Ethical leadership has been found to closely correlate with company productivity. This is because leadership directly affects the performance of employees. Recently, ethical leadership has been given a face lift in the way it is defined; according to Mumford (2009, 211), “ethical leadership is leadership characterized by behavior that is consistent with appropriate norms and promoting this behavior to followers.”
Two aspects are brought out in this definition: one, that the leader has to focus on ethical decisions always, that is, his/her behavior should be “appropriate based on norms, or the commonly accepted behavior, rules, or procedures of a situation” (Mumford, 2009, p. 211); the second aspect is that of being a public leader – a leader has to practice what he/she says and this has to be done both in public and private (Hussein, 2007, p. 1).
Therefore, an ethical leadership is a concept whereby a leader shows the way practically by advocating for certain values and practically showing that adopting those values is a possibility.
Ethical leadership is a very important aspect of leading an enterprise. First and foremost, it should be noted that it is practical leadership. It becomes easier for the employees to adopt the ways of their seniors when they see that the seniors really practice what they say; we can say that there is creation of a positive follower perception. Ethical leadership in this sense therefore creates a sense of unity in achieving a common purpose.
It becomes easier to lead people who know and believe that what their leaders say will be accomplished by the fact that the leaders will play a significant role in accomplishing the goals. It is evident that ethical leadership makes it a possibility for the employees to trust their leaders (Mills, 2005, p. 1).
Trust is a very vital value for the productivity of an organization; it makes it possible for employees to step up their performance by for instance making sacrifices where the need arises in the course of serving the organization.
Ethical leadership therefore is very important because it makes the management of employees a possibility and can be viewed as one of the best ways of effectively selling company goals to the employees (Freeman News, 2011, p. 1).
A marketing manager in a multinational enterprise should develop ethical leadership skills. It is worth noting that marketing by its nature exposes a person to others in many occasions. A leader in a marketing department will even be more exposed to employees under him/her and the organization’s clients; for such a leader, the first value and a significant one in this case in to display practical leadership.
Practical leadership as seen from above is ethical leadership; marketing managers more often interact with people in the course of undertaking marketing duties and therefore it is very significant that they practice what they say. Being practical as marketing manager will render credibility to what he/she is saying (Hsu, 2006, p. 1).
The operations of multinationals enterprises are wide and therefore they have big influence which spreads wide. A display of an unethical leadership by a marketing manager in a multinational enterprise will have a negative impact on the enterprise.
The fact that building a business image takes more time than tarnishing it should be put into consideration by marketing managers especially in the context of a multinational enterprise whereby a mistake in a branch in one country may equally have negative impact on other branches in other countries.
References
Freeman News. (2011) Crisis experts tout importance of ethical leadership. Web.
Hsu, D. (2006) Global Ethical Leadership. Web.
Hussein, M. (2007) Ethical Leadership Makes the Right Decisions. Web.
Mills, Q. (2005) Leadership How to Lead, How to Live. Web.
Mumford, M. (2009) Leadership 101. New York, NY: Springer.