Power and Ethics

Power and Corruption

     Power can become addictive and become the destruction of an ethical person.  Many CEO’s worked hard and were ethical workers and leaders as they rose to the top.  Once they reached the pinnacle of their success, some changed.  The decisions that they once made are fogged with power. 

     The most important thing for a leader to remember and be aware of  is the ethical responsibility  and use of power.  The leader’s power should be used to help and not to harm. All leaders use power and politics to influence people and accomplish goals.  The power of the leader can influence others to reach the desired outcomes.   The types of power used by leaders are based on the leader’s position and personal qualities.   The three outcomes that result from the use of power are compliance,  resistance and commitment. 

     Leaders who use coercive power will probably result in resistance of his team and/or staff.   Leaders who use position as power will sometimes get compliance but could possibly encounter resistance.  Those leaders who use the position as power but also uses the power of reward will get compliance.  Those who just throw around their power because of their position will get resistance.  Leaders who use personal qualities as power will get committed followers.  They are more trusting of the leader. 

     Power is acquired, developed, and exercised through political activities.  Leaders use a wide variety of influence tactics based on general principles to assert influence.  The seven principles for asserting influence by leaders are:

·      Rational persuasion

·      Liking and friendliness

·      Reciprocity

·      Developing allies

·      Direct appeal

·      Scarcity

·      Formal authority

The most important thing in all this information is to the use of power and politics  ethically and responsibly.  Ethical leaders use the power to serve the organization’s goal, respect the rights individuals and groups, and strive to be fair in their dealings with everyone. 

     Lord Acton, 19^th century British historian states, “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  Lord Acton suggests that as a person’s power increases their morality decreases.   Unfortunately, this seems to be the case more now than in earlier years.  We have several different companies who have engaged in unethical acts that cost some consumers to lose everything they own.  It has led some leaders to commit suicide and others to spend the remainder of their lives in jail/federal prisons. 

    

      One of the most famous examples of not having an ethical leader is in the company Enron. According to Seeger and Ulmer, which is noted in Organizational Communication: Perspectives and Trends by Michael J. Papa, Tom D. Daniels and Barry K. Spiker, this is the best way to understand ethical failures.  Enron Corporation is a gas pipeline company that turned into a huge enterprise. In 2001, the company collapsed due to scandals and bad leadership. Basically, the reason why they failed was due to a set of values that employees had to agree to, but in fact executives were demonstrating a different set of values. Due to this miscommunication of values and other important facts, the company went bankrupt.  The conclusion to the Enron case, according to Wee Heesun, is that smart CEOs will realize that an honest, transparent, and trustworthy culture can also bolster employee morale and ultimately guard shareholder value.   Failure of the leader to recognize the need for the development and the importance of personal power will most likely increase subordinates’ resistance to change or direction. 

     The unethical use of power may help a leader achieve a short-term effect, but over the long run this behavior will cause the leader to become a detriment to the organization and force the organization to move against him or her. For example, in one organization a leader changed scrap records in order to impress higher level authorities. This unethical behavior eventually caught up to this a leader, as other unethical acts followed and the company replaced him. In another large American organization, a leader found guilt of altering the content of fruit juice paid dearly for this unethical conduct. Levinson (1978) claimed the leader with an abrasive personality, often of high intelligence, acts as a perfectionist–pushing hard toward accomplishments, consistently producing a superior job but not working well with others, usually fails to motivate subordinates. These type leaders often fail to live up to their potential, rarely rise very high in organizations, and have trouble delegating or empowering others (Levinson, 1978). While difficult to do, if top leaders would only point out the destructive tendencies of abrasive behavior and teach their subordinate leaders that such behaviors will not be tolerated, improvement might occur.

    

     To avoid unethical issues, leaders must remember that to increase their personal power, persuasiveness, and expertise will enhance their effectiveness. If leaders exercise authority over others with sensitivity, avoid dominating or threatening them, and rely on their expertise and personality to influence them, they can enhance their effectiveness. Effective leaders do not engage in unethical conduct nor display the characteristics associated with an abrasive personality, which would cause them to under-utilize the talents of their employees. Effective leaders increase their personal power by empowering others in the organization.

References:

Daft, Richard L.  (2008). The Leadership Experience. Cengage Learning.

Levinson, H. (1978, May/June). The Abrasive Personality. Harvard Business Review, 86-94.

Fuqua, Harold E., Payne, Kay E., and Cangemi, Joseph P.  (1992). Leadership and the Effective Use of Power. Western Kentucky University.