reflective essay on ethical leadership

What is Ethical Leadership and Why is it Important?

Ethical leadership is not only the right thing to do, it is key to driving an organization's success.

Valerie Kirk

Errors, bad behavior, and poor judgment in leadership can negatively impact a company’s brand and reputation. For business success, it’s critical for organizations to fill their C-suite with ethical leaders.

Ethical leadership involves leaders and managers making decisions based on the right thing to do for the common good, not just based on what is best for themselves or for the bottom line. While profits are important, ethical leaders take into consideration the needs of customers, communities, and employees in addition to company growth and revenue when making business decisions. 

Ethical leaders encourage their team members to model this behavior, too. They help to build a workplace culture that values transparency, collaboration and inclusion, and where everyone feels safe to share their voice.

They can also help organizations recruit and retain top talent. Professionals are increasingly seeking out companies whose leaders strive to do the right thing. Generation Z, who will make up 25 percent of the workforce by 2025, demands leadership ethics more than generations that came before them. 

“Gen Z is not going to negotiate. They have really strong values and ethics, and they don’t bend them because of intimidation or because they are just getting a paycheck,” said Michael McCarthy, instructor at Harvard Division of Continuing Education’s Professional & Executive Development and host of the “ Happy at Work ” podcast. “The idea of letting harmful or hurtful behavior slide is not acceptable.”

Leaders who weigh ethical considerations before making key business decisions drive a company’s long-term success. 

The 6 Main Principles of Ethical Leadership

Having ethical leaders isn’t as simple as hiring “good” people. Companies should strive to fill their leadership ranks with people who embody the principles of ethical leadership. The six main principles include: 

Respect includes valuing others’ skills and contributions. While historically respect in the workplace may have been one-way (leaders demanding respect from employees), in an ethical work environment, respect is mutual. 

Mutual respect leads to healthier workplace relationships where both sides appreciate and support what the other is doing and feel secure in talking through issues and challenges. Healthy relationships create positive work environments, which drives increased productivity.

Current and upcoming business leaders should take mutual respect into account as workforce expectations continue to shift.  

“I tell current leadership to respect Gen Z. They have values and morals, and you’re going to have a better organization because of them,” McCarthy said. “They aren’t going to put up with the old hierarchy that doesn’t offer mutual respect.” 

2. Accountability

Ethical leaders hold themselves accountable for their actions. They make decisions based on integrity and stand behind their work. They also lead by example, communicate openly about challenges, and don’t look to place blame on others for any shortfalls.

Leaders make ethical decisions based on doing what is right for employees, customers, and the community. Because these constituents are always top of mind for ethical leaders, they often have a strong sense of service. They engage in activities such as charitable giving and volunteer work to give  back to their communities — and encourage their teams to do the same. 

Leaders who are transparent build trust amongst their organizations and amongst customers. 

To build and maintain trust, leaders must be good communicators who speak openly and honestly about issues. Regardless of the issue’s severity or unpopularity, leaders’ responsibility to be clear and candid  empowers others to make the right decisions with the information they have. 

Honesty and transparency also help to build a brand’s reputation, leading to long-term customer loyalty.

Justice is not just about following the law, but about ensuring that everyone is getting what they deserve. Ethical leaders approach situations with a focus on treating everyone fairly, and they expect their teams to treat each other and customers the same way. Through their actions, they build equitable work environments where everyone feels respected. 

6. Community

Ethical leaders view their companies as communities and consider everyone involved when evaluating situations and making decisions. By viewing their organizations this way, they build equity and inclusion into their decision-making process and create work environments that encourage collaboration across teams. 

Learn more about Harvard DCE’s Ethical Leadership program

Examples of Positive and Negative Ethical Leadership

The following three examples are of companies that were faced with ethical dilemmas and how different leadership styles led to vastly different outcomes. 

Johnson & Johnson

One of the most famous examples of ethical leadership was the case of the Tylenol cyanide poisonings in the early 1980s. Seven people died of cyanide poisoning, and the only connecting factor was that they had all taken extra-strength Tylenol. During investigation, it was discovered that the tablets were laced with cyanide.

Johnson & Johnson’s leaders acted quickly and pulled all Tylenol products off the shelves — 31 million bottles, worth over $100 million — and stopped all production and advertising. The swiftness of their decision, although costly, put customers’ well-being first and saved lives.

They partnered with law enforcement to find the perpetrator and subsequently developed the first-ever tamper-resistant packaging. They were transparent with the public about what they were doing to ensure this tragedy never happened again. 

The Tylenol brand recovered from the incident, largely because of Johnson & Johnson’s ethical leadership team’s swift action and transparent care for customers.

In 2008, JetBlue left passengers stranded on the tarmac at the John F. Kennedy International Airport for more than five hours during a snowstorm. The delay had a ripple effect — JetBlue had to cancel more than 1,000 flights over the following five days.

In response, JetBlue’s CEO wrote a letter of apology to customers. He also directed his team to draft a customer bill of rights, which outlined customers’ rights to information about flights and information about compensation in the event of delays or cancellations.

The CEO also participated in a public apology tour, taking full responsibility for the incident rather than blaming it on the weather.

His transparency and accountability created trust with customers, who stayed loyal to the airline.

Wells Fargo

In September 2016 , it was revealed that employees of Wells Fargo, one of the largest banks in the United States, opened millions of unauthorized accounts in order to meet aggressive sales targets. This widespread fraudulent activity was the result of a work culture that prioritized quantity over quality and pushed employees to engage in unethical practices.

Company leaders denied knowledge of fraudulent practices. The bank was hit with significant financial penalties, but because of the lack of accountability, they damaged the trust of their customers and investors. They reported a 50 percent profit loss in the quarter following the scandal.

Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership

Companies cannot underestimate the power of different leadership styles on their growth and long term success. Those who practice ethical leadership have positive corporate cultures where employees are engaged, motivated, and feel good about coming to work. Companies without ethical leadership face lower productivity and high turnover rates, impacting the organization’s bottom line.

Ethical leaders aren’t just born with these skills — they develop them over years of experience and training. 

Harvard DCE Professional & Executive Development offers a two-day Ethical Leadership program that helps leaders develop skills to make ethical choices and lead companies through challenging dilemmas. 

Topics covered include: 

• Making ethical decisions with conflicting responsibilities 
• Building a moral framework within yourself and the organization
• Understanding the role of employees in both their professional and personal lives 
• Navigating a slippery slope when seemingly good people do bad things
• Building a corporate culture that values moral behavior

Learn more about the ethical leadership program, including how to register.  

Leaders looking to expand their ethical leadership skills should also consider the two-day Authentic Leadership program , where they will learn how to develop mindfulness and authenticity to build trust, create engagement, and promote productivity. 

Explore all Executive Leadership and Management courses

About the Author

Valerie Kirk is a freelance writer and corporate storyteller specializing in customer and community outreach and topics and trends in education, technology, and healthcare. Based in Maryland near the Chesapeake Bay, she spends her free time exploring nature by bike, paddle board, or on long hikes with her family.

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Reflective Leadership Essay #2

by Alex Riviere | Oct 12, 2016

What role do ethics play in decision making? Example: Johnson and Johnson Internship

For me, ethics plays a large role in decision making. When we include ethics into our decision making we are acting in a way that shows awareness to the long term effects of our actions and the relationships between actors in our field. When we include ethics, we are making sure there is trust between different entities, which also helps the long term existence of organizations. On top of that, we can apply ethics while dealing with the interior of our organizations, our employees and the environment we create with them. Lastly, even though it is sometimes ambiguous and complex, it is the right thing to do. We have to be able to be proud of our decisions and understand fundamentally why we took the actions we did. When I think of a leader or an organization that represents the epitome of using ethics in decision making I always think back to my time working for Johnson and Johnson. Although I decided to choose another career path, Johnson and Johnson created a business environment that I think every company should strive for. First of all, they had not only a mission statement but what they call a “credo”. This outlined the values of the company and specifically to whom the company was responsible and the priority of those responsibilities. In the credo, it says that the company is responsible first to the patients, doctors and nurses who use their products. Second, they are responsible to the health and well-being of their employees. Third, they are responsible to the communities in which they are located. Finally, and they make a point to make it the last group, they are responsible to the stakeholders and their financial return. This credo is posted in every lobby of every company as well as in every meeting room. It is also handed to new employees on their first day. The credo is emphasized not only emphasized on a surface level but it is truly used in decision making. While I was there, I was told many stories of higher-up executives using this credo to turn down potentially lucrative business deals that had questionable ethics or would have tarnished relationships with customers or doctors. I was also in a meeting where the credo was referenced when making decisions about how to present an accounting statement. This is where I realized the integrity that the company had developed and the commitment to ethics through the credo. Integrity is how well someone or something can act in accordance with their values. It represents the honesty of an entity. Using ethics in decision making is already difficult but Johnson and Johnson managed to force it upon their leaders to make them not only think about it but use it when making decisions. What I have learned is this is the best practice for long term business growth. They made decisions that may have hurt them in the short run but it sent messages to the people who use their products that they are fully committed to the quality of their products and their relationships within the business. These relationships and trust made them more resilient to crises as we saw last year with currency plummets which are usually detrimental to multinational corporations. In this, we also find another nuance to the role ethics plays in decisions making and leadership. It is an ethical responsibility to create an environment and mindset for your employees that takes ethics into account. Johnson and Johnson also managed to disseminate these habits to the lower level employees as well. When I think about the banking crisis or recent events at companies like Wells Fargo, I am not sure that I could see something like that happening at Johnson and Johnson because they have instilled those credo values into their employees. What personal ethics do you consider when making a decision and how do you communicate this to external audiences?

Ethics is not only about doing black and white issues or doing what is right or wrong. There are complexities that must be taken into account when trying to decide what the ethical choice is in a situation. Personally, I try to always think of all the stakeholders involved. I ask myself who will this decision affect and how will it affect them. I also try to make decisions that create a net positive outcome. By this I mean that the positive effects of my decision have to outweigh the negative effects or else it is not worth changing course. Lastly, I always try to hear everyone’s opinion before making a decision. This is ethical because it shows respect for everyone’s perspective. Whichever decision I make, I try to always explain myself to the people who wanted a different outcome and often try to tell them before I make my decision public. Another point I want to make is I find that when people are working in development, NGO work or non-profit work, there tends to be a justification for a lack of ethics because they are working towards “the greater good”. I deliberately try to avoid this kind of thinking because it is dangerous. Human rights have been gravely violated in the name of development and it hinders the progress that could have been made. I try to remind myself that we are not just dealing with institutions. At the root of all our decisions are people. They will bear the fruits or the brunt of our decisions and as leaders, it is our job to make sure we consider all of the circumstances and options and to maximize the number of people who will profit from our decisions and minimize the number of people who will suffer because of them. I mentioned it in my last essay, but President Barron said something during one of our classes that has always stuck with me. Can we, at the end of the day, look at ourselves in the mirror and be proud of what we have done? Ignoring the social pressures and desire to be affirmed by others, can we be happy with our decisions and know that we made the right choice. That is what is most important when making tough ethical decisions, especially when they go against the grain.

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A New Model for Ethical Leadership

• Max H. Bazerman

Rather than try to follow a set of simple rules (“Don’t lie.” “Don’t cheat.”), leaders and managers seeking to be more ethical should focus on creating the most value for society. This utilitarian view, Bazerman argues, blends philosophical thought with business school pragmatism and can inform a wide variety of managerial decisions in areas including hiring, negotiations, and even time management. Creating value requires that managers confront and overcome the cognitive barriers that prevent them from being as ethical as they would like to be. Just as we rely on System 1 (intuitive) and System 2 (deliberative) thinking, he says, we have parallel systems for ethical decision-making. He proposes strategies for engaging the deliberative one in order to make more-ethical choices. Managers who care about the value they create can influence others throughout the organization by means of the norms and decision-making environment they create.

Create more value for society.

Idea in Brief

The challenge.

Systematic cognitive barriers can blind us to our own unethical behaviors and decisions, hampering our ability to maximize the value we create in the world.

The Solution

We have both an intuitive system for ethical decision-making and a more deliberative one; relying on the former leads to less-ethical choices. We need to consciously engage the latter.

In Practice

To make more-ethical decisions, compare options rather than evaluate them singly; disregard how decisions would affect you personally; make trade-offs that create more value for all parties in negotiations; and allocate time wisely.

Autonomous vehicles will soon take over the road. This new technology will save lives by reducing driver error, yet accidents will still happen. The cars’ computers will have to make difficult decisions: When a crash is unavoidable, should the car save its single occupant or five pedestrians? Should the car prioritize saving older people or younger people? What about a pregnant woman—should she count as two people? Automobile manufacturers need to reckon with such difficult questions in advance and program their cars to respond accordingly.

• MB Max H. Bazerman is the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and the author (with Don A. Moore) of Decision Leadership: Empowering Others to Make Better Choices (Yale University Press, 2022) and Better, Not Perfect: A Realist’s Guide to Maximum Sustainable Goodness (Harper Business, 2020).

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4 Examples of Ethical Leadership in Business

• 14 Sep 2023

Have you ever faced an ethical dilemma? Maybe you found someone’s wallet on the ground or witnessed someone cheating during a test or competition. In these scenarios, the right answer isn’t always clear.

In business, you’re bound to encounter ethical dilemmas, especially as a leader. Behaving unethically can be illegal—for instance, stealing money or harming employees. In these situations, making the right choice is clearer. Sometimes, it’s not a question of legality but of weighing potential outcomes.

“Many of the decisions you face will not have a single right answer,” says Harvard Business School Professor Nien-hê Hsieh in the online course Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “Sometimes, the most viable answer may come with negative effects. In such cases, the decision is not black and white. As a result, many call them ‘gray-area decisions.’”

When facing ambiguity, how do you make the most ethical decision? Here’s a primer on ethical leadership and four examples of leaders who faced the same question.

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What Is Ethical Leadership?

Ethical leadership is the practice of making decisions that balance stakeholders’ best interests with your company’s financial health, and empowering others to do the same.

As a leader, you have ethical responsibilities to four stakeholder groups—customers, employees, investors, and society—which Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability breaks down.

Responsibilities to Customers and Employees

• Well-being: What’s ultimately good for the person
• Rights: Entitlement to receive certain treatment
• Duties: A moral obligation to behave in a specific way
• Best practices: Aspirational standards not required by law or cultural norms

Employees have a fifth category—fairness—which comprises three types to consider:

• Legitimate expectations: Employees reasonably expect certain practices or behaviors to continue based on experiences with the organization and explicit promises.
• Procedural fairness: Managers must resolve issues impartially and consistently.
• Distributive fairness: Your company equitably allocates opportunities, benefits, and burdens.

Responsibilities to Investors

Your responsibilities to investors are known as fiduciary duties . The four types are:

• Duty of obedience: Adhere to corporate bylaws, superiors’ instructions, and the law.
• Duty of information: Disclose necessary information and remain truthful about performance and operations. Refuse to divulge certain information to nonessential parties.
• Duty of loyalty: Act in the most favorable way for shareholders and avoid conflicts of interest.
• Duty of care: Evaluate decisions’ potential outcomes before acting.

Responsibilities to Society

In addition to creating value for your business, you’re responsible for making a positive, or at least neutral, impact on society and the environment.

One framework to conceptualize this is the triple bottom line, also called the “three P’s”:

• Profit: Your business’s responsibility to make a profit.
• People: Your business’s responsibility to positively impact society by creating jobs, supporting charities, or promoting well-being initiatives.
• The planet: Your business’s responsibility to positively impact the natural environment, or at least not damage it.

Even business leaders with the best intentions can make unethical decisions. In a Harvard Business Review article , HBS Professor Max Bazerman describes the concept of motivated blindness , in which you become unaware of unethical decisions when they benefit you or your company.

Hsieh echoes this sentiment in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability .

“Even when the right thing to do seems clear from an outsider’s perspective, factors like time, social pressures, and the need for self-preservation can complicate things,” Hsieh says in the course.

Learning about ethical leadership can enable you to be aware of unintended negligence and make more conscious, ethical decisions.

Here are four examples of business leaders who faced ethical dilemmas, how they handled them, and what you can learn from their experiences.

1. Johnson & Johnson’s Tylenol Poisonings

A classic case of ethical leadership in business is “the Chicago Tylenol poisonings.” On September 9, 1982, a Chicago-area 12-year-old girl woke up with a cold. Her parents gave her a tablet of extra-strength Tylenol to ease her symptoms and, within hours, she died.

