007) in the US alone and yet many programs lack a substantial evidence base or coherent theoretical rationale (Brinner, 2012). This review aims to outline some of the potential contributions that the emerging field of positive leadership development can make to enhancing leadership development effectiveness.
Transformational Leadership, Second Edition is intended for both the scholars and serious students of leadership. It is a comprehensive review of theorizing and empirical research that can serve as a reference and starting point for additional research on the theory. It can be used as a supplementary textbook in an intense course on leadership--or as a primary text in a course or seminar focusing on transformational leadership. New in the Second Edition: New, updated examples of leadership have been included to help illustrate the concepts, as well as show the broad range of transformational leadership in a variety of settings. New chapters have been added focusing specifically on the measurement of transformational leadership and transformational leadership and effectiveness. The discussion of both predicators and effects of transformational leadership is greatly expanded. Much more emphasis is given to authentic vs. inauthentic transformational leadership. Suggestions are made for guiding the future of research and applications of transformational leadership. © 2006 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
A key issue in economic discourse today is the relation (or lack of it) between economic behaviour and morality. Few (presumably) would want to deny that human beings are in some sense moral or ethical creatures, but the devil is in the detail. Should we think of economic behaviour as an essentially amoral process - a process adequately characterised by a means-ends rationality - into which any number of subjective ethical concerns or orientations may be intruded to give a particular action its determinate moral content? Or is it rather the case that our moral being runs deeper than this, in the sense that all of our behaviour - ‘economic‘ or otherwise - is enabled or capacitated by a competence that is fundamentally ethical in character?
Presenting a follower-centered perspective on leadership, this book focuses on followers as the direct determinant of leadership effects because it is generally through follower reactions and behaviors that leadership attempts succeed or fail. Therefore, leadership theory needs to be articulated with a theory of how followers create meaning from leadership acts and how this meaning helps followers self-regulate in specific contexts. In this book, an attempt is made to develop such a theory, maintaining that the central construct in this process is the self-identity of followers. In developing this theoretical perspective, the authors draw heavily from several areas of research and theory. The most critical constructs do not come directly from the leadership literature, but from social and cognitive theory pertaining to follower's self-identity, self-regulatory processes, motivation, values, cognitions, and emotions and perceptions of social justice. Leaders may have profound effects on these aspects of followers and it is by analyzing such indirect, follower-mediated leadership effects that most ideas regarding leadership theory and practice are developed. Due to its broad theoretical focus, this book is relevant to a number of audiences. The authors' principal concern is with the development of leadership theory and the practice of leadership making the book relevant to audiences in management, applied psychology, and social psychology. They have tried to clearly define key constructs and provide practical examples so that the book could be accessible to advanced undergraduate students. However, the diversity of the underlying theoretical literatures and the complexity of the framework developed also make the book appropriate for graduate courses in those disciplines, and for readers with a professional interest in leadership theory or practice. © 2004 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
This essay lays out why many scholars, particularly historians, are inherently skeptical of counterfactuals. It highlights several of the most obvious errors that are often made by those undertaking counterfactual reasoning. It also highlights how these articles go a long way toward developing effective rules for the appropriate and most effective use of counterfactuals.
Organizational Identity presents the classic works on organizational identity alongside more current thinking on the issues. Ranging from theoretical contributions to empirical studies, the readings in this volume address the key issues of organizational identity, and show how these issues have developed through contributions from such diverse fields of study as sociology, psychology, management studies and cultural studies. The readings examine questions such as how organizations understand who they are, why organizations develop a sense of identity and belonging where the boundaries of identity lie and the implications of postmodern and critical theories' challenges to the concept of identity as deeply-rooted and authentic. Includes work by: Stuart Albert, Mats Alvesson, Blake E. Ashforth, Marilynn B. Brewer, George Cheney, Lars Thoger Christensen, C.H. Cooley, Kevin G. Corley, Barbara Czarniawska, Janet M. Dukerich, Jane E. Dutton, Kimberly D. Elsbach, Wendi Gardner, Linda E. Ginzela, Dennis A. Gioia, E. Goffman, Karen Golden-Biddle, Mary Jo Hatch, Roderick M. Kramer, Fred Rael, G.H. Mead, Michael G. Pratt, Anat Rafaeli, Hayagreeva Rao, Majken Schultz, Howard S. Schwartz, Robert I. Sutton, Henri Taijfel, John Turner, David A. Wherren, and Hugh Willmott. Intended to provide easy access to this material for students of organizational identity, it will also be of interest more broadly to students of business, sociology and psychology.
