The role of self-leadership in becoming an ethical leader in the South African work context

  • Ebben van Zyl Department of Industrial Psychology, University of the Free State
Keywords: self-leadership, leadership, ethical leadership

Abstract

Unethical behaviour has reached unacceptable levels in South Africa. Ethical leadership is an important source of ethical influence, and therefore provides an impetus for finding ways of managing ethics in an organisational context. Ethical leadership, however, is influenced and affected by self-leadership. The objective of this conceptual and theoretical research, therefore, was to indicate how self-leadership can contribute to leaders becoming ethical leaders within the current South African work context. The social learning theory can be made applicable to self-leadership and ethical leadership, and was used as the basis for this study. It is indicated that self-leadership strategies can have an effect on ethical behaviour of leaders. 

References

Alves, J. C., Lovelace, K. J., Manz, C. C., Matsypura, D., Toyasaki, F. & Ke, K. 2006. A cross-cultural perspective of self-leadership. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21:338-359.

Bandura, A. 1986. Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Bass, B. M. 1990. Bass and Sodgill’s handbook of leadership. New York: The Free Press.

Becker, W. S. 2010. Ethics in human resources: An exercise involving new employees. Journal of Human Resources Education, 4(4):27-34.

Boshoff, E. & Van Zyl, E. S. 2011. The relationship between locus of control and ethical behaviour among employees in the financial sector. Koers, 76(2):20-31.

De Koker, L. 2007. Financial crime in South Africa. Economic Affairs, 27(1):34-38.

Dion, M. 2012. Are ethical theories relevant for ethical leadership? Leadership and Organisation Development Journal, 33:4-24.

Dirks, K. T. & Ferrin, D. L. 2002. Trust in leadership: Meta-analytic findings and implications for research and practice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87:611-628.

Dorosamy, N. 2010. The impact of the global crisis on ethical leadership: A case study of the South African public sector. African Journal of Business Management, 4:2087-2096.

Elliot, R. T. 2010. Examining the relationship between personality characteristics and unethical behaviours resulting

in economic crime. Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, 12(3):269-276.

Fox, E. 2010. Integrated ethics: An innovative program to improve ethics quality in health care. The Innovation Journal, 15(2):12-24.

Hauschildt, K. & Konradt, U. 2012. A conceptual framework of self-leadership in teams. Work and Organisational Psychology, 13(1):1-20.

Holtfreter, K. 2005. Is occupational fraud ‘typical’ white-collar crime? A comparison of individual and organizational characteristics. Journal of Criminal Justice, 33:353-365.

Ho, J. & Nesbit, P. L. 2013. Exploring self- leadership across Eastern and Western cultures. Journal of Service Science and Management, 6:241-249.

Houghton, J. D., Dawley, D. & Di Liello, T. 2012. The abbreviated Self-Leadership Questionnaire: A more concise measure of self-leadership. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 7(2):216-231.

Hunt, J. G. 1991. Leadership: A new synthesis. Thousad Oaks: Sage.

Kemp, S. 2002. South Africa’s dismal corporate ethics. Pretoria: Van Schaik.

Kouzes, J. M. & Posner, B. Z. 1993. Credibility. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Lange, M. 2001. Welcoming remarks. Presented at workshop: The moral renaissance: Government, politics and spirituality, 3-4 May 2000, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Lyons, A. 2011. Leadership ethics and the corporate ethics function: Leveraging HR to mitigate the risk. Capstone Paper, Master of Professional Studies in Human Resource Management. Georgetown: Georgetown University.

Manz, C. C. & Neck, C. P. 1999. Mastering self- leadership: Empowering yourself for personal excellence. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

Manz, C. C. & Simms, H. P. 1991. Superleadership: Leading others to lead themselves. New York: Berkeley.

Marx, B. & Els, G. 2009. The role of the audit committee in strengthening business ethics and protecting stakeholders’ interests. Africa Journal of Business Management, 4(1):5-15.

May, D. R., Hodges, T. D., Chan, A. Y. L. & Avolio, B. J. 2003. Developing the moral component of authentic leadership. Organisational Dynamics, 3:247-260.

McGee, J. A. & Byington, J. R. 2009. The threat of global white-collar crime. Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance, 2:25-29.

Mishra, N. & Sharma, G. 2010. Ethical organisation and employees. Asian Journal of Management Research, 4:59-80.

Neck, C. P. & Houghton, J. D. 2006. Two decades of self-leadership theory and research. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21:270-295.

Norris, E. 2008. An examination of self- leadership. Emerging Leadership Journeys, 2:43-61.

Papa, M. J., Daniels, T. D. & Spiker, B. K. 2008. Organisational communication: Perspectives and trends. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Palomino, P. R. & Martinez, R. 2011. Human resource management and ethical behaviour: Explaining the role of training in the Spanish banking sector. Ramon Llull Journal of Applied Ethics, 2:69-88.

Rest, J. R. 1994. Moral development: Advances in research and theory. New York: Praeger.

Segon, M. 2011. Managing organisational

ethics: Professionalism, duty and HR practitioners. Journal of Business Systems, Governance and Ethics, 5(4):13-25.

Seligman, M. E. P. 1991. Learned optimism. New York: Alfred Knopf.

Stead, W. E., Worrell, D. L. & Stead, G. S. 1994. An integrative model for understanding and managing ethical behaviour in business. In J. Drummond & B. Bain (Eds.), Managing business ethics, pp. 100-130.

Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. 2008. Trends in International unemployment. Stockholm: Aarhus.

Van Sandt, C. V. & Neck, C. P. 2003. Bridging ethics and self-leadership: Overcoming ethical discrepancies between employee and organisational standards. Journal of Business Ethics, 43:363-387.

Van Vuuren, L. J. & Eiselen, R. J. 2006. A role for HR in corporate ethics? South African practitioners’ perspectives. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 4(3):22-28.

Van Zyl, E. S. 2001. Management modelling behaviour: An important requisite for the implementation of business ethics. Koers, 66(3):233-239.

Van Zyl, E. S. 2012. The relation between self- leadership and certain personality traits among a group of first-line supervisors. Journal of Social Sciences, 31(2):159-165.

Van Zyl, E. S. & Lazenby, K. 2012. The role of leadership in reducing unethical behaviour and white-collar crime in organisational context. Acta Criminologica, 25(2):58-68.

Wolmarans, J. 2014. The effect of core ethical values on ethical leadership, organisational justice, ethical climate and leader effectiveness. Unpublished Master of Commerce thesis. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University.

World Economy Outlook. 2009. World economic and financial surveys: Crisis and recovery. Washington: International Monetary Fund.

Yukl, G. 2002. Leadership in organisations. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

Zuma, J. 2000. The need to restore the moral fibre of our nation. Paper presented at seminar: The moral renaissance – government, politics, ethics and spirituality, 3-4 May 2000, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Published
2015-01-12
Section
Articles