Six more deaths followed—the connecting factor between them was having taken extra-strength Tylenol shortly before passing away. It was later discovered that the tablets were laced with cyanide, a chemical that interferes with the body’s ability to use oxygen.

Johnson & Johnson, Tylenol’s parent company, had an ethical dilemma and a public relations disaster to contend with.

Baffled as to how the cyanide got in the tablets, Johnson & Johnson’s leaders acted quickly and pulled all Tylenol products off the shelves—31 million bottles worth over $100 million—and stopped all production and advertising.

The swiftness of their decision, although incredibly costly, put customers’ well-being at the forefront and saved lives.

Johnson & Johnson partnered with the Chicago Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to track down the perpetrator who added cyanide to the medication. The company offered a $100,000 reward and provided detailed updates on its investigation and product developments following the crisis.

When it became clear that the killer had bought the product, laced it with cyanide, and returned it to store shelves undetected, Johnson & Johnson developed the first-ever tamper-resistant packaging. The “safety seal” that now covers the opening of most food and drug products was born.

“Our highest responsibility has always been the health and safety of our consumers,” a Johnson & Johnson representative wrote in a statement to the Chicago Tribune . “While this tragic incident remains unsolved, this event resulted in important industry improvements to patient safety measures, including the creation of tamper-resistant packaging.”

The Tylenol brand recovered from the incident, largely because of Johnson & Johnson’s leadership team’s swift action and transparent care for customers.

2. JetBlue’s Shutdown

On Valentine’s Day, 2007 , at the John F. Kennedy International Airport, JetBlue Airlines sent nine planes from the gate to the runway during a snowstorm, hoping conditions would rapidly improve—but it had no such luck.

The misstep caused the planes to sit on the tarmac for more than five hours with disgruntled passengers inside. The issue snowballed from there.

Since JetBlue employees had to work overtime to deal with the delays, few had enough allowable flight time to handle upcoming departures. JetBlue was left with no choice but to cancel 1,096 flights over the following five days.

CEO David Neeleman responded by writing an apology letter to customers and crafting a “ customer bill of rights ” that the airline still abides by. The document outlined customers’ rights to information about flights, as well as how they’d be compensated in the event of delays or cancellations.

Neeleman also went on a public apology tour, taking full responsibility for the incident rather than blaming it on the weather.

This response stands in contrast to the 2022 Southwest Airlines incident that played out similarly but with less accountability from leaders. Initially caused by bad weather and then exacerbated by Southwest’s outdated booking systems, the 16,700 canceled flights left thousands stranded between December 21 and 31.

In contrast to Neeleman’s apologies and emphasis on customer rights, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan took a defensive stance, explaining in a video the impact that “record bitter cold” had on all airlines and that Southwest was doing everything it could to remedy the issue. While those points may have been true, the response didn’t go over well with customers who wanted to feel respected and understood.

Each leader's choices highlight the importance of being transparent and championing customer rights when facing similar issues.

Related: The Importance of Reflective Leadership in Business

3. Starbucks’s Racial Bias Incident

If one of your employees made a critical decision based on racial bias, how would you respond? That was the question Kevin Johnson, then-CEO of coffee shop chain Starbucks, had to answer in April 2014 .

One day, two Black men entered a Starbucks in Philadelphia and asked to use the bathroom. The manager on duty told them the restroom was for paying customers only, so they sat down to wait for their friend to arrive before ordering.

The manager called the police, who arrested the men for trespassing. Although no charges were filed, the arrest went viral and sparked protests throughout the United States.

Starbucks, which prides itself on being an ethical brand , has one of the most diverse leadership groups in corporate America—five of the board’s 14 members are women, and five are from racial minority groups. This racially motivated incident clashed with its values.

Johnson fired the manager who called for the arrest, apologized to the two men, and announced racial bias training for all Starbucks employees.

To emphasize the training’s importance, Johnson closed 8,000 locations on May 29, 2018, to educate 175,000 employees. This cost Starbucks an estimated $12 million in lost profit but spread the message that it cares about its customers, employees, and society.

Related: How to Create a Culture of Ethics and Accountability in the Workplace

4. The Muse Sticking Up for Employees

Ethical dilemmas often aren’t public scandals—even quiet, internal decisions can have enormous impacts. Kathryn Minshew, CEO and co-founder of The Muse , faced one such scenario in the early days of growing the online career platform.

She’d just signed a company to use The Muse’s recruiting platform. It was a major deal, and the young startup desperately needed revenue. But during the onboarding process, Minshew noticed the client’s representatives were talking down to her junior staff members. While they respected her, how they treated her team didn’t sit well.

She spoke with the client about it, effectively providing a warning and a chance to start the relationship on a better note. Still, the poor treatment of her team continued.

Minshew had a decision to make: Take the revenue despite the mistreatment or part ways with the client to support her team. She went with the latter.

“I told them nicely that it didn’t make sense to work together anymore and refunded the unused balance of their money,” Minshew says in an interview with Fast Company . “They tried to argue, but at that point, my mind was made up. I didn’t realize how relieved my team was—and how much they appreciated it—until after it was all done.”

By cutting ties with the client, Minshew fulfilled her ethical responsibility to create an environment that supported her employees’ well-being and right to be treated respectfully. In doing so, she built a strong foundation of trust and demonstrated that she’d have their best interest in mind—even at the business’s expense.

“I think backing your team in situations like that is really important,” Minshew says in the same interview, “but it’s not always easy, especially when you’re early-stage.”

How to Develop Ethical Leadership Skills

While these scenarios likely differ from those you face at your organization, ethical leadership’s guiding principles ring true.

To build your ethical leadership skills , consider taking an online business ethics course. In Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , Hsieh presents several real-world examples of ethical dilemmas, prompts you to consider how you’d respond to them, and then lets business leaders share how they handled each.

In the course, you also learn how to use frameworks and tools to conceptualize your responsibilities to stakeholders, make judgment calls in gray-area situations, and act decisively to reach optimal outcomes.

By learning from the challenges and triumphs of those who came before you, you can equip yourself to handle any ethical dilemmas that come your way.

Are you interested in learning how to navigate difficult decisions as a leader? Explore Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability —one of our online leadership and management courses —and download our free guide to becoming a more effective leader.

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A Reflection on Leadership based on my experience with the LEADER Project

Nov 2, 2012

Leadership is a quality that's innate in me. Whether it was in the playground at pre-school, the soccer-field growing up, student council in high school or various teams I am involved in at Ivey, a common theme has been my desire and willingness to lead. For a long time I thought this was because I enjoyed being in a position of control, a position of influence where I could shape the direction of a particular project or initiative. To some extent, this was the case; but I only recently realized that it was the desire to have an impact that I love most about being a leader. In fact, the ability to make an impact is how I would define leadership. Often times, leadership is seen as a title, a position that one is chosen for or given to make decisions and lead a group of people. These individuals are leaders, of course, as they're able to make significant impact on a large group of people; but we forget that leaders are everywhere in our society and more often than not they are leaders in an unorthodox sense. Whether they are artists, teachers, or musicians, many of them make an impact on their communities and those who choose to do so intentionally are leaders in their own right.

This is not to say that everyone can be a leader. I believe there are certain personality traits, skillsets and motivations that need to be present for effective leadership to take place. However, I believe leadership is a means to generating impact and I believe there are numerous individuals out there who do this on a daily basis who we would never consider as being leaders in the traditional sense of the word.

My LEADER experience has been paramount to me redefining my definition of leadership. I have personally been very fortunate to have had formal opportunities to develop my leadership skills and be provided with opportunities to exhibit it as well. This has given me tremendous exposure to new opportunities and only accelerated my growth as a leader. However, after visiting Russia I realized that such opportunities are unheard of in their communities. They don't have student councils, leadership institutes, summer enrichment programs or entrepreneurship incubators. These were all formal institutions that allowed me to practice and develop my leadership skills. This begged the question: is there a lack of leaders in Russia? Absolutely not. Many of the students I had a chance to work with were budding entrepreneurs with ambitious goals for solving critical problems in their communities. Several of them had already pursued various community service projects and some even had international experiences which they sought out on their own.

One student in our class, Julia, was particularly inspirational. She came from a very low-income family and was financing her tuition by founding an adventure sports startup. Specifically, she had partnered with a hot-air balloon pilot and began offering excursions to individuals in the nearby city of Samara. This was a brand new offering unbeknownst to a region that attracted little to no tourists. Despite this seemingly massive hurdle, Julia persevered with her vision and successfully ran this business over the course of the last two years. Since then, she has expanded their offerings to include mountain biking and hiking tours as well. This just goes to show the determination and commitment she made to her education and creating a service that genuinely added value in a unique way for her community. Julia didn't have mentors, venture capitalists or incubators to help guide her through this process. She did her own research, invested the little capital that she could afford and courage to take on this enormous challenge. Julia is a true leader.

Despite a lack of formal infrastructure in place to foster leaders in the traditional sense, many students were still forging their own ways of making an impact. This is what leadership is all about. I'm extremely fortunate and grateful for having the opportunity to experience this first hand. It inspires me to know that youth all around the world embody a passion for change, a desire to lead and a commitment to making an impact. LEADER is a phenomenal initiative that is supporting this dream and opening doors that otherwise may never have opened - for our students, the entrepreneurs, and for us, the LEADERites.

Leadership and Management Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Organizational learning, leadership and management.

The world is so dynamic and competitive. In this regard, most organizations are capitalistic in their operation and always want more. They want more profit, more shareholder value, and more market share, among others. The realizations of these objectives have been attained through the successful initiation, development, management and above all by the application of strategic human resource management.

However, within this cacophony, the role of the H.R. as a specialist is not only changing, H.R. practitioner is also sifting towards taking the roles of a manager. Indeed, human service sector has paid cognizance to the effective development and management of social services.

After serving as a social worker in the United Arab Emirates and taking cognizance of the family, social, and emotional adjustments and experiences, one thing that rings into the mind is the role of leadership and management in non-for-profit sector.

If reward and the driving factor in business is profit, one striking factor that remains a concern is how the non-for-profit sector can effectively achieve its broad objectives without focusing on profit.

The purpose of this study is to draw personal experiences in leadership and management as a social worker in the United Arab Emirates, explore the aspects of human services funding and examine leadership and management to ascertain whether they are mutually exclusive or interdependent.

Postmodernism marks a departure from the approaches of the modernist and views the world in a state of objectivity and progress towards enlightenment. The systems and culture within organizations are in constant demand for change. This is core reason behind challenges in assessing organizational strengths and weaknesses.

One specific area of research that has attracted interest from researchers is the impact of postmodernism philosophy on current theoretical and empirical research on management and leadership in human services.

According to Andersen and Taylor (2005) “postmodern critique of contemporary critical social theory under theorizes the current historical conjuncture, overstates its discontinuities with the recent past and foregoes responsibility for explaining why their views ought to be privileged or even entertained as serious cultural criticism.”

This example represents the current critique of postmodernism philosophy. However, its aspects have raised critical questions about classical traditions of approaches to leadership and management.

There is abidance in the fact that there stands a strong connection between a narrative and an action in management. According to Hudson (2009), “the action derives from intention or motivation, based on the particular narratives of an individual, irrespective of whether these are self-generated, after appropriation from a culture.”

The understanding is that the line of action taken by a leader or a manager largely depends on a wide range of situational factors, organizational cultures, and objectives. However, this is analyzed from narrative and postmodernism theory to achieve a deeper dissection of how to articulate strategy into mainstream management roles and sustain the outcomes of the plan.

In the analysis of leadership and management approach within the non-for-profit sector, success in management and leadership revolves around complex approaches to the management of human services.

Organizational behavior is perceived as obtaining the capacity to build effective relationships by achieving human objectives, organizational objectives, and social objectives.

However, organizational behaviour has been advanced as presenting numerous challenges and implications to the organizational context, and thus enlarging the complexity of organizational behaviour.

“A whole cocktail of factors has been presented as forming the basis for the adoption of organizational behaviours strategies, including costs reductions in transactions and strategic human services management (Harris and Hartman, 2001).

All these aspects of human services demand the delivery of leadership and management that foster positive transition along the increasing demands of organizational management approaches. One critical aspect of the reflection is process is the role of organizational learning.

Harris and Hartman (2001) define organizational learning as “the ability of the institution as a whole to discover errors and correct them, and to change the organization’s knowledge base and values so as to generate new problem-solving skills and new capacity for action.” In the recent past, learning has emerged to be a fundamental factor in every successful organization and include three common levels.

These are team learning, organization learning, and individual learning. Successful management of human services must integrate the concepts of organizational learning. This is more poignant in the case of non-for-profit organizational where the debate on sources of funds to finance human services still rages.

Despite the fact that leadership and management are not the same things, one clear fact is that they must go hand-in-hand. According to Gardner (2006), “leadership and management are necessarily linked, and complementary and any effort to separate the two is likely to cause more problems than it solves.”

Two aspects of leadership and management that encompass the current theoretical and empirical research on management and leadership in human services upon this reflection are consistency and valuing others.

Both postmodernism and narrative theories posit that the society is always in constant pressure to change and that change must have with the capacity and sustainability to ensure success. Consistency and value for others and their contributions are core determinant of change and eventual sustainability because the two are interlinked and congregate for improvement on organizational bottom-line.

One successful factor within this area of leadership and management involves developing teamwork and a sense of collective responsibility.

By appreciating the role of team members and how unique the chemistry that exists between team members, and internal and external communities, a leader or manager within the non-for-profit sector is likely to draw in the inclusive approach to leadership that seeks to appreciate the diverse thoughts of team members.

To achieve sound leadership that is compassionate and people-centered, there is need to understand not only the unique cultures at of the stakeholders but also the complexities and make adjustments in regards to leadership styles to the local context.

Having a complete analysis of the economic, political and social aspects that surround the non-for-profit organization has the capacity to enable a leader or manager discharge his or her services in sound manner.

The results of the analysis of self-reflection on leadership and management approaches within the non-for-profit organization in U.A.E. also indicate that leadership is not theoretical but is practical in that they act within the applicable and practical wisdom that draws its basis from the existing realities.

The understanding is that motivating others has a moral nature because it is concerned with the development of human beings in all dimensions. The philosophy of postmodernism asserts that the organizational must view its culture past the realms of modern approaches.

To understand this moral perspective of organizational management, there is need to underline the importance of being sensitive to the complex local context and grow along a continuous learning path.

The personal reflections of leadership and management within non-for-profit sector in U.A.E. point to the critical component of consistency in organizational ethics, values, beliefs and principles. In fact, consistency forms an essential trait in leadership standards, forms a significant theme in transformational leadership and transcends all levels and forms of leadership.

The understanding is that social workers are volunteers who are not only the most prized assets of these organizations but are in need of leadership and management that inspire and motivate. It there calls for leadership approach that is encompassed by a process that involves continuously influencing people and staying consistent throughout.

In the understanding that this is a growing subsector, the core values that define her leadership in the context of organization is character, honesty, integrity, equity, trustworthiness, self-discipline, courage, fairness and a range of positive leadership and management attributes are critical for success. These demonstrate the ethical leadership within this context must be devoid of controversy but compounded by consistency.

Furthermore, consistency of values forms a critical component of transformational leadership. In this regard, a leader is likely to lose support and following in the event of lack of consistency because the ability to stay consistent forms the true definition of effective leadership. This is in the view that employees look up to the leaders and the process of staying along the path of consistency must be continuous.

Consistency, therefore, forms entrenched belief and values of a leader in that in influencing others to follow their steps, leaders within organizations pursue a moral cause that is definitely not a one instant or a cause that is of short period. The ideology of consistency in transformational leadership within a non-for-profit organization is a crucial determinant to success.

On the other hand, bestowing great value on others and their contributions is a seed for success in leadership and management. As a growing sub-sector, non-for-profit calls for innovative leadership and management approaches capable of motivating others. Valuing others includes a distinguished view of others, respect for individuals and relationships, constant interaction and communication with people, and shared leadership.

Despite pitfalls and hurdles within the developing non-for-profit sector in U.A.E., The analysis of its leadership and management approaches project that having a fundamental respect for others and relationships has been considered as a critical factor in successful leadership within the context of organizational leadership and is considered central by all stakeholders.