Accounts of leadership in relation to ethics can and do go wrong in several ways that may lead us too quickly into thinking there is a tighter relationship between ethics and leadership than we have reason to believe. Firstly, these accounts can be misled by the centrality of values talk in recent discussions of leadership into thinking that values of a particular kind are sufficient for leadership. Secondly, the focus on character in recent leadership accounts can lead to a similar error. The assumption here is that because good character is often a locus of descriptions of leaders, such character is necessary and sufficient for leadership. Thirdly, we can fall victim to an observer bias that colors our accounts of the leaders we admire and thus wish to either have or be, which in turn leads to the fourth way in which accounts of leadership can go wrong in their description of the role of ethics in leadership. Through inattention or through wishful thinking accounts of leadership can become merely prescriptive and stipulate that ethics is requisite and at least partly constitutive of leadership. Keeping in mind these ways in which accounts of leadership commonly go astray, we can say that any adequate account of leadership must, at least in the first instance, be able to differentiate not only between leadership and good ethical character, but also between leadership and power, authority, influence, managerial ability, and charisma. Taking a closer look at some of the ways that the relation between leadership and ethics is misconstrued is necessary to better understanding both leadership and its connection to ethics. It is, however, just a first step. Asking whether we have reason to think of leadership as an Aristotelian virtue should, we think, enable us to give a more accurate and useful account of the complexity of the relation. It also captures underlying reasons for wanting to see the two as intrinsically connected.
Claims that religion can influence ethical behavior in business are plausible to many people but problematic in light of existing research. Our analysis indicates that religious role expectations, internalized as a religious self-identity, can influence ethical behavior. However, relationships of religious role expectations to behavior are moderated by religious identity salience and religious motivational orientation. We conclude by discussing the influence of organizational context on religious identity salience and the need for innovative and interdisciplinary empirical research on religion and ethical behavior in organizations.
This article aims to contribute to the continued development of a coherent theory and practical implementation of sustainable development in the social context. It does so by presenting a systematic discussion on ‘social capital’, ‘social capacity’ and ‘social carrying capacity’ under the umbrella of environmental carrying capacity regarding environmental sustainability. Based on an in-depth literature review, the relationship between social capital and human capital is assessed in detail, the overlap between the social capacity approach and different capability approaches closely discussed and the use as well as the meaning of social carrying capacity in science and in practice for environmental sustainability is more intensively explored. In summary, the results of the analysis provide for all the three assessed terms an innovative variety of possible new contributions to future policy proposals and research priorities for social sustainability regarding population growth, social riots, overwork and technical overload obeying the environmental limits.
The trait theory of leadership suggests that personality traits influence leader emergence and effectiveness. While initial empirical evidence supports this perspective, the majority of studies have examined the relationship between personality and leadership using self ratings of personality. We believe that this research may underestimate the relationship between personality and leadership. We propose that personality assessed using both self and observer ratings explains more variance in leadership than self ratings of personality alone. Results from 155 participants in leaderless group discussions supported this hypothesis. Further, relative weight analysis revealed that observer ratings of extraversion explained the largest percentage of variance in leadership, followed by self ratings of openness to experience and observer ratings of openness to experience. Results of two-stage least squares regression analysis showed that the relationship between personality and leadership was mediated by contributions to group success. The implications of these results and directions for future research are discussed.
Considerable theoretical work has been done in the area of moral reasoning. However, little conceptual thinking has been done about the relations between moral cognition and moral action. As a result, empirical research in this area has been unsystematic and difficult to interpret. A theoretical model, the Self Model, is proposed here, starting from the assumption that moral reasons are functionally related to action. First, a concept of cognitive motivation is presented as necessary for any cognitive account of morality. Two cognitive approaches to moral conduct, Piaget's and Haan's, are then discussed in their positive contributions and in their limitations. The Self Model is finally described through a set of empirically testable propositions. Its major theoretical characteristics are: it is cognitive, recognizing as the central function of human cognition the appraisal of truth; it acknowledges a basic duality of motivation, but stresses the normative pull of cognitive motivation; it is developmental; it uses the self as the central explanatory concept, establishing both the sense of personal responsibility and the dynamism of self-consistency.
In this paper I argue that a greater understanding of the part of ethics in leadership will improve leadership studies. Debates over the definition of leadership are really debates over what researchers think constitutes good leadership. The ultimate question is not “What is leadership?” but “What is good leadership?” The word good is refers to both ethics and competence. Research into leadership ethics would explore the ethical issues of current leadership research, serve as a critical study of the field, analyze and expand normative theories of leadership, and develop new theories, research questions and ways of thinking about leadership.
To investigate the influence of Individual Psychology on positive nnodels of men- tal health, the researchers examined the relationship betvvieen Individual Psychology and positive psychology by predicting that social interest would be correlated with the constructs of hope and optimism. Participants included 43 students from a gradu- ate program in counseling. Social interest was significantly correlated with hope and optimism, and optimism was more significant than hope as a predictor of social inter- est. These results support the contention that social interest and positive psychology are positively correlated. Recommendations for further research are discussed.
examine career learning in organizational settings, with a focus on managers and executives / succession planning is examined as an organizational activity designed to promote continuity of leadership by preparing future generations of executives / describes research, theory, and practices aimed at tightening the links between strategy, succession planning, and managerial learning / a continuous improvement process based upon self-learning and organizational learning is advocated (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The author entitled his chapter, "Gus in the Gap," because more than anyone else in contemporary psychology Gus Blasi has been responsible not only for identifying and explaining the significance of the gap between moral judgment and action but also for helping to bridge this gap that has so befuddled the field. The judgment-action gap has been a recurrent conundrum for us, both as scholars seeking to understand moral functioning and as individual moral agents striving to live the good life. This gap is revelatory of some importunate aspects of the human condition. Topics discussed include the self model, negative consequences of philosophical constraints, and conceptions and experiences of morality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)