Introduction
Every leader should consider ethical standards while making decisions and planning actions. For young leaders, it may be particularly challenging and cause poor outcomes of their policies. This paper discusses this problem and refers to the existing research in the field. It also analyzes the changes of leadership ethics over the past two decades. The report concludes that young leaders encounter difficulties in maintaining ethical standards primarily due to the lack of experience.
Young Leaders and Ethical Standards
Maintenance of ethical standards is a vital component of effective governance. However, managing these standards may be challenging, especially for young leaders. According to Cooper (2012), ethical dilemmas may be associated with conflicts of authority, role conflicts, and conflicts of interest. Thus, the leader should have the capacity to manage these issues effectively. Although many young leaders encounter difficulties in maintaining strict ethical standards, I believe that the primary reason for it is the lack of experience rather than poor morals.
Ethical leadership implies the individual’s ability to ensure honesty, two-way communication, and transparency in their policies (Bedi, Alpaslan, & Green, 2016). A public leader is a role model for their followers, which means that it is vital for the leader to have the moral capacities and relevant experience to guide their decisions. To gain public respect, an individual should have empathy and sensitivity to the problems of society, be flexible, and have cultural intelligence. However, young leaders may lack the opportunities to practice these capacities to solve acute problems in the public field.
This argument can be illustrated by the following example. The study by Fritsch, Rasmussen, and Chazdon (2018) reveals that young people have higher self-esteem, desire to be high achievers, advanced levels of education, the skills to establish open communication and genuine relationships. These traits imply that young leaders have the capacity to maintain ethical standards. However, managing ethical standards is associated with the decisions that involve a conflict of interests, and strict enforcement mechanisms may be inapplicable to particular situations.
Downe, Cowell, and Morgan (2016) report that leaders should not only have strong morals but also be able to create moral codes by maintaining discipline, developing the system of rewards, and providing guidance.
It means that having relevant experience in the management of ethical issues is vital for effective leadership, which young people may lack. In my professional experience, I have encountered a 26-year-old leader of an organization who, at the beginning of his career, made decisions related to the company’s structure not considering their ethical implications and effect on workers. With time, he learned to establish communication with his employees and eliminated the existing problematic issues, which allowed for increased diversity within the company.
However, there are alternative viewpoints on the issue that should be considered. For example, some young people may encounter challenges in maintaining strict ethical standards due to goal-orientation and the desire to ensure excellent results at all costs. For them, the problems associated with ethical issues may occur due to the lack of sensitivity and awareness of the moral implications of their decisions, not experience.
In public service, the perspective of leadership ethics has shifted over the past 20 years (Downe et al., 2016). For example, the International City/County Management Association has used the same ethics code for the past 90 years (Downe et al., 2016). However, today, the leaders are expected to not only follow the code but also be moral persons as well as moral managers that can promote ethical decisions and provide guidance. As mentioned above, these tasks require not only skills but the experience to ensure excellent results.
Conclusion
The report shows that the primary reason for the difficulties associated with following strict ethical standards for young leaders is the lack of experience. The examples reveal that many of them have the necessary capacities to manage these issues effectively but are unable to apply them. The changes in the perspectives of leadership ethics also suggest that experience is vital to maintain moral decisions and practices.
References
Bedi, A., Alpaslan, C. M., & Green, S. (2016). A meta-analytic review of ethical leadership outcomes and moderators. Journal of Business Ethics, 139(3), 517-536.
Cooper, T. L. (2012). The responsible administrator: An approach to ethics for the administrative role. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Downe, J., Cowell, R., & Morgan, K. (2016). What determines ethical behavior in public organizations: Is it rules or leadership? Public Administration Review, 76(6), 898-909.
Fritsch, A., Rasmussen, C. M., & Chazdon, S. A. (2018). Old concept, new generation: Millennials and community leadership programs. Journal of Leadership Education, 17(4), 93-109.