This is an approach to transformational leadership that has been proposed by researches as effective in eliciting motivation and commitment. The pivotal role of valuing the contributions of others and having a fundamental respect for others’ opinions constitutes the definitive elements of transformational leadership.

Within the context of transformational leadership, this approach has been demonstrated as fundamental commonality in the analysis of the case of non-for-profit sector in U.A.E.

Within this emerging theme, leading from an ethical perspective is about working interdependently to construct a collective good for an organisation. This means that effective leadership calls for a collective responsibility for the achievement of set goals and objectives.

The importance of giving enough value to within this emerging sub-sector cannot be underestimated given the unique leadership and management challenges it faces. It is imperative and common knowledge that to effectively engage, influence followers and share values, beliefs and goals, each participating side of the engagement must appropriately value the opinions and contributions of others.

In fact, this technique of leadership has been documented to have the greatest effect on its ability to influence others and achieve their trust and loyalty.

In addition to the above, effective leaders understand and respect others’ values and, in turn, seeks to reconcile the potential tensions between personal values and organisational values.

Most participants within this sub-sector abide in the idea that valuing other people is the best strategy to the development of quality relationships that is critical for human diversity. The abidance in the critical role of valuing other people has been advanced by a number of literatures in the analysis of effective leadership.

Emerging themes from the above discussions demonstrate that both narrative and postmodernism philosophies continue to point out critical questions in sociology and within this aspect, the management of human services. The dynamic and competitive world brings with it changes in human service management.

In non-for-profit organizations, leadership and management are interdependent and any attempt separate the two remains disastrous for an organization attempting to portray the best in human service management.

Andersen, M.L. and Taylor, H.F. (2005). Sociology: understanding a diverse society. Cengage Learning.

Gardner, F. (2006). Working in Human Service Organizations: Creatng connections for practice. South Melbourne. Oxford University Press.

Harris, O.J. and Hartman,J. S. (2001). Organizational Behavior. N.Y. Routledge

Hudson, M. (2009). Managing without profit: leadership, management and governance of third sector organizations in Australia. Sydney. University of New South Wales Press.

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Responsible Leadership and the Reflective CEO: Resolving Stakeholder Conflict by Imagining What Could be done

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• Published: 23 June 2021
• Volume 180 , pages 313–337, ( 2022 )

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• Nicola M. Pless   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3497-7541 1 ,
• Atri Sengupta 2 ,
• Melissa A. Wheeler 3 &
• Thomas Maak 4  

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In light of grand societal challenges, most recently the global Covid-19 pandemic, there is a call for research on responsible leadership. While significant advances have been made in recent years towards a better understanding of the concept, a gap exists in the understanding of responsible leadership in emerging countries, specifically how leaders resolve prevalent moral dilemmas. Following Werhane (1999), we use moral imagination as an analytical approach to analyze a dilemmatic stakeholder conflict (between indigenous communities in rural India and an emerging market multinational enterprise headquartered in the same country) through the lense of different responsible leadership mindsets and in light of different ethical principles and moral background theories. Based on this analysis, we arrive at a tentative moral judgement, concluding that the instrumental approach is morally inferior and recommending the integrative approach as the morally superior choice . In the subsequent discussion—focussed on what “could” (instead of “should”) be done, we apply the integrative script and use moral imagination as a pathway for generating morally justifiable solutions. Through this analysis, we provide novel insights on how to apply an integrative responsible leadership approach to a stakeholder conflict situation, using the single case study to expand the responsible leadership discussion to emerging markets.

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Introduction

In light of pressing societal problems (e.g. geopolitical instability, failing states, climate change, pandemics, social inequality) and growing power of multinational corporations (MNC) business leaders are increasingly asked to show responsible leadership – to do better – and to do more by contributing to solutions that benefit all stakeholders, through collective value creation (Donaldson & Walsh, 2015 ). Indeed, calls are made for responsible business leadership by scholars (e.g. Doh & Stumpf, 2005 ) and practitioners (e.g. Schwab, 2017 ) alike.(1) In the aftermath of the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos, which was dedicated to the topic of “Responsive and Responsible Leadership”, the CEO of BlackRock (the world’s largest wealth management firm), argued that “profits and purpose are inextribably linked” (Fink, 2017 ) and urged his fellow CEOs to show responsible leadership for the benefit of all stakeholders. However, this is not an easy endeavour, particularly if stakeholder conflicts emerge in complex settings.

Responsible leadership (RL) can be understood as “a relational [and purpose-driven] influence process between leaders and stakeholders geared towards the establishment of accountability in matters pertaining to organizational value creation” (Maak et al., 2016 , p. 464). While there is growing agreement among business leaders that responsibility at the individual and organizational level is important, there is a general knowing-doing gap in regard to responsible leadership (McKinsey, 2006 , 2010 ), and only limited ‘orienting knowledge’ for executives to lead responsibly in emerging countries, let alone navigating complex or dilemmatic situations. The focus of this paper is a real-life case of a new CEO of an Indian multinational aluminum production company, who was exposed to such a dilemmatic stakeholder conflict in his home country. Instead of prescribing a certain moral approach (i.e. “should do”), our aim is to provide a discussion of perspectives suitable for practitioners, scholars and students alike to guide reflection on responsible decision-making by exploring “what could be done” in navigating dilemmas, crises and conflict situations, and subsequently developing morally imaginative solutions.

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) and RL are mostly discussed in light of MNC from developed countries (Egri & Ralston, 2008 ; Preuss et al., 2016 ), they are equally (if not more) important for top executives in non-Western and emerging country multinationals (Berger et al., 2011 ; Stahl et al., 2016 ). This is due to the rapid growth of emerging country MNC and their expanding role in the global economy (Gammeltoft et al., 2010 ; Miska et al., 2016 ); and the context in which they operate, which is often characterized by poor institutional conditions, weak rule of law, political instability and corruption (Cuervo-Cazurra et al., 2018 ; Marano et al., 2017 ; Stahl et al., 2018 ). The upper echelon of MNC, through their value systems and decisions, impact the broader ecosystem, locally and globally, and they play a pivotal role in resolving grand societal challenges (George et al., 2016 ). Hence, the call for responsible business leadership is based on the hope that businesses and their leaders can contribute to positive and sustainable change for the better.

However, calls for RL do not necessarily and automatically lead to positive development for people at the local level (e.g. Hennchen, 2015 ; Murphy & Vives, 2013 ). In poor countries with weak institutional contexts, business leaders may be inclined to simply adjust to the local context or “mirror” the low standards in their home countries (Preuss et al., 2016 ). This approach may be exarcerbated in crisis situations and is particularly pertinent to stakeholder conflicts.

Literature on responsible leadership in emerging markets is rare and has mainly focused on leaders of Western MNC conducting business in emerging economies (Moody-Stuart, 2014 ; Stahl et al., 2016 ) with only few empirical studies dedicated to responsible leaders doing business in their (home) emerging countries (e.g. Doh et al., 2011 ; Maak & Stoetter, 2012 ; Pless & Appel, 2012 ; Van de Loo, 2006 ).(2) These studies are predominantly about founders of responsible business organizations, or social enterprises, who have shaped the organizations through their mindsets and their moral values, virtues and principled behaviour. Little attention has been paid to RL in adverse contexts and situations (Coldwell et al., 2012 ; Varma, 2020 ). In this paper, we address this void by analyzing an aluminium production company’s decade-long struggle to commission a greenfield project in Odisha, India, and the dilemma faced by their new CEO.

The scenario was as follows: In the early 1990s, a MNC, specialising in metal refinery, acquired land and received approval from the Indian government to commence a greenfield project in rural India. However, the MNC faced criticism, resistance, and protests from both, NGOs and from the indigenous people who resided in the affected area, leading to massive delays and a decade-long conflict, including the death of three indigenous people following a protest that got out of control. A new CEO was appointed in 2000 to resolve the conflict and to drive the project ahead. Such stakeholder conflicts are steadily increasing worldwide (Banerjee, 2018 ), highlighting the challenges that leaders face and the importance of engaging in responsible leadership to overcome them. In the current paper, we aim to use this case study of actual events, described in more detail below, to analyze and reflect on the actions of the CEO and to recommend a dilemma resolution technique to enhance responsible leadership through the use of moral imagination.

Data for the case were gathered based on multiple rounds of data collection conducted during 2009 and 2012. We used both retrospective and observational methods. The retrospective data were collected through interviews after the incidents took place; and also included the company’s archival documents, newspaper clippings, internet information about the company and census data. Observations were made by one of the authors in person through discussions with multiple stakeholders while the incidents happened. Notes were taken to document the observations. More information on the research methodology is provided in the Appendix.

We use this case as a heuristic for ethical analysis . Instead of applying an empirical approach and thus using the case to generate new theory from inductive reasoning, we observe and analyze patterns and regularities in the case to derive theoretical conclusions (Alamgir & Cairns, 2015 ) and generate morally imaginative solution approaches.

Based on this single case study, we discuss how responsible executives of emerging country MNC in weak institutional contexts could approach crisis situations involving ethical dilemmas in order to achieve the best results for all legitimate stakeholders involved. More specifically, we use the case a basis for reflection on the decision dilemma in order to generate creative ethical solutions.

More specifically, we argue that leaders who intend to develop responsible solutions need to engage in moral imagination (Werhane, 1999 ). Moral imagination (MI) is a morally creative way of approaching wicked problems or dilemmas that may not have a clear solution – one that is morally right and an alternative option that is clearly morally wrong. Complex stakeholder settings may cause dilemmas which are dynamic and messy, preventing ‘quick fixes’ and clear solutions. Often these dilemmas are grounded in values – not right vs wrong, but right vs right (Kidder, 1995 ) – and require individuals to choose from “a diversity of goods” (Johnson, 1993 ). In other words, they are confronted with competing moral imperatives (Zhang et al., 2018 ). In these scenarios, moral imagination allows individuals to gain some distance and perspective and to come up with a "…third way—a kind of middle ground through the extremes…" (Kidder, 1995 , p.167).

Moral imagination enables people to step back from dilemmatic presentation of two competing options (often based on deontological versus utilitarian thinking) and to ask themselves “what could be done?” (Zhang et al., 2018 ), thereby allowing the emergence of other possibilities beyond existing opposites. This is important since existing opposites can lend themselves to false dichotomies which often end in analysis paralysis (Bazerman & Moore, 2012 ).

We contend that this is particularly important for leaders of MNC who operate in organizations that are exposed to different legislations and diverse normative contexts – what is right at home, may not be right from a global perspective, particularly when human rights or SDGs are adversely affected. Hence, conflicts and dilemmas may arise from a clash of global norms and values but they may equally be the result of a clash in local norms and local values, or indeed, a combination thereof (Donaldson, 1996 ).

The purpose of this article is therefore (1) to investigate the link between RL and moral imagination in the pursuit of creative ethical solutions to dilemmas and grand societal challenges, and (2) to generate “orienting knowledge” (Mittelstraβ, 1982 ) on how leaders in emerging and developing countries could approach stakeholder conflicts, dilemma and crisis situations in a morally imaginative way. Moreover, we provide insights on how to apply a responsible leadership framework when responding to local CSR standards while adhering to global CSR norms (e.g. Donaldson, 1996 ; Stahl et al., 2018 ).

With this article, we contribute to the literature on responsible leadership by systematically analyzing the ethical bases of different RL mindsets in face of a crisis situation, introducing moral imagination to the RL discourse, and further developing the understanding of an integrative RL logic. Secondly, we contribute to the leadership discussion in the field of international management by explicitly addressing and reflecting on the moral challenges and tensions between local CSR responsiveness and global CSR standardization that executives of emerging MNC can face in crisis situations in their home countries, and providing “orienting knowledge” for tackling such situations based on an integrative and morally imaginative RL approach.

This article is structured as follows. We provide a brief literature review on responsible leadership (and its theoretical foundation) and moral imagination. We then present the case, and subsequently conduct an ethical analysis from two contrasting (but not opposing) responsible leadership viewpoints: instrumental and integrative responsible leadership. The analysis is guided by two concepts: normative business intentions and central ethical philosophies. We then discuss consequences of the responsible leadership approaches for strategic decision-making and stakeholder relations in a crisis situation and propose ethically reflective and morally imaginative ways in which an integrative leader could respond to the situation. We conclude with theoretical and practical implications.

Responsible Leadership

Traditional leadership research focuses mainly on the individual level and examines the relationship between leaders and direct reports (followers) and how leaders exert dyadic influence over them “to guide, structure, and facilitate activities and relationships” to achieve certain objectives (Yukl, 2012 , p. 6). RL broadens the leader–follower relationship and encompasses a broader group of stakeholders as followers (e.g. Doh & Quigley, 2014 ; Freeman & Auster, 2011 ; Maak & Pless, 2006 ; Voegtlin, 2011 ; Waldman & Galvin, 2008 ) that leaders interact with, have responsibility for, and try to mobilize (Pless & Maak, 2011 ). This approach acknowledges that leadership projects unfold within a broader stakeholder environment in which business leaders operate. Moreover, it acknowledges the complex relational nature of leadership and that leadership responsibilities extend beyond the dyadic relationship of leader and follower – and that as a consequence leadership motives and values may be contested. Behaving responsibly means not only avoiding harm, but also doing good and being good – displaying a virtuous character (Cameron, 2011 ). In addition, leaders must be prepared to mirror relational complexity through behavioral complexity. Behavioral roles associated with RL, and introduced in the roles model of responsible leadership (Maak & Pless, 2006 ), include normative roles (citizen, steward, visionary), relational roles (servant, weaver/boundary spanner) and operational roles (change agent, architect and coach). These roles are overlapping, they form an integrated whole – a “gestalt”. Depending on time and place the leader enacts different roles or different sets of roles as required (Maak & Pless, 2006 ).

A key idea of RL is that leaders influence and mobilize stakeholders inside and outside the organization to achieve results for business and society. The call for leaders to embrace CSR (Fink, 2017 ) and act as corporate citizens (Schwab, 2017 ) increases the set of objectives that leaders pursue (e.g., contributing to the SDGs), broadens the stakeholder focus and (depending on leaders’ approaches and objectives) widens the sphere of influence. New challenges emerge for leaders of MNC, such as leading a business responsibly in a multi-stakeholder context, pursuing multiple objectives (e.g. financial profit and social purpose), ensuring sustainability for the firm and society, and decision-making in light of adverse impact on stakeholders and the environment.

In essence, upper echelons are challenged in regard to leadership issues emerging at the strategic level and pertaining to questions of accountability, values and purpose of the firm (Freeman et al., 2007 ), which in turn influence resource allocation in terms of, e.g., money, time, attention to, and engagement with stakeholder groups. As a consequence, effective and responsible approaches are required and essential in situations of conflicting stakeholder interests and demands where leaders need to mitigate tension and reconcile conflicts and dilemmas.

The Role(s) of a Responsible Leader

Responsible leadership roles that are particularly relevant to the above mentioned leadership challenges are the normative roles of the leader as steward, citizen, and visionary. The leader as steward is a custodian of values and resources with a strong ethical decision-making compass (Paine, 2006 ). The enactment of this role implies to protect what one is entrusted with (this can range from organizational values and heritage to environmental protection) and to ensure that there is consistency between the philosophy of the firm (including values and purpose) and the actions and deeds of organizational members in interaction with stakeholders (Maak & Pless, 2006 ). The leader as visionary has foresight and a long-term perspective. Role behaviour include the motivation and inspiration of followers through a clear sense of purpose directed towards all legitimate stakeholders of an organization. Lastly, the leader as citizen recognizes that business is part of society and has a co-responsibility in addressing and resolving societal problems. As part of this role he/she demonstrates caring behaviour aimed at the well-being of local and global communities that are impacted by business operations (Pless, 2007 ).

Other roles have a particular relational character, such as the roles of servant, weaver/boundary spanner and communicator, and are of particular relevance for stakeholder interaction and engagement. The servant leader cares about the needs and interests of internal and external followers and shows a high degree of relational intelligence (Pless & Maak, 2005 ) when interacting with different stakeholders. The leader as weaver takes on boundary spanning roles at the interface of firm and external stakeholders. Leaders at the upper echelon navigate dynamic webs of relations around their organization, including other firms, the environment, and communities in which they operate (Finkelstein et al., 2009 ; Maak et al., 2016 ). They are responsible, both for facilitating the relational processes with and among stakeholders and for the quality of these relationships. As communicators leaders articulate the particular purpose and vision of the firm, provide direction to followers and interact with stakeholders in business and society. It is also through communication that conflicts of interest among stakeholders can be mitigated (Maak et al., 2016 ).

