In the office setting, we have all had our brush with leaders or bosses who may not fit our image of a moral leader: Those who take credit unjustly, those who belittle, insult or humiliate workers in front of others, those who harass employees or co-workers and many other forms of offense. In the government, people in general are also looking for leaders who are trustworthy or reliable, respectable and those whose values are intact and solid. It is only natural to gravitate toward leaders, whichever organizational form or structure is concerned, whose practice is aligned with the general view on moral leadership.
A research team from Georgia State University and Erasmus University performed a study on moral leadership and examined data from 1970 to 2018 to determine how the morality of an organization’s leader affects the performance of the entire group. This study appears in the journal of the Academy of Management Annals. They found that “leaders who value morality outperform their unethical peers, regardless of industry, company size or role (and that) leaders who prioritized morality had higher performing organizations with less turnover and that their employees were more creative, proactive, engaged and satisfied.”
The only challenge, however, is defining what “morality” is. For some people, a leader may just be “joking around” when he or she makes an improper remark; and yet others may be offended by it. A coauthor in the study, Jim Lemoine, assistant professor of organization and human resources at the University of Buffalo, says, “Morality can be subjective, and how leaders put their own ethics into practice can have massive implications for the effectiveness of their leadership, teams and organizations.”
To avoid misunderstandings and offending some parties, a good leader needs to be open and talk about the sensitive issues. Lemoine’s professional advice: “Morality is a great thing for managers to incorporate into their leadership styles, but just because we consider something ‘moral,’ we can’t assume everyone else sees it that way. It’s important for leaders and organizations to get these differences out in the open and discuss them to avoid future misunderstandings and misconceptions.” He further adds that a leader must be able to define his or her own code of ethics and recognize that his or her approach may not exactly be to the liking of his constituents or followers.
I do believe that the findings from this study may be applied to other organizational forms or structures as well, like public governance. Common sense dictates that a leader who has a strong sense of morality will be able to run and nurture a positive organization, and inspire or promote “increased performance, engagement and motivation.” Ultimately, facts show that morality would be a pretty logical criterion to include in our list of qualifications when we choose our leaders in the next election. When that time comes, I hope we can remember the results of this research.