Moreover, and in more operational terms, the strategic direction or redirection of the firm may require that leaders act as change agents . However, in contrast to transformational leadership theory (e.g. Bass, 1990 ), initiating change is not seen as an end in itself but as a means to build and cultivate responsible business (Maak & Pless, 2006 ). There is hope that businesses and their leaders through their power, resources and influence can contribute to positive and sustainable change for the better. As architect the leader ensures that a moral infrastructure is in place and that systems and processes are fair and inclusive. And in the role as coach the leader supports followers in achieving their individual and organizational objectives, and in engaging with the community. In comparison to the other roles in the model, the role of the architect and coach are not immediately relevant for the handling of the crisis situation (though they become relevant in terms of organizational development), and therefore not discussed in such depth as other roles.

Responsible Leadership and Stakeholder Theory

There is agreement that responsible leadership is grounded in stakeholder theory (e.g. Doh & Quigley, 2014 ; Freeman & Auster, 2011 ; Maak & Pless, 2006 ; Voegtlin, 2011 ; Waldman & Galvin, 2008 ) – a view that is echoed by recent statements of senior business leaders, as indicated above. More specifically, our approach to responsible leadership is based on normative stakeholder theory and reflects on underlying moral or philosophical principles (Donaldson & Preston, 1995 , p. 72). As such it is particularly relevant for RL pertaining to decisions on value judgements, legitimacy and stakeholder preferences at the level of the upper echelons (e.g. Maak et al., 2016 ; Waldman et al., 2006 ). Leaders’ values and normative mindsets (including intentions and attitudes) drive their behaviour (e.g. decision-making), which in turn impact organizational approaches towards stakeholders and CSR (e.g. Chin et al., 2013 ; Sully de Luque et al., 2008 ) and are especially relevant in situations that require decisions under time constraints, as in the crisis situations exemplified by the following case.

Maak et al. ( 2016 ) have identified two normative responsible leadership approaches, an “instrumental” one and an “integrative” one. Leaders with an instrumental RL approach are described as being focused on organizational objectives (e.g., maximizing profits, realizing growth) and business performance, paying little or no attention to non-core business issues. They feel only accountable to shareholders of the firm (fiduciary duty towards the owners of the firm) and have a limited range of stakeholder interactions, mainly focused on shareholders/owners of the firm and a selected group of core business constituents, such as employees, suppliers, governments. They understand these constituents as means to an end to achieve business ojectives and interact in an instrumental, transactional and/or rule-based manner (Pless et al., 2012 ). In contrast, leaders with an integrative RL approach are described as leading with a broader focus on value creation and integrating business and societal objectives. They feel accountable to all legitimate stakeholders (social welfare orientation) and engage with a broad range of constituencies, including fringe stakeholders. They understand these constituents as ends in themselves, engage in active communication and collaboration with stakeholders, and pursue a collaborative and inclusive approach.

Central Ethical Orientations in Responsible Leadership

Moral and ethical concepts of leadership are criticized for either reflecting a Western-based perspective (e.g., Young, 2006 ) or being conceptually vague without articulating specific norms that moral leaders can refer to (e.g., Giessner & van Quaquebeke, 2010 ). As a response, and to avoid ethical relativism (Donaldson, 1996 ), Eisenbeiss ( 2012 ) derived a set of four principles (humane orientation, justice orientation, responsibility and sustainability orientation and moderation orientation) called central ethical orientations of leadership. The review comprised ancient Western traditions (Plato, Aristotle) and Eastern traditions (Confucianism), as well as modern Western traditions (Kant, Rawls, Jonas) and modern Eastern traditions (Tagore). Western world religions that were studied comprised Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and Eastern world religions comprised Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism. These central ethical orientations reflect an intercultural and interdisciplinary view of the normative foundations of moral leadership concepts and “present the cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural ‘lowest common denominator’” (Eisenbeiss, 2012 , p. 794), or the minimum standard to which most cultures converge. In our study, they serve as normative reference points. The intersection of these orientations with literature on RL is discussed in the following.

Humane Orientation

A humane orientation is a virtuous and relational approach based on the understanding that others should be treated with respect and dignity (Melé, 2016 ; Pirson, 2017 ; Pless et al., 2017a , 2017b ), and seen as ends, not as means to an end (Eisenbeiss, 2012 ; Jones et al., 2007 ). A humane orientation can be observed by responsible leaders’ way of interacting with stakeholders – their compassion and true concern and care for the well-being of others and the recognition and protection of their rights. As such it transcends self-interest, includes an altruistic spirit (Melé, 2009 ), as well as respect for dignity and human rights (Eisenbeiss, 2012 ; Honneth, 1997 ), and identifies its roots philosophically in Kant’s ( 1977 ) categorical imperative, the Confucian golden rule (Ivanhoe & Van Norden, 2001 ), and also in religions such as Christianity, Buddhism and Sikhism. Humane orientation is also a main dimension in the intercultural leadership study GLOBE (House et al., 2004 ).

Justice Orientation

A justice orientation is a form of fair and consistent decision-making and treatment of others. For leaders this means treating people equally and refraining from discrimination (De Hoogh and Den Hartog 2009 ; Eisenbeiss, 2012 ; Olsaretti, 2018 ). The concept of justice has a rich tradition in Western religion and moral philosophy. However, Eisenbeiss ( 2012 ) points out that it also plays a central role in other religions like Islam and Sikhism. Fairness and justice are recurring topics in research on global leadership (e.g., Stahl et al., 2016), leadership ethics (Ciulla, 2006 ; Ciulla et al., 2018 ), theories of ethical leadership (Brown et al., 2005 ; De Hoog and Den Hartog 2009; Simola et al., 2010 ), and responsible leadership in evaluating consequences of utilitarian approaches and equity arguments focused on stakeholder inclusion and fairness (e.g. Waldman & Galvin, 2008 , pp. 330ff).

Responsibility and Sustainability Orientation

This dimension refers to the concern of leaders for society and the environment, which guides responsible conduct (Eisenbeiss, 2012 ). In RL research, this orientation has been conceptualized as accountability to others, including to future generations, the welfare of society, and the environment (Pless et al., 2012 ). Eisenbeiss ( 2012 ) shows that this orientation has roots in different philosophical and religious traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. The Western philosopher Hans Jonas ( 1984 ) makes a time-related distinction that is relevant to this orientation. He distinguishes between a formal ex-post responsibility and a substantive ex-ante responsibility. Ex-post responsibility means to take responsibility for past wrongdoing (e.g., in the form of a legal punishment, such as payment of a fine). In contrast, substantive responsibility is proactive and care-driven. It implies that leaders consider ex-ante the impact of their decisions on others, including future generations. This form of ex-ante responsibility is reflected in the Brundtland Report as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (WCED 1987 , p. 8).

Moderation Orientation

Moderation is one of the key concepts in RL research. It refers to the humility, decency and temperance of a leader and to balanced behavior (Eisenbeiss et al., 2014 ; Rego et al., 2012 ). At the micro level, it is expressed in leaders’ self-control and their ability to contain emotions, control self-interest and balance motivations, as well as the interests and demands of others (Cameron, 2011 ). At the macro level, it becomes visible in leaders’ attempts to balance opposing interests at the organizational and societal levels, often occurring in stakeholder interaction and the need to reconcile conflicts of interests, dilemmas and paradoxes (Schraa-Liu & Trompenaars, 2006 ; Wettstein et al., 2019 ). According to Eisenbeiss ( 2012 ), moderation and balance are important in ancient Western philosophy, Buddhism, Confucianism and Sikhism. Humility and moderation are discussed as essential virtues of responsible leaders that are necessary to balance the inner self with the needs of various stakeholders and to reconcile conflicts of interests (Cameron, 2011 ; Rego et al., 2012 ).

• Moral imagination

The first use of the term moral imagination is associated with the book Reflections on the Revolution in France by the Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke (1727–1797) (Stephenson, 2007 ). While evidence combining both leadership and imagination is scarce, there is a growing interest in disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, and management in the topic of moral imagination (e.g., Bevan, Wolfe, and Werhane 2019 ; Caldwell & Moberg, 2007 ; Johnson, 1993 ; Kidder, 1995 ; Lederach, 2005 ; Moberg & Seabright, 2000 ; Werhane, 1998 , 1999 , 2002 ; Yang, 2013 ) and moral insight (Zhang et al., 2018 ). Different authors (e.g. Eisenbeiss et al., 2014 ; Schraa-Liu & Trompenaars, 2006 ; Stephenson, 2007 ) stress the importance of ethical abilities and particularly moral imagination for leading responsibly in an environment of conflicting values.

Moral Imagination and Decision Making

Werhane ( 1999 ) defines moral imagination as ‘‘a necessary ingredient in responsible moral judgment’’ that can enable in particular circumstances to ‘‘discover and evaluate possibilities not merely determined by that circumstance, or limited by its operative mental models, or merely framed by a set of rules or rule-governed concerns. In managerial decision-making, moral imagination entails perceiving norms, social roles, and relationships entwined in any situation. Moral imagination allows individuals to create alternative solutions when faced with a moral dilemma, which often presents two competing options that one needs to choose from. Some moral dilemmas we encounter have one clear option that is morally right and an alternative option that is clearly morally wrong. In these instances, it is not difficult for individuals to perceive what ought to be done; that is, the right vs. wrong distinction is not ambiguous or cloudy. What complicates the picture is when the two options of the moral dilemma are both grounded in values – not right vs. wrong, but right vs. right (Kidder, 1995 ). Faced with these dilemmas, individuals must choose from “a diversity of goods” (Johnson, 1993 ); in other words, they are confronted with competing moral imperatives (Zhang et al., 2018 ). In these scenarios, moral imagination allows individuals to gain some distance and perspective and to come up with a "…third way—a kind of middle ground through the extremes…" (Kidder, 1995 , p.167).

Zhang et al. ( 2018 ) argue that a shift from a “should” to a “could” mindset allows people to step back from dilemmatic presentation of two competing options (often based on deontological versus utilitarian ethical frameworks) and to ask themselves not “what should be done?” but instead “what could be done?”, thereby allowing the emergence of other possibilities beyond existing opposites. The use of moral imagination or moral insights opens up other solutions that do not force an individual to violate their moral principles or to make a trade-off between two imperfect options. We suggest that the use of moral imagination can help leaders to make better decisions in difficult situations as outlined in the case scenario.

Moral Imagination and Responsible Leadership

Moral imagination requires particular capacities relevant for leadership and approaching moral dilemmas. First, a mental state of heightened awareness (Werhane, 1999 , p. 93) or mindfulness (Eisenbeiss et al., 2014 ; Pless et al., 2017a , 2017b ): “(1) awareness of the character context, situation, event, and dilemma at issue; (2) awareness of the script or schema function in that context and role relationships entailed in that context, and (3) awareness of possible moral conflicts or dilemmas that might arise in that situation, including dilemmas created at least in part by the dominating script or the situation itself.” (ibid, p. 103). Second, a capacity for productive imagination . This means to overcome the tendency to generalize a dominant operating script or perspective and to be able to challenge one’s perspective on an issue, activity or decision; and be aware other mental models. Third, an ability for creativity as envisioning and actualizing “novel, morally justifiable possibilities through a fresh point of view or conceptual scheme” (ibid, p. 105).

These capacities are of particular importance for leading responsibly in a stakeholder environment of contested values, “as in such circumstances there might not be the one right thing to do [when faced with a dilemma situation entailing conflicting stakeholder interests], but leaders may in fact need to overcome [such] conflicts […] by employing moral imagination […] on order to generate new, non-linear but still ethically sound solutions.” (Pless & Maak, 2008 , p. 21).

Case Narrative: The Case of Hindalco Industries’ UAIL Refinery and its new CEO

The company, context and conflict.

We will now present a more detailed account of the case of Hindalco Industries and their UAIL refinery in rural India and the dilemma faced by the new UAIL CEO in dealing with the decade-long struggle to commission a greenfield project in Odisha.

Hindalco Industries, Aditya Birla Group (ABG)

Hindalco Industries Ltd is a US $15 billion metal flagship company of ABG founded in 1998. In 2017, it was ranked 14 in Fortune India 500 and has a presence in 10 countries outside India. Its product portfolio includes aluminium, copper, cargo handling, acids and fertilizers. It is the world’s largest company in aluminium rolling. It deals with bauxite mining, alumina refining, coal mining, captive power plants and aluminium smelting to downstream rolling, extrusions and foils. The company’s mission is to pursue the creation of superior shareholder value while being a responsible corporate citizen (Hindalco, 2020 ). The company has received several national and international awards for its initiatives to promote community welfare, environment protection, quality and export performance. With an ambition of becoming a premium global metal producer, Hindalco began an ambitious expansion of its aluminium metal business with multiple major greenfield projects, including the UAIL refinery, which was planned in the Kashipur Block region of Odisha.

The Socio-cultural Context of Odisha

Odisha is one of the poorest states of India with 33% of the population living below the poverty line (see Figs.  1 , 2 ) and only 20% of people owning land (World Bank, 2016 ). Unemployment is high, and 61.8% of those who have work are involved in agricultural activities; literacy is very low (72.87% in the 2011 Census of India: see Census, 2011 ). The state population has a high proportion of Scheduled Tribes (also known as indigenous or ‘tribal’ people or Adivasi, 22.1%) and Dalit or Scheduled Castes (16.5%, as per the 2001 census: see Census, 2001 ). On the other hand, the state is rich in mineral resources and fertile land. However, it lacks the resources and technology to explore the deposits (Kaushal, 2017 ). To develop the state and its economy, the government has invited domestic and foreign investors and encouraged power, steel and aluminium companies to set up plants and factories (Kaushal, 2017 ). Public policy and implementation in regard to environmental and human rights issues are still in a developmental stage. Wages as well as legal and environmental standards are low in Odisha, which attracts interest from global business.

Source: UAIL (Mangaraj et al., 2009 ; photographs used with permission from UAIL)

A village in Kashipur Block.

Bauxite Mining in Odisha: The Utkal Alumina International Limited (UAIL) project

UAIL, a greenfield aluminium refinery, co-generation power plant and bauxite mine, began in 1992–93 in the most remote and hilly terrain of Odisha. After receiving approval from the state government, and acquiring land for the plant, construction of the long-distance conveyor system, railway siding, raw water intake and waste disposal areas began in 1993 under the supervision of the state government. A total of around 3000 acres of land spread over 24 villages in Kashipur Block of Odisha was selected for the purpose. However, since then, the project has repeatedly faced stiff resistance, criticism and opposition from NGOs and anti-industrialization and anti-capitalist groups sponsored by agencies from different parts of the country, leading to massive delays.

The Conflict

UAIL faced controversy from its inception when land was acquired under the direct supervision of the government in 1993. The population affected by the project was largely comprised indigenous people and Scheduled Caste communities (fringe stakeholders). Even after completion of land acquisition and acquiring the statutory and regulatory clearances, project construction could not begin due to resistance from villagers affected by the project and regular protests (see Fig.  3 ). The villagers were supported by NGOs and social activists who were opposed to industrialization in tribal areas. The protests addressed diverse issues, namely, sustainable development, expected negative consequences, expropriation of tribal lands, and the ecological and socio-economic impact of the industrial venture. The situation deteriorated further in December 2000 when a protest got out of control and police fired at the protestors, resulting in the deaths of three tribal people. As a result, the company could not start plant construction and community members’ trust in the company and local administration further deteriorated.

Source: Hindalco photo archive (photographs used and adapted with permission from UAIL)

Conflict in Odisha in Kashipur Block of Rayagada district.

The New Leader

In light of extensive project delays and conflict escalation, the Chairman of ABG was in search of an effective leader who could resolve the situation and drive the UAIL project ahead. A new CEO was hired who had both a local background and substantial industry experience. He (3) had gained insight into most of the relevant aspects of running the project by working for over 40 years in the pulp and paper industry, including implementation of greenfield projects. After six weeks in the job and extensive information gathering, he identified the following challenges:

Operations challenge . Lack of infrastructure (e.g., medical facilities, schools) and the conflict created difficulties for managers and contractors to work. Employees reported:

On a few occasions, we were under severe pressure to stop work due to local protests. We were helpless, as the villagers had difficulty understanding either our language or the importance of maintaining progress on the project. Many of our officers were threatened, and some of us were beaten by the villagers, who demanded that work cease.

Contractors were also affected. They reported that during work engineers were physically abused for money which led to frequent work stoppages. Also, theft of materials and equipment led to project delay and rise of costs. Not surprisingly, attracting and retaining managers and contractors became a true challenge.

The environmental sustainability challenge. Aluminium is one of the crucial metals for today’s competitive world, and demand is high – the reason why the company engages in these projects. However, it also bears societal risks such as land alienation, destruction of local cultural heritage, as well as substantial environmental risks, such as deforestation, energy consumption, production of alarming levels of greenhouse gases (Norgate et al., 2007 ), generation of toxic waste, and air, water and soil pollution. The latter also pose health and safety risks for the local population whose livelihood depends on their land, on agriculture and fishing; villagers even get their drinking water from lakes and rivers. Industrial production close to their habitats can have a direct and detrimental impact on their health and safety. One of the environmental activists protesting against the set up of the aluminium plant in the location commented:

This plant will pollute the environment with green[house] gases; they will not only use the river water for the production, but will also throw toxic waste to the river …; land of the farmers are given to them … who is going to be benefitted out of this?

Indeed, the CEO thought, in light of India’s commitment to becoming a low-carbon economy, a responsible course of action is needed to create long-term sustainability.

The trust challenge. The company’s perspective was that, given the extreme poverty and locals’ struggle to survive, the UAIL project could foster regional development and provision of jobs, education and medical help through industrial engagement. However, villagers, NGOs (some of them funded by national and international agencies), anti-capitalist/anti-industrialization groups and other social agencies had a different view, fearing negative impact of the UAIL project on health, environment and livelihoods, and requested that the land be given back to the original owners. A tribal villager explained his struggle and fears as follows:

Getting sufficient food twice a day for all the members of my family was difficult. Several days a month we could offer food to our children only and with nothing available for adults. The small area of land we had for cultivation could not generate enough earnings for our survival. … Now they are planning to take our land from us. We are sons of soil, what we will do if land is taken away from us?

The CEO realized that the crisis and conflict with indigenous stakeholders was a profound issue not only leading to massive delays and economic losses, but also to human hardship, unsatisfactory stakeholder relations and reputation damage, reaching a tipping point following an incident involving a police shooting. In essence, he was faced with a moral dilemma. On the one hand, he might order the project to be stopped to preserve the status quo of the environment and indigenous lifestyle (including poverty and lack of education) as anti-capitalist/anti-industrialization groups were requesting. The other option was to face the challenge and move forward with the industrialization project. However, the second option came with an environmental footprint. Yet, it also offered the chance to contribute to regional development and the potential to break the poverty cycle. He was wondering what he should do in light of this trade-off between two imperfect options.

Philosophical Approach to the Analysis

In analyzing the data, we noticed the complexities of the stakeholder conflict, the difficulties for the leadership of imagining a comprehensive, ethical solution, and the lengthy struggle to determine and reconcile legitimate stakeholder interests – suggesting that the organization and its leadership may have been captured in a particular dominant mental model that did not allow for new ways of seeing. To approach this complexity we decided to utilize an “ethos of imagination” (Alamgir et al., 2019 ) to inspire and transform current practices. Therefore, we opted for a philosophical approach rather than a traditional empirical case-based analysis, and to apply an analysis of moral imagination.

Werhane ( 1999 ) argues that moral imagination is an essential condition of innovative decision-making of business executives. She considers the mediated nature of culture, ideology, and human experience, and particularly argues that how we perceive the world is influenced by conceptual frameworks and assumptions: “We all perceive, frame, and interact with the world through a conceptual scheme modified by a set of perspectives or mental models” (1999, p. 49). Responsible leadership mindsets reflect such mental models, which can help leaders on the one hand to focus their attention and energy, pursue a particular idea, vision, purpose, and create a specific script for their ‘leadership movie’. However, limiting the perspective to one view can result in myopia and constrain the moral outlook. Our approach of reflecting on the dilemma from different RL mindsets can help identify, understand and assess different perspectives and approaches for identifying the most sustainable one.

We use moral imagination as a philosophical approach to the case analysis. (Werhane, 1999 ). Moral judgments involve a delicate balance of context, evaluation, projection of moral standards, and imagination. The latter “involves heightened awareness of contextual moral dilemmas and their mental models, the ability to envision and evaluate new mental models that create new possibilities, and capability to reframe the dilemma and create new solutions in ways that are novel, economically viable, and morally justifiable” (p. 93); Werhane further states that “the linchpin of this process is a highly developed moral imagination that perceives the nuances of a situation, challenges the framework or scheme in which the event is embedded, and imagines how that situation and other similar situations might be different.” (1999, p. 126). Moral imagination enables individuals to compare and contrast own perceptions, experiences, mindsets, and cultures with that of others. It also increases the breadth of possibilities that one sees or generates, and ultimately provides more choices regarding potential courses of action (Arnold & Hartman, 2003 ). Our analysis of the options available to the CEO to address the conflict aims at transcending dominant mindsets and opening up for new ways of seeing.

Moral imagination is particularly suited to analyze complex and systemic cases in business ethics that not only involve the individual decision-making level, but also organizational and societal levels. To analyze this decision-making case and to reflect on managerial norms, social roles, and relationships entwined in the situation, we provide substantive background information on the case: describing its context (country and culture, living conditions, economic context, etc.), the conflict situation and the ethical issues involved (environmental degradation, impact on villagers, land acquisition). We also give an overview of the affected stakeholders, noting any human rights violations, and focus on the least privileged stakeholders – those most profoundly affected by the project, namely the indigenous villagers.

By juxtaposing two RL approaches (instrumental and integrative), both rooted in different normative assumptions, we then take the perspective of a non-involved observer (with a “disengaged view”, Werhane, 1999 , p. 122) in the case and analyze the consequences, weighing benefits and harms, of these RL approaches, asking what a person with each respective approach would decide. Following Werhane ( 1999 ) we start with the specific case, and use the RL orientations as a lense to reflect on the dilemma situation in light of different ethical principles and moral background theories, moral minimums, stakeholders and ethical issues involved in the case. Based on this analysis (see Sect.  4 ), we arrive at a tentative moral judgement and recommend that, in this case, the integrative approach is the morally superior choice . In the subsequent discussion, we apply the integrative script and use moral imagination as a pathway for generating morally justifiable solutions. The analytical process is enriched by an analysis of a series of case vignettes from comparable contexts in developing countries with high power distance (Hofstede, 2019 ), and organizations from high-impact industries, such as BHP Billiton, BP, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited and Bayer (see Fig.  4 ), and the use of learnings from each case to hone the analysis (Werhane, 2017 , p. 214). This analytical process helps to inform in practical terms what could be done, as opposed to the usual focus on what should be done (Zhang et al., 2018 ). As mentioned earlier, this approach allows us to step back from dilemmatic presentation of two competing options (i.e. what should be done) and to ask “what could be done?” This may open up other solutions that do not force one to violate one’s moral principles, or to make a trade-off between two imperfect options.

Source: Adapted from Werhane ( 2017 , p. 215)

Background information on case vignettes used following an iterative case-based approach.

More specifically, the case dilemma presents itself for the CEO with the following two imperfect options (i.e. two competing moral imperatives): should he order a stop of the project as anti-capitalist/anti-industrialization groups were requesting or should he move forward with the industrialization project? Apart from the ideological side that these groups put forward, the project challenges were complex, and a quick and cost-effective outcome from this situation could not be promised to shareholders. On the other hand, if the company stopped the project and backed off, as some joint venture partners already had, it would mean accepting the financial loss of shareholder money that was already invested. Yet, it would also mean that the current life situation of the villagers could be maintained and the state of the natural environment preserved. However, the economic status quo of the region characterized by subsistence agriculture, devastating poverty, high unemployment, lack of education and high rates of illiteracy among the local population would also be cemented. At the same time, the stoppage of the UAIL project would not necessarily mean that the land that the villagers had sold would be given back to them, since it was acquired under supervision of the government. It would also mean that the villagers were not protected from future change and industrialization. Since the government is driving the industrialization of the region, it is likely that they will find other investors who continue the project—these could also be businesses from other parts of the world and those that do not pursue a responsible citizenship approach as the company does.

Rather than getting stuck in an ideological debate and prescribing what “should be done”, we want to reflect on different options that are available for the CEO to approach the situation: from a responsible leadership perspective and in light of different stakeholder interests. Thereby, we intend to provide “orienting knowledge” (Mittelstraβ, 1982 ) and use moral imagination—what could be done to continue the project, develop the region economically and potentially provide a pathway out of poverty.

Philosophical Analysis of the Case Study

In the following we will analyse the case and outline possible approaches from the two RL logics (instrumental and integrative). Applying an ethical perspective, we will conduct a fine-grained analysis of these approaches by focusing on central ethical orientations as they guide leader decision-making.

Instrumental Responsible Leadership: Central Ethical Orientations

According to the RL literature (e.g. Waldman & Galvin, 2008 ), the instrumental logic implies that leaders are driven by materialistic values (e.g., profit maximization) and self-interest. This approach is supported by traditional corporate governance systems rooted in a shareholder value model (e.g. Scherer & Voegtlin, 2018 ), ensuring that concern for others is mainly focused on stockholders and contracts with them are honoured (Jones et al., 2007 ). Leaders following an instrumental logic recognize other stakeholders as relevant if they are beneficial to the business and help create shareholder value or fulfil shareholder demands and/or if the situation requires this (e.g., urgent stakeholders in Agle et al.’s ( 1999 ) model). In the case, the instrumental approach would involve caring mainly for the needs of the business and interests of the project financiers to ensure that the project can be driven forward in a more efficient and effective way. The interests of fringe (but legitimate) stakeholders like the indigenous villagers are likely to be subjugated to the interests of shareholders. Conflict resolution would be sought only to get the project going, achieve business objectives, achieve business success and satisfy financiers.

The mindset of the instrumental leader is rooted in a utilitarian philosophy (Rosen, 2003 ), which involves the promotion of overall human welfare through maximizing benefits such as profits. Actors’ behavior is guided by an economic cost–benefit calculus and aimed at “the greatest total beneficial consequences minus harmful consequences” (Jones et al., 2007 , p. 138). Instrumentally guided leaders follow rigid utilitarian rules reflecting market efficiency that guide behavior and decision-making.

In the case, an instrumental approach had been applied in the past. The project was set up based on the assumption that it would lead to the greatest total beneficial consequences for the state. An export strategy promising high profits due to high demand for aluminium in the world market, low costs for land acquisition and wages, and the externalization of social and environmental costs led to a positive cost–benefit analysis. This was used to justify the project despite stakeholder resistance and prompted decision makers to ignore broader social and environmental impacts and critical stakeholders. Furthermore, a belief that compliance with local law ensures justice may tempt instrumental leaders to assume that their actions are fair. However, law and justice are not the same, especially in weak institutional contexts. In our case, the abuse of the illiteracy and lack of knowledge of indigenous people in land acquisition processes, even if unintentional, constitutes procedural unfairness and injustice. Also, a narrow focus on market efficiency and on business stakeholders can undermine a justice as equity approach, leading to the exclusion of legitimate stakeholders in all phases of the project (see Murphy & Vives, 2013 ).

Leaders following an instrumental logic have a low degree of accountability for others (Pless et al., 2012 ). Driven by fiduciary duty, they feel responsible for shareholders only, and consider the consequences of their decisions on other stakeholder groups only if this is in the interest of shareholders (Jones et al., 2007 ). It is likely that they would continue the shareholder primacy approach, understand the purpose of the firm as profit maximization and pursue its original objective to become the lowest cost producer of aluminium in the world.

However, since it is in the interest of shareholders to avoid lawsuits and negative reputation, the instrumental responsible leader ensures formal ex-post responsibility by complying with local laws. In the case, instrumental leaders would argue that the land acquisition complied with local laws and would reject any accountability for the negative impact of the land acquisition on the indigenous population since this is seen as being beyond their control. In addition, economic cost–benefit arguments would be used to prove the legitimacy of the project.

According to the RL literature, the instrumental leader is driven by self-interest and neglects the needs and interests of others (Pless et al., 2012 ; Waldman & Galvin, 2008 ). As rational and analytical thinkers, instrumental leaders focus on legal side and cost–benefit analysis, often dismissing emotional aspects as “soft” facts. Only in crisis situations and when the efficient functioning and reputation of the firm is at risk would instrumental leaders pay attention to and try to reconcile opposing interests. They would approach them through a formal acknowledgment of other view, but still try to convince others of correctness of own approach by downplaying seriousness, impact, and consequences, and ultimately aim to influence, intimidate and tame “other voices”, instead of balancing and reconciling different views with mutually satisfying outcomes.

Given the fact that the company featured in the case is operating internationally, a global ethics perspective (e.g. Donaldson, 1996 ) can further enrich the analysis. The instrumental line of reasoning reflects a relativistic approach. It suggests that the company’s leadership will align their actions with the standards of the country in which they operate. When applied in contexts with weak institutions, inadequate regulations and ineffective law enforcement, relativistic decisions will reflect minimal standards only and the consequences can be disastrous for stakeholders and the natural environment (Stahl et al., 2016 ). It can be concluded that an instrumental logic does not seem to be well suited to helping leaders to avoid doing harm and to do good for a broader group of stakeholders (including those without a voice and future generations).

Integrative Responsible Leadership: Central Ethical Orientations

Integrative responsible leaders are driven by humanistic values (e.g., the well-being of others) and virtues that have an intrinsic morality and a strong regard for others (Cameron, 2011 ; Sison, 2006 ). This includes a recognition that the stakeholders involved are vulnerable human beings and that stakeholder relations are not only a means, but an end in themselves. In our case, a responsible leader with an integrative logic would not only show concern for the claims of the dominant stakeholders, but also actively care for those without power and urgency (Mitchell et al., 1997 ). That is, they would have a genuine interest in resolving the conflict, responding to legitimate claims, and alleviate the suffering of indigenous people. Hence, virtuousness in action would mean applying respect, integrity and dignity in interaction with others, including all stakeholders, and demonstrating a proactive and future-oriented engagement to resolve the conflict for the good of all.

From a utilitarian perspective, integrative responsible leaders, like instrumental leaders, aim to maximize overall welfare through business activities. However, in contrast to the instrumental leader they apply an “act utilitarianism”. This means that certain decisions are based on a utilitarian cost–benefit analysis, while others – specifically those that concern the life and well-being of people – follow a “logic of appropriateness” (March & Olsen, 2011 ). The latter logic draws on normative-humanistic instead of economic considerations. In the case, it would be seen as inappropriate to destroy the environment and inflict substantial harm on local communities in the region if only a small percentage of local villagers would have the opportunity to profit from the enterprise (e.g., through job opportunities) and/or if the benefits of bauxite resources only last for a decade but negatively affect future generations. In essence, the pursuit of the project would be reevaluated in light of a logic of appropriateness.

Leaders who follow an integrative logic are not only guided by conventional morality or moral rules (be these local ones or hypernorms), “but also [by] what the mature person with a ‘good’ moral character would deem appropriate” (Ferrell et al., 2000 , p. 54). Maak et al. ( 2016 ) argue that leaders following an integrative logic are guided by more than economic thinking and are driven by a social welfare orientation. Integrative leaders consider needs of all legitimate stakeholders, including those termed discretionary but who can neither create urgency nor have power (Mitchell et al., 1997 ). The social welfare orientation could include a duty to consider the interest of the state to foster economic development, the corporate interest to make profit, and the interest of the affected indigenous communities to have their rights recognized and to lead a dignified life. If the new CEO was to adopt an integrative RL approach, he would review the mission and vision of the firm and develop its strategy towards a balanced triple bottom line approach. This means he would include social and environmental objectives, while maintaining a competitive position in the aluminium market and pursuing a reasonable return for investors.

Furthermore, applying Jonas’ ( 1984 ) distinction between formal ex-post and substantive ex-ante responsibility, it can be postulated that a leader pursuing an integrative logic not only tries to balance different objectives and bottom-lines, but also different norms and standards. Like the instrumental leader, integrators adhere to local laws and norms and ensure formal compliance. However, they also consider broader, universal moral norms and standards – also called “hypernorms” (Donaldson & Dunfee, 1999 , p. 52) – and ensure that company practice is in accord with such broadly shared ethical standards (e.g. human rights conventions, international labour laws), which are supported by, for example, prominent non-government organizations (e.g. International Labour Organization), regional government organizations (e.g. OECD, the Organization of American States), global business organizations (e.g. International Chamber of Commerce) and international media, and are in accordance with principles of major religions. This may require rethinking decisions made in the past (such as land acquisition from indigenous people) and considering the implications of actions to be taken in the present and for a sustainable future.

A characteristic of integrative leaders is that they integrate rationality and emotions (Pless et al., 2012 ) and balance opposites (e.g., self-interest and other regard), which can help to regulate excessive self-interest and greed. They understand different viewpoints and consider the interests and emotions of all parties. An integrative leader would aim to find a balance between organizational interests and those of the villagers, with a true interest in generating the best and most sustainable solution for all legitimate stakeholders.

Table 1 provides an overview of the analysis. We conclude this analysis with a reflection on institutional contextual conditions and provide a tentative conclusion.

While Maak et al. argue that an instrumental RL logic could work “in relatively stable settings with strong institutional arrangements” ( 2016 , p. 463), these conditions are not easily achieved in many parts of the world (Scherer & Voegtlin, 2018 ). As shown in the analysis above, a weak institutional context can hinder responsible leaders who aim to avoid doing harm and to do good; and an instrumental RL logic fosters a relativistic and morally limited approach. In this sense, we conclude that the instrumental approach is morally inferior.

In regard to the case it can be concluded that an instrumental RL approach based on shareholder advocacy constitutes a minimal approach to responsibility that is not sufficient to respond to the challenges at hand. In fact, the context calls for an integrative RL approach with a proactive leader who acts in the absence of state support as a corporate statesperson (Maak et al., 2016 ). The latter can be expected to be more effective in dealing with political CSR and stakeholder challenges and to contribute to closing existing governance gaps and generating sustainable outcomes for stakeholders. In the following, we will therefore discuss possible approaches to the situation by applying an integrative RL logic.

Discussion and Implications: What Could be Done?

The following discussion and application of an integrative RL logic will be guided by the question “What could be done?” This question aims to facilitate the generation of broader moral insights and imagination than the normative question “What should be done?” (Zhang et al., 2018 ).

The discussion is also based on the assumptions that (a) the UAIL project has the potential to positively contribute to regional development, (b) bauxite resources last for several decades, and (c) the firm can provide safe and fair employment for a substantial number of tribal villagers (for a summary see Table 2 ).

According to RL theory (Miska et al., 2016 ; Stahl et al., 2016 ), a leader of a globally operating firm does not restrict himself or herself to two competing moral imperatives, but applies moral imagination. To recap, moral imagination entails a mental state of heightened awareness of the situation and context of the dilemma, awareness of the role relationship and understanding of other mental models and viewpoints in the moral conflict, and the capacity to challenge dominant operating perspectives, coupled with the ability of moral reflection and the creative ability to envision new perspectives and ways of seeing (Werhane, 1999 , 2002 ). In this sense, the leader will consider the following choices: First, to follow a global approach and ensure universal consistency by applying the same CSR standards (e.g., hypernorms) across subsidiaries in different countries (global CSR integration of standards or short global CSR standardization); second, to apply a locally responsive approach, which implies acknowledging local CSR-related obligations and complying with customs and standards at the local level (local CSR responsiveness); and a new third way, which is to balance both approaches following a logic of appropriateness, or “glocal CSR moderation”. The first choice requires a defined CSR strategy with clear rules of conduct. Such an approach fosters a culture of responsibility and allows the transfer of CSR best practices around the world. However, Stahl et al., ( 2016 , 2018 ) warn that an unreflective application of standards, rules and policies can lead to cultural arrogance and imperialism. The second option of local responsiveness would ideally lead to a constructive response to local stakeholders, but bears the risk of relativistic approaches, leading to moral blindness and ignorance of broader ethical principles and norms as well as CSR being adjusted down to the lowest standards. The third approach of transnational CSR or “glocal CSR moderation” requires striking an appropriate balance between global consistency and local adaptation in regard to CSR principles and practices. It requires the ability to integrate opposites. Integration of conflicting interests, opposing objectives and differences is a key characteristic of an integrative leader (Maak & Pless, 2006 ; Pless et al., 2012 ). The CEO could therefore pursue a “glocal CSR moderation” approach and try to balance local responsiveness and global consistency through his moral compass (based on the central ethical orientations), and by applying moral imagination.

In the following, we will discuss a morally imaginative approach and what this could mean in light of the responsible leadership roles model and a responsible business approach, evident in the application of a logic of appropriateness and global standards, the engagement in cross-sector collaborations and multi-stakeholder initiatives. The responsible leadership roles model classifies the observable behavior of responsible leaders via metaphorical roles (Maak & Pless, 2006 ) which can be classified as normative roles (the leader as citizen, steward, visionary), relational roles (servant, weaver/boundary spanner, storyteller/ communicator) and operational roles (the leader as change agent, architect and coach).

Response and Responsibility: The Leader as Communicator

While the company has been responsive to stakeholder concerns at the global level in the past, a combination of weak institutions, inadequate regulations, coupled with a shareholder primacy focus, led to ineffective stakeholder management at the local level. In order to deal with the current conflict a de-escalating approach is necessary to bring different stakeholders together. It requires the leader to take on the roles of boundary spanner and communicator to initiate a dialogue with all legitimate local stakeholders by speaking their language, approaching them openly and with respect and sensitivity, and listening and responding sincerely to their concerns and demands. Inclusion is an important part of RL (Mària & Lozano, 2010 ). Discourse ethics provides guidance on how organizational leaders can reach consensual agreements with diverse constituencies. Philosophers like Gadamer ( 2013 ) and Buber ( 2010 ) advocate a humble and respectful dialogue between two or more parties aiming at a healthy consensus. Proponents of Habermasian discourse ethics (Patzer et al., 2018 ; Voegtlin et al., 2012 ) highlight conflict mediation, collaborative problem-solving processes and/or creativity and innovation workshops as potential practices to achieve consensual agreements. Proponents of the Bakhtinian approach to discourse ethics (e.g., Trittin & Schoeneborn, 2017 ) stress the importance of dialogue as a process of stakeholders articulating their positions in a constitutive polyphonic discourse. This occurs regardless of whether a consensual agreement among multiple stakeholders with often conflicting voices can be reached. Within such a polyphonic dialogue,

responsible leaders would encourage participating individuals to bring in various, potentially dissonant voices into the conversation, including the contextual voices of absent stakeholders or wider societal discourses … [and those] that critically address the social and environmental impact of the firm’s business conduct … [and would also] mediate and translate between multiple logics of various organizational and contextual voices. (Trittin & Schoeneborn, 2017 , p. 315)

Past experience shows that leaders applying an instrumental logic try to influence and convince stakeholders about the rightness of the organizational approach, while leaders following an integrative approach attempt to develop collaborative solutions (Maak et al., 2016 ), and facilitate interplay among various stakeholders and their voices (Trittin & Schoeneborn, 2017 ). The latter could involve stopping the site development process and directly engage with local stakeholders in a constructive dialogue to recognize their views, concerns and needs, and develop common ground regarding further operations.

For instance, BP and its consortium partners faced a similar situation in 2014 when the Rumaila oilfield in southern Iraq (one of the largest oil production sites in the world) faced community protests (see Fig.  4 ). The leadership decided to stop the work on the new installation until an agreement was reached with the community. They stopped for a period of six months, at a cost of US $100,000 per day, and brought in an external and independent mediator to support the conflict resolution process (BP, 2020 ). By involving the community and establishing a social contract, BP were able to successfully continue work, while also meaningfully contributing to the community.

Responsibility and Time: The Leader as Citizen

Coming back to the distinction of ex-post and ex-ante responsibility, the metaphor of the citizen suggests that the leader could show accountability and moral reflection, applying both forms of responsibility. This would entail rethinking decisions made in the past (such as land acquisition from indigenous people) and considering implications of actions to be taken in the present and for a sustainable future. Hence, instead of ‘downgrading’ moral responsibility and exploiting differences of global norms and local standards and traditions, the integrative leader would actively seek to use moral imagination and thus ‘upgrade’ ethical decision-making by attempting to reconcile global norms and local standards.

Ex-post Responsibility

To sustainably resolve the conflict with tribal people and establish sustainable relationships with these legitimate stakeholders, the integrative leader as citizen (Maak & Pless, 2006 , 2009 ) could reflect on the underlying causes of the conflict, and acknowledge the legitimate right of local tribes to voice their concerns and be heard. NGOs have argued that the process of land acquisition lacked transparency, fairness and appropriateness in the sense that advantage was taken of the illiteracy of local villagers, and their lack of education and knowledge about market prices. The latter ultimately resulted in human suffering at the local level instead of improved conditions through economic development. According to Murphy and Arenas ( 2010 ), lack of transparency and consultations with indigenous communities erodes trust and generates conflict. While land acquisition occurred legally and while he cannot change events in the past, the leader could set up an independent commission to investigate the land acquisition process (for a discussion on justice ethics concerning such situations, see Murphy & Vives, 2013 ). If the NGOs’ concerns turn out to be justified, the integrative leader could develop appropriate steps to remedy the harm inflicted on indigenous people.

An example of how to approach such a situation can be found in the Australian mining company BHP Billiton (owner of the BHP Tintaya copper mine in Peru) who faced a similar situation around a land acquisition conflict at the beginning of the Millenium (see Fig.  4 ). The firm was in conflict with local communities in the province of Espinar as well as national and international NGOs. Over a period of three years BHP engaged in a corporate-community negotiation process called Tintaya Dialogue Table, which resulted in 2004 in an agreement of the company to establish a community development fund and compensate villagers for lost land and livelihoods by providing them with land “equivalent to the amont of territory that was expropriated by the state and acquired by BHP Billiton, as well as an additional 25 to 50 percent more land, depending on the quality” (Mego, 2005 , p. 1).

Through such an approach the new CEO of UAIL could lay an essential foundation for acknowledging what is important for the villagers, namely a reliable foundation for their existence, and making a substantial contribution to local development as a basis for long-term engagement and the building of public trust. However, in the short-term this would mean that the CEO would have to justify the associated financial investment (following a logic of appropriateness, see also below) as part of the corporate citizenship approach that the company is pursuing.

Ex-ante Responsibility

In terms of ex-ante responsibility the new CEO could ensure that the group (1) develops standardized CSR policies and procedures that reflect the highest ethical standards, and (2) adopts a state-of-the-art stakeholder engagement approach that ensures that current and future mining and production processes follow a responsible stakeholder engagement process. A state-of-the-art stakeholder engagement process can be described as being “proactive, collaborative and inclusive … and engage[s] legitimate stakeholders (including fringe stakeholders) in the planning process and in on-going discourse throughout different project stages” based on a jointly accepted approach (Maak et al., 2016 , p. 471).

Responsibility and the Logic of Appropriateness: The Leader as Servant

The integrative responsible leader applies a “logic of appropriateness” (March & Olsen, 2011 ), which is a form of moral judgement inspired by virtues of reasonableness (Rawls, 1951 ). Given the considerable financial gains that aluminium production promises (based on the pursued export strategy, rising world market demand, and minimal costs and wages in Odisha), the extraction and production project promises significant returns on investment once it is up and running. The application of a logic of appropriateness and fairness would require reflecting on ways to respond to local needs by giving back to local communities and providing them with a fair share of the profits from resource extraction on the land that they originally cultivated. This could mean reinvesting substantially in infrastructure, access to clean drinking water, medical services, education and job opportunities.

The metaphor of the responsible leader as servant implies that the leader puts people and stakeholders first and cares for their well-being and needs. In this spirit, the CEO could ensure that a substantial number of indigenous people are hired and trained by the company to take up jobs and earn a decent salary. He could also get proactively involved in building alternative employment opportunities for other villagers through vocational training. An integrative leader also creates a work environment that protects workers’ health and dignity by ensuring fair, just and inclusive work structures and processes and by providing equal employment and career advancement opportunities for indigenous people as well as women (Pless & Maak, 2004 ). At the same time they would ensure that local practice adheres to the standards of the International Labour Organization and work towards consistency of standards, closing the gap between global norms and local standards.

Global Consistency and Responsible Change: The Leader as Change Agent, Architect and Coach

While local responsiveness is an important quality, the integrative leader combines it with global consistency in terms of highest environmental, human rights and responsibility standards. As Miska et al. ( 2016 ) showed for Chinese companies, the degree of global CSR standardization often depends on the influence of the state government; if the state influence is greater, the global integration of standards by a MNC will be higher. In a context where no CSR influence is exercised by the state, an integrative leader could fill this void responsibly by initiating positive change and development within the company (Pless & Maak, 2011 ). Guided by ethical considerations, the leader could act as an ethical change agent and architect and shape the business and its strategy to reflect transparent and consistent global CSR standards regardless of the context of operations. Moreover, employees at all levels of the organization could be trained and coached in regard to enacting the central ethical orientations and applying moral imagination. This could be an important strategic contribution of the new CEO to the development of the company and its multinational parent, which operates on six continents in emerging, developing and developed countries.

Sustainability Standards: The Leader as Steward

Aluminium production heavily impacts the social and natural environment (Balaton-Chrimes & Haines, 2017 ; Liu & Müller, 2012 ). As a steward and guardian of values and resources, the integrative leader cares not only about production efficiency, but also about safe production processes (Donaldson, 1996 ) and minimizing the company’s impact on the environment. The latter is particularly important because tribal people’s lifestyle is often interwoven with the natural environment (e.g., local villagers get their drinking water directly from surrounding open water sources). Guided by the Golden Rule “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, the new CEO could place particular emphasis on the highest sustainability standards and the latest technology to minimize the negative impact on the environment and the health and well-being of people. Introducing measurement and monitoring systems, he could ensure regular reporting on SDGs and to the United Nations Global Compact (Rasche et al., 2013 ). While these seem to be basic standards, such sustainable practice is still far from being the norm in many developing or indeed, in some developed countries.

Building Cross-Sector Collaboration: The Leader as Boundary Spanner

In our case, the leader is faced with a seemingly insolvable dilemma. While the company can limit its impact on the environment, it cannot avoid adverse impact on the habitat and health of the villagers, who have no access to water and sanitation systems and whose lifestyle directly depends on nature. This situation requires the leader to recognize the situation as a dilemma and to apply compassion and moral insight to resolve it. The ability of “reperceiving” (Shapiro et al., 2006 ), namely to distance oneself from one’s own internal cognitive and emotional states, and to respond without being fully absorbed by them (Kabat-Zinn, 1990 ), is discussed as being particularly helpful in such moral conflict situations. It can help leaders to step back from a dilemma, be less reactive, and more open to other choices, thereby supporting more reflective and creative decision-making processes and imaginative moral solutions (Eisenbeiss et al., 2014 ; Werhane, 2017 ). A case in point is the German chemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer, which tackled a child labour dilemma in India (see Fig.  4 ). Instead of staying trapped in a dilemma with the option of either selling their CropScience business or succumbing to the cultural tradition of engaging children in work, they developed a morally imaginative approach:

Bayer created a strategy that was beneficial to the children, the farmers and to its bottom line. It partnered with an Indian NGO that provided remedial schooling for the children of the farmers, children who formerly worked in the fields, so that they would be prepared to enter government schools, and it paid the farmers a premium to use adult labor. The farmers soon found that their efficiency was improved … the children went to school, children’s families did not suffer income loss, and the company gained a valuable product. (Werhane, 2017 , p. 216)

Searching for external partners and working in cross-sector collaborations to develop responsible innovative approaches is an important mechanism to approach grand societal challenges and rebuild public trust (Murphy & Arenas, 2010 ). Integrative leaders driven by a social welfare orientation are likely to see the value of such collaborations and regard extended citizenship engagements of their company as part of the social contract between business and society (Maak et al., 2016 ). As a boundary spanner , the CEO could establish a partnership with a local organization from the non-profit sector to ensure sustainable community development. At the local level this could be a collaboration with a social enterprise like Gram Vikas (GV), which is a globally award-winning organization headquartered in the capital of Odisha. GV helps underprivileged communities in India and Africa to escape the poverty trap and regain dignity by supporting and guiding them to build their own water and sanitation systems (Pless & Appel, 2012 ). Access to clean drinking water is the access point for a social innovation process that entails democratic community development based on effective and inclusive governance structures that provide equal opportunities for women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. GV contributes to the SDGs by improving health, restoring dignity, empowering women and breaking the vicious circle of poverty (Pless & Appel, 2012 ). Integrative leaders try to identify, connect and partner with such innovative social enterprises that can help to resolve some of the pressing societal problems interlinked with running the business. Moreover, as a boundary spanner the CEO could care for the concerns of people beyond the employment relationship (Davila & Elvira, 2012 ).

For example, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) initiated a cross-sector initiative between communities, government and a health care specialist to set up a community health insurance scheme (see Fig.  4 ). The so called Obio Community Health Insurance Scheme was created as a response to a community request for health care. Instead of shouldering all the responsibility, SPDC created a multi-stakeholder initiative between communities, government and a healthcare specialist which created a win–win-win situation – with poor communities getting access to health care, the regional clinic receiving stable funding, and the oil and gas company benefiting from a better reputation, improved community relations and healthier employees (Luca, 2018 ). Through such initiatives the new CEO could make a meaningful contribution to local development and build social capital and trust as a corporate citizen, while strengthening the company’s contribution to the SDGs.

Engagement in Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives: The Leader as Visionary

Maak et al. ( 2016 ) point out that integrative responsible leaders are likely to mobilize their organization and provide capabilities to engage in high-involvement multi-stakeholder initiatives due to their social welfare orientation. Such initiatives, especially when combined with a broad membership base and strong participatory elements, can provide leaders “with an institutionalized context to identify, manage and balance diverse stakeholder interests and concerns” (Maak et al., 2016 , p. 476). The CEO could consider engaging in a multi-stakeholder initiative (e.g., UN Global Compact) to work and report on the company’s contributions to the SDGs. Such a multi-stakeholder initiative provides a platform to learn from best case examples and to partner with different stakeholders. This is not only a suggested way to achieve the SDGs, but simultaneously provides a network of like-minded companies that enables knowledge exchange for organizational development. Moreover, such engagement could also lead to shared vision formation for sustainable futures. For example, from a virtues perspective (Cameron, 2011 ; Rego et al., 2012 ; Sison, 2006 ) the integrative leader could even take a step forward and act as a change agent for sustainability. Based on a sustainable vision, the new CEO could become a spokesperson for clean production and sustainable change in the industry, with the objective of initiating broad change in energy consumption and delivery from electricity (based on coal) towards renewable sources. He could use his power and influence within the company and boundary spanning capabilities within the industry and across sectors to initiate broader change towards sustainability; thereby helping the industry in India to substantially reduce its environmental footprint (for practical guidance see Guide for responsible corporate engagement in climate policy : UN Global Compact et al., 2013 ). Furthermore, he could become an advocate for the protection of the human rights of indigenous people. A means to do this is to use his influence and power to convince the government to sign the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of the International Labour Organization, also called ILO Convention 169. Similar initiatives were undertaken by BHP Billiton’s leadership in Australia to establish continuing partnerships with Indigenous communities (BHP Billiton, 2001 ).

This discussion has provided an overview of behavioural approaches that an integrative leader could take to generate a sustainable solution to the stakeholder crisis and to build a basis for sustainable stakeholder relationships and public trust in the region and beyond. The approaches discussed range from short-term responses to long-term approaches. Short-term responses are suited to immediately respond to the crisis and to de-escalate the conflict. Medium to long-term initiatives are suited to building sustainable relationships with stakeholders in the state of Odisha and to making substantial contributions to the SDGs.

Conclusion and Implications for Theory and Practice

In this article, we used the concept of moral imagination to analyse a business case from South Asia as a basis for imagining responsible leadership responses to a dilemmatic crisis situation. This article contributes to RL theory by developing a more fine-grained understanding of cross-culturally shared ethical orientations pertaining to instrumental and integrative RL approaches and their implications. It has also helped to further refine understanding of integrative RL logic, which can be understood as a substantive form of responsibility that involves assuming accountability to a broad range of stakeholders and for consequences of leadership actions and decisions in the past, present and future. It has further extended the understanding of responsibility by introducing a time dimension ( ex-post and ex-ante responsibility). In light of a knowledge gap in research on RL in emerging country MNC, this article has provided new insights for the application of the frameworks of local CSR responsiveness and global CSR standardization. In particular, we argued that an integrative RL approach requires balancing of local and global consideration and the integration of both due to the moderation orientation of integrative RL. Moreover, we also discussed behavioral decisions that this approach entails. Future research should empirically study antecedents and consequences of an integrative RL approach in developing and emerging country MNC. Miska et al. ( 2016 ) identify multicultural experience in top management teams as an antecedent for balancing (moderating) local responsiveness and global standardization. However, other factors that help leaders to practise an integrative approach may play an equally important role and need to be studied. At the micro level these factors include moral identity (Eisenbeiss, 2012 ), the ability to balance contradictions, complex thinking (Maak et al., 2016 ), and paradoxical leadership (Waldman, 2014 ). Particularly, the concept of moral imagination should be further explored and empirically studied. At the macro level such factors could include industry and its context, access to responsible business education, and engagement in cross-sector partnerships. Further research should also investigate the impact of country characteristics (e.g., power distance, feminine/masculine society, individualistic/collectivist culture; Hofstede et al., 2010 ) on leader propensity to apply an integrative RL style.

One approach leaders from emerging and developing country MNC could adopt to foster positive responsible change in their organizations is engaging in multi-stakeholder networks such as the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). The UNGC is a supranational organization that put CSR on the agenda, fostered and facilitated dialogue on CSR, and worked on establishing “a consensus on global ethical standards for business via its ten general principles” (Voegtlin et al., 2012 , p. 179). However, there is a lack of research on whether and how the UNGC delivers on this purpose (Rasche & Waddock, 2014 ; Williams, 2014 ). Future research can contribute to research on the effectiveness and legitimacy of the UNGC by empirically tracking over time the CSR and RL changes of new corporate members of the UNGC. Antonakis et al. ( 2010 ) recommend various research designs that can be applied to study such causal relationships.

Last, but not least, researchers should investigate the link between relational leadership and integrative RL. The relational ontology of relational leadership as outlined by Cunliffe and Eriksen ( 2011 ) can provide further insights into the relational underpinnings of integrative RL and the creation of a respectful and polyphonic discourse, necessary to initiate and practice inclusive stakeholder dialogue.

An important conclusion drawn from the ethical analysis of the paper is that the instrumental RL approach is morally inferior to the integrative RL approach. A number of authors argue that the pressing societal problems (e.g. geopolitical instability, failing states, climate change, social inequality) are too complex to be effectively addressed using the instrumental approach focused on the single firm's advantage (Maak et al., 2016 ; Stahl et al., 2018 ). An anonymous reviewer suggested to further examine the relationship between the instrumental RL approach and current societal problems, suggesting that they were caused by utilization of the instrumental RL approach, and arguing that the latter seems to violate one of the basic premises of any sound moral philosophy – and that is the concept of impartiality. This is an important point, in particular since the instrumental RL mindset is still the dominant script in leadership practice and education. In order to gather further evidence and arguments for creating positive change and a paradigm shift towards a new RL understanding, future research should further investigate this link between current societal problems and the role of an instrumental RL mindset. Future research should also further investigate conceptually and empirically the potential of the integrative RL orientation for realizing positive change.

This article has provided substantial insights how challenges of leading business in society can be approached responsibly in an emerging country context. These insights can be particularly useful for business schools, MNC and other organizations for designing responsible leadership development courses and programs to prepare current and future leaders for the challenges of leading businesses successfully and responsibly at local and global levels and for contributing to tackling grand societal challenges. Responsible leaders employ moral imagination and ask what could be done to address moral challenges at home and abroad.

These calls have been evolving over decades dating back to 1953 when businessman Howard Bowen first published his book “Social responsibilities of the businessman” (Bowen, 2013 ). Since then we have seen numerous initiatives in Europe, Asia and the US. Credit needs to be given to the work of numerous change makers, including for example the work of the Caux Roundtable (Young, 2006 ); the creation of the B-Corps in 2006 (Marquis, 2020 ); the conscious capitalism movement (Mackey & Sisodia, 2013 ), and other initiatives of numerous businesspeople, entrepreneurs, and academics in different parts of the world who made a contribution and paved the way for the ideas for a stakeholder perspective, corporate social responsibility, the triple bottom line idea and ultimately responsible leadership.

This phenomenon is not restricted to responsible leadership. Behavioral scientists and human evolutionary biologist criticize that studies and claims about human psychology and behaviour draw on samples of a particular segment of the world’s population that Henrich et al. ( 2010 ) call Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD). Results of these studies populate the world’s top journals, and while WEIRD people are a particular group that do not represent the rest of the population, they became the “standard subjects” for studies from which general conclusions are drawn.

The male form is used here, because of the fact that the CEO in the case was male

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Section Editor Adrian Keevil and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive guidance and feedback. We also like to thank Sonawane Bhaurao of Hindalco Industries for his support in the data collection process for the case study and Kate Leeson for proofreading the article. This research did not receive any specific funding from agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. An earlier version of this research paper was identified by Springer Nature as directly relevant to the COVID-19 crisis and shared as a resource with the World Health Organization.

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Atri Sengupta

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Melissa A. Wheeler

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Nicola Pless was responsible for conception and design of the paper. Material preparation, data collection and case writing were performed by Atri Sengupta. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Nicola Pless. Melissa Wheeler and Thomas Maak contributed to different parts of the text and at different stages of the writing process. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript and read and approved the final manuscript.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Data gathering for the case study was conducted by Atri Sengupta and complied with the ethical requirements of the Indian Institute of Management Sambalpur.

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Methodology

Field study: data gathering.

The field study is based in part on interviews with elite informants, and we applied transparency criteria as outlined by Aguinis and Solarino ( 2019 ). In light of the complexity of the case, the emergence of events over time and the multitude of stakeholders, we followed a single case study approach (Yin, 2018 ) with an embedded longitudinal research design. The research setting was complex and difficult to navigate due to the stakeholder crisis. However, one of the researchers was an organizational member of UAIL at the time, and was able to provide important background information. He knew the organizational culture, behavioral norms and power structures, which helped us to get access to the top management team even during the crisis situation and approval to collect data, and helped in the interaction with elite study participants. Data were collected in multiple phases from 2009 to 2012 following both retrospective and observational methods. The retrospective data were collected through interviews after the incidents took place; they also included the company’s archival documents, newspaper clippings, internet information about the company and census data. Observations were made by one of the authors in person through discussions with multiple stakeholders while the incidents happened. Notes were taken to document the observations.

Since the research is field-oriented and not concerned with statistical generalizability, we used non-probabilistic samples, in particular purposive samples which are commonly used in the social sciences (Guest et al., 2006 , p. 61). The different stakeholder groups that we studied (top management team members, employees, suppliers, community members, NGOs) were selected sequentially based on their relevance and importance for the research case, “not their representativeness” (Teddlie & Yu, 2007 , p. 80).

A combination of sampling techniques was applied. We chose theoretical sampling to study particular viewpoints of the conflict situation in light of stakeholder theory in order to develop a multifaceted picture of the different ethical issues involved in the case. To select participants from specific constituent groups we used snowball sampling. Interviews were conducted with the CEO and the Managing Director of UAIL, with two senior HR managers, 48 employees from different levels and 40 community members. The latter were conducted with the help of a person fluent in the local language. The interviews were semi-structured and conducted for 45 min to one hour, either in person or over the phone. All interviews were transcribed verbatim. Furthermore, we conducted five focus groups, each consisting of 20–25 members of the community, three non-government organization (NGO) representatives and ten employees of two contractors. Focus group interviews were conducted in five project-affected villages. Through each sarpanch (head of a village) we invited participants to the focus group discussions that took place in the panchayat (village council) office. We recorded entire discussions with their due permissions and translated them from the local language to English afterwards with the help of an interpreter. We stopped data gathering once we reached saturation – the point when we did not get any new information through interviews or focus groups (Guest et al., 2006 ; Krueger & Casey, 2000 , p. 26). The data collected were compared constantly to ensure their consistency and accuracy. Validity was established through data triangulation (Yin, 2018 ).

During the data gathering we also faced some challenges, for instance bringing women into the focus group discussions. Therefore, we collected women’s views individually before the focus group discussions. Another challenge we faced during interactions with villagers was language interpretation. At the initial stage, we worked with simultaneous translation from the local language into the official language. However, we observed a time lag between the villagers’ speaking time and the interpreter’s time needed for translation. To avoid potential data loss, particularly in long discussions, we recorded the entire discussions and translated them afterwards. Due to the sensitivity of the case involving a conflict situation and senior leaders, we did not receive permission to make the raw materials available to other researchers.

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Pless, N.M., Sengupta, A., Wheeler, M.A. et al. Responsible Leadership and the Reflective CEO: Resolving Stakeholder Conflict by Imagining What Could be done. J Bus Ethics 180 , 313–337 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04865-6

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Home > Books > Contemporary Leadership Challenges

Reflective Leadership: Learning to Manage and Lead Human Organizations

Submitted: 02 July 2016 Reviewed: 20 July 2016 Published: 01 February 2017

DOI: 10.5772/64968

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This chapter mainly focuses on the concept of reflection as a process, both individual and collaborative, involving experience and uncertainty under the theme of reflective leadership. This type of leadership basically means learning to manage and lead human organizations. It originates from the concept of reflection defining leadership roles and responsibilities in all types of organizations. Focusing on reflection for learning in an effort to create reflective learning communities for all stakeholders taking part in both administrative and executive positions in organizations, this chapter is expected to contribute to leadership theories, to link theory and practice in concrete terms describing new leadership roles and responsibilities under the reflective thought considering its unique impact on organizational functioning.

• reflective practice
• organizations
• reflective learning

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Süleyman davut göker *.

• Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Education, Artvin Çoruh University, Turkey

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1. Introduction

In the literature, leadership is defined by many theories that try to explain what leadership is, in terms of different standpoints. However, the real world is very complicated that cannot be prescribed in some given patterns. This is the very first fact that leaders realize once they enter into professional practice. This is when prescribed theories do not meet the requirements of real practice. How can leaders be effective in an environment that is so distinct from those portrayed on paper? The answer is the grail that many if not all practising leaders had committed him-/herself to following of it. Reflective leadership goes to bat for anyone in the realm of leadership which is not mapped yet.

We start to explore reflective leadership by discussing what reflection is and then its role in creating reflective learning communities in organizations. The route to leadership through reflective thinking is the next topic we will address. Finally, we conclude with reflective practice which is the essence of reflective leadership and its models of implementation.

2. Reflection

Reflection is not only a personal process but also a collaborative one, which involves uncertainty along with experience, and consists of specifying inquiries and essential components of a thing that came out as important, later taking a person’s thoughts into dialogue with himself or herself and with other people. Individuals evaluate insights developed from that process in regard to additional perspectives, values, experiences, beliefs and the larger context within which the questions are raised. Through reflection, new-found clarity to base changes in action or disposition is achieved. New questions naturally arise, and the process spirals onwards [ 1 ].

Within this context, we argue that reflection is a vital component of leaders’ daily life, not a detached or disconnected action but primal, promoted by the culture and structures of an organization, which affects choices, policies and decisions together with the emotions and politics related to them. Considered from this angle, to be reflective should not be considered as a method, which has been acquired and occasionally used, but an inherent component of what to manage or lead means.

2.1. Dewey: father of reflection

Thinking includes all of these steps, - the sense of a problem, the observation of conditions, the formation and rational elaboration of a suggested conclusion, and the active experimental testing. [ 2 ]

For him, reflection is a deliberate and cognitive process triggered by a state of doubt, mental difficulty and hesitation. He sees reflection as a process of researching, clarifying and finding the right way that eliminates the doubt and difficulties. The mental process of reflection is activated by a problem, unstructured ideas and complicated situations to find a solution.

Forestalling something of the spirit of the progresses we maintain in this chapter, Dewey conceptualized this aspect of learning as more important than a problem-solving process. Dewey’s vision was of an educational process which had reflection and action linked at its core and was the means by which individuals gained ‘a personal interest in social relationships and control’—a platform for social change to a more democratic social order and preparation for membership of it [ 2 ].

2.2. Schön: reflection in action

Schön sees reflection as closely related to action and personal experience. The reflective practitioner engages in thinking along with the effect of action. Thus, Schön classified reflection into two types: reflection in action and reflection on action. Reflection in action is conscious thinking and modification while on the job [ 3 ]. The reflective practitioner immediately reflects on the action upon confronting it. Reflection on action is the reflection done after experiencing the action. The practitioner evaluates to understand whether the activity was successful or not by making judgements.

On-the-spot surfacing, criticizing, restructuring, and testing of intuitive understanding of experienced phenomena; often it takes the form of a reflective conversation with the situation. [ 4 ]

… on the feeling for a situation which has led him to adopt a particular course of action, on the way he has framed the problem he is trying to solve, or on the role he has constructed for himself within a larger institutional ‘context.’ [ 4 ]

As discussed above, this included ‘reflection on action’ and ‘reflection in action’ in practical terms. Human beings always tend to take shelter in experienced and accustomed forms of working and in practised processes or similar methods. That is to say, all endeavours to see the unknown in everyday life let people confront routines and connections and to alter those sides of working thought and practice taken for granted. For example, the capacity to make use of certain images, emotions, metaphors, to engage both rationally and aesthetically and to look at relational dynamics considering settings allows for the production of discrete styles of practising and thinking.

2.3. Reflection for learning: creating reflective learning communities in organizations

Ultimately, the outcome of reflection is learning [ 6 ]. It widens our perspective on a problem (broadens knowledge). It helps us develop strategies for dealing with it (develop skills). It helps us acquire new insights into our behaviour (changes attitudes).

Learning is not an individual behavioural attribute or capability but a ‘double-loop’ cognitive learning process that can be shared, and if everyone can participate in shared learning, then, in principle, everyone is capable of leading [ 7 ]. Within this context, the learning organization assures whatever the classical human-centred view about learning treasured at all times that commitment to learning will rescue us from obedience in blind authority in the end.

Even though learning itself as an action could seem self-evident, it is concerned with many issues in determining in what ways learning individually could be ‘effective’ or ‘rational’ against ‘self-deception’ and ‘defence reasoning’ [ 8 ]. As the difference between reflexivity and learning is hard to understand, in all attempts to understand that difference, reflexivity in the organizational development tradition has often been problematic [ 4 , 9 , 10 ]. The question is so clear: is it a neutral and instrumental expression of expert knowledge and control, or is it a methodology of feedback and diagnostic practice that pursues to develop really inclusive forms of distributed knowledge and learning [ 11 ]. The former position treats self-reflection as ‘I think’, whereas the latter tends to treat it as an expression of ‘I do’ [ 12 – 14 ]. What can be said here is that these two conflicting positions usually finish up as remedial approaches to learning. Learning could be thought as a deliberate way of ‘reflexive thinking’, allowing us to keep our distance from existent actions or behaviours and alter them. In contrast, learning as doing is bound by pre-reflective practices, so it is difficult to retrospectively translate or transmit learning or knowing in practice into intentional actions designed to change behaviour [ 13 ].

Leading for learning is an essential aim in creating reflective learning communities, which aim to create strong and fair opportunities of learning for all in an organization and encourage them to benefit from these opportunities. Leaders can accomplish this by committing themselves to the following areas of action: establishing a focus on learning, building professional communities that value learning, engaging external environments that matter for learning, acting strategically and creating coherence [ 15 , 16 ]. The perception suggested centres on supplying each learner, no matter what problems they confront, the ways to overcome intriguing skills and to advance habits of mind for additional and autonomous learning.

‘Let’s try it out and see how it works’ is an active learner’s phrase; ‘Let’s think it through first’ is the reflective learner’s response in a reflective learning community [ 17 ]. Leaders’ learning incorporates skills, the knowledge and standpoints, which they obtain while getting ready for and regenerating their practice. Interacting with other professionals who offer moral support, critique, ideas and inspiration for the renewal process will also promote opportunities for effective professional development.

Nearly all managers wish to create more powerful and equitable learning opportunities when they are given time to reflect. Nevertheless, their abilities depend on how they perceive the existent and prospective links between learning and leading in their own context. Managers can use reflective tools like optimizing video as a self-assessment tool, strengthening electronic portfolios with reflective journal writing, making use of associated resources on the Internet, taking advantage of on-line peer mentoring and stimulating reflection via learning communities as part of professional development.

Creating such a reflective learning community requires building professional communities that value learning, acting strategically and sharing leadership and engaging external environments that matter for learning. This type of reflective learning also fosters system learning, in which opportunities come up by means of evaluation of policies, programmes and resource use, strategic planning endeavours, action research focused on system-wide issues and application of indicators to measure progress towards goals defined. Leaders will be able to support system learning through inquiry into how an organization performs.

2.4. The route to leadership through reflective thinking

Reflective thinking is not only an internal process but an external one promoting improved critical thinking skills together with self-understanding as an essential way of inner work which emerges in the energy for employing in outer work. This type of thinking is required for understanding what it means to be significant for oneself and in one’s organization or practice. Being aware of one’s thinking is essential to make informed and logical decisions while working with others. In other words, taking to heart the feelings, thoughts and behaviours of other people also eases improvement in accomplishing organizational and professional objectives. In this chapter, we keep focusing on becoming a reflective thinker as a means to becoming a reflective leader. Therefore, we believe that managers can raise their awareness on their potential capacity for leadership.

Reflective leaders regard learning as a lifelong process, and they tend to equilibrate the practice ‘telling’ with ‘asking’ and frequently depend on the collective intelligence capacity of the teams formed in their organizations. Rather than being ‘in judgement’, these leaders ‘use judgement’ in handing down significant decisions. They regularly tend to step out of their routine and accustomed settings to think, explore and learn. Because the business environment has grown more complex, volatile and fast paced, leaders are more and more willing to adopt a ‘bias for action’, but effective leaders reflect on their past experiences and search for relevant, different insights before decision-making process.

What have I learnt?

What were my feelings and thoughts as it was happening?

How could I explain my experience?

How could I make use of learning for my future actions?

What is your opinion of way I felt and acted?

How have I reacted and behaved?

Based on the answers to the questions asked above, reflective leadership can be considered as a way of approaching the work of being a leader by leading one’s life with presence and personal mastery. In other words, it requires learning to be present, to be aware and attentive to our experience with people in our daily life, and it regards leadership from the standpoint of human experience. Taking the science of phenomenology into consideration, self-awareness and reflection on one’s own experience together with the experience of other people are the starting point for the process of reflective leadership, which ultimately aim to achieve improved communication changing leadership practice.

We have developed further questions and possible responses to encourage managers to become reflective leaders. Through these six questions and responses, we aim to create awareness on how to become a reflective leader in practice:

2.4.1. In what ways can reflection evoke my self-interests?

People’s self-interests can be met if they reflect on how their work has affected their learning and lives. These effects entail their progress and apprehension in some fields like career search, development of leadership, social justice, civic responsibility and consciousness, intellectual interests and self-actualization. People tend to concentrate on self-learning on particular occasions. They also consider issues related to career search when they finish university. For example, people remember their civic responsibilities only when they vote. The forms of reflection we have been discussing are drawn up to link people’s work experiences to personal development.

2.4.2. How should I proceed to be a reflective thinker?

A reflective thinking model illustrating the process of reflective thinking was developed by Taggart and Wilson [ 18 ]. To identify a problem, dilemma or challenge could be one of the initial efforts. As the next step, you should draw back from the problem concerned for a while and use an outsider perspective to re-evaluate that problem. Within this process you can employ ways of observation, data collection and reflection. They will help you obtain a cognitive picture about the way you think for the sake of defining the setting of that circumstance. This position may be integrated with a similar event in the past to lead you to get probable ways to attempt to solve the problem. You should ask a question at this stage: How have I dealt with the almost identical situation in the past and what makes the present situation different from the one in the past? You will naturally remember your experiences and make predictions and create different approaches. Doing so, you will also have tested the approaches used systematically. Finally, you will review the actions you have taken together with the consequences, and that process will provide you with a new opportunity to reframe the situation concerned.

2.4.3. What do I understand by reflective leadership?

As discussed earlier, a dedication to the continuous process of maintained critical self-awareness and development is essential in reflective leadership. How can you do that? If you are determined to become a reflective leader, you should exchange reflective thoughts of yours with those of others establishing new relationships and ask them to see the situation. We tend to make use of feelings that we highly value, let ourselves experience them and pass along them whenever available. This sort of approach, which is genuine, will certainly give us a space where we will be able to value the contributions of others. This is how we support other people by means of our own reflective practice.

Learning from others basically requires listening to them within the framework of reflective leadership, which will require receptivity to other people. Listening attentively is both an art and a skill to be practised. Effective leaders must listen to cases and stories from all workers to reflect on in what ways they could enrich and change practices. Within this context, those stories providing data about what does work or what does not will tell us to look for significance. Any discussion and reflection on those stories will enrich, change and provide us with opportunities to install any possible changes into practice.

2.4.4. What types of strategies, resources and tools do I need to be more reflective and self-aware?

Awareness is created through communication. To achieve a high level of communication, awareness on what you have been thinking is necessary. In other words, it will enable you a tool to discover yourself and become more self-aware. To do so, any sort of conflict should be seen as an opportunity to understand more of your true self as well as other people. The questions and answers to what you are sensing, thinking, feeling and willing or not willing to do will take time to get. So, you should go on asking them till you could past strong emotions like resentment and anger, because those emotions play a key role in guiding you to what you have been thinking. After reflecting on genuine answers, you can share them with other people directly. Whatever language you use in answering to those questions will encourage ownership, thus enhancing connection. Through this process, you could get a tool to monitor your awareness, expand your opinions and listen to others attentively to resolve problem.

Another efficient approach to work with other people effectively is to be aware of your natural talents. This is something to do with exploration of your strengths. Identifying your talents will naturally provide you with many strategies to build them into your strengths. Knowing what gifts and talents you possess will help you see your weaknesses and align your goals and job with your own talents.

2.4.5. In what ways do reflective leaders affect leadership practice positively and create reflective leaders to be?

Reflective thinking lets you both share your concerns and reveal the concealed issues for you and other people concerned. This process will create an opportunity for you and other people to reflect on your and their point of view, thus providing a sort of catharsis. Doing so will help you develop a wider viewpoint, a new appreciation for everybody and deeper understanding.

As reflective practice is seen as a transformative process, you and the other people around could proceed in a more interconnected way. So, you could define common objectives and goals together with guidelines to avoid possible conflicts in the future. In creating open channels of communication, this environment will bring informal and regular meetings to allow reflective practices supporting reflective leadership. These types of meetings are highly valued by reflective leaders as they see them as productive environments to provide collaborative work supporting the greater sense of collegiality.

Being open and letting testing of propositions and inquiring about one’s strength are another significant task for reflective leaders. It could be necessary for you to face problems like defensiveness of yours and that of other people and the inefficiency of your team for the sake of ensuring the impact of approach you use. So, a reflective learning community, in which reflection is an ideal way of support and learning, should be created by reflective leaders. In such a community, you provide a safe environment for self-expression, identify objectives, give feedback and stimulate self-observation. In defining the strengths of the individuals, you offer other people optional approaches to be successful in their work.

2.4.6. Which leadership processes enhance reflective leaders’ powers and achieve success in other people?

First of all, peer reflection, which helps question assumptions, is one of the main means for reflective leaders to carry out with other reflective leaders. Peers are of paramount importance in clarifying our values. This process helps us build our and peers’ strengths, compensate weaknesses and search for better problem-solving approaches [ 19 ].

To be able to achieve the task, effective leaders should form and maintain the teams in developing individuals. The aspirations can best be achieved if leaders can function in a collegial and collaborative ways by means of reflective practices, which initiate the process of perspective transformation. In other words, reflective leadership is considered to be transformative as long as it builds success in other people by reducing barriers while implementing leadership behaviours. Barriers, to a certain extent, are determined by means of reflection. They are regarded to be intrinsic to our human ego—strivings to achieve, to manage our situation and to compensate for our lack of confidence. The barriers can be reduced by deliberately reacting to what challenges us as a leader under different circumstances. Reflective leaders do that by having a deeper awareness of what sort of leader he/she wished to be, what sort human being is required and what sort of legacy is left by them. These choices direct leaders in how they take up daily leadership. That is to say that the way how leaders go about their day will determine ultimately whether they feel successful and rest with integrity and peace of mind or not.

The rapid rate of changes in our age seems to be one of the biggest demands for leaders. The other striking demand is the need for new frameworks for leadership skills. Leaders can cope with those challenges as long as they can bring each individual to the table to model the future with strong collective dialogues and cooperative actions. Among the other reflective leadership skills, they should be able to manage conflicts, model an adaptive capacity and be efficient in establishing and maintaining relationships. As they are expected to be the cocreators of change, they should accept that any individual or circumstance cannot move out their individual peace or competency. Viewed in this light, they should be able to communicate those feelings to other people in a way that will encourage and enable them to clasp the future and partake in its formation. Ultimately, they should be able to act as a model for other people in their exploration of the value and meaning of whatever they do. They can exhibit behaviours of personal growth and self-awareness if they have a commitment to the ongoing reflective practice.

To conclude, being a reflective leader is initiated through reflective practice. You can begin by being more fully present in every task in your daily life. This requires attending to verbal and nonverbal communication in your interaction with others, often inquiring and clearing up worries and being an attentive listener. You should further take your own experience into consideration together with the experience of other people and each assumption before making decisions. Only after these reflective practices can you establish a sense of mutual respect and sound relationships and see that other people are drawn to you and search for your compassionate consideration about any problem encountered. This transformative process followed will make advance on the way to becoming a reflective leader.

3. Reflective practice

Managers and leaders focus upon events through an intellectual exercise in order to determine in what ways individual assumptions and beliefs together with their experiences and background impact organizational functioning. This is what we call reflective practice that inculcates the intellectual discipline needed to discern ‘what is’ in practice episodes as well as to engage in the self-growth necessary if one is to manage and lead others.

The success of reflective practice depends on learning. For reflective leaders, doing immerses learning. Being aware of what we have been doing does not always create learning as it is a purposeful endeavour. Approached from this angle, realizing the required role of reflection in taking out learning from experience and being aware of the essential principles of a reflective practice will let leaders begin to act on the conception that knowledge is planted in their experience and understand the significance of that knowledge in fostering their practice.

Through learning from experience, reflective practice aims to create a structure, habit or routine. So, a reflective practice can differentiate with regard to how much, how often and why reflection is carried out. Carrying out a reflective practice requires not only clearing the aims it needs to serve but also creating opportunities to install reflection into our activity that are down to earth and yet come about at the right intervals and with adequate depth to be meaningful. However, it is structured; sustaining a reflective practice will transform the probability of learning from our practice into an actuality.

Sergiovanni [ 20 ] classifies three distinct knowledge of leadership conceptions regarding the relationship between theory and practice: (1) there is no relation, (2) theory is superordinate to practice, and (3) practice is superordinate to theory (p. 7). People who adopt the first conception believe that professional practice in leadership relies solely on intuitive feelings disconnected from theory and research. People who put special emphasis on theory feel that leadership is an ‘applied science’ which can be prescribed by theoretical concepts, strategies and depictions. Believers of the last conception see leadership as a ‘craft-like science’ consisting of reflective practice not prescribed but informed by theory.

Since the first conception claims no relation between theory and practice, implication of leadership as no science makes no sense to many, and thus it did not find enough grounds to permeate. Unlikely, the theory-oriented conception of leadership as an applied science pervades throughout the literature on leadership. Its clear-cut linear fashion simplifies every decision to be made into steps and processes predefined in literature. When one has to end organizational conflicts, then there are models of conflict management. When some important decisions have to be made, there are decision-making processes that explain every step in detail. This tool-based approach to leadership has long lived for its feasibility, but when it was realized that the real life is more complicated that it cannot be predetermined to a degree which enables theory to make tools for every situation in leadership, then reflective practice seemed a more realistic way of generating professional knowledge that is different from scientific knowledge. It is different because professionals create it by crafting their intuitions once they encounter situations not defined by scientific knowledge unlike ones in applied science conception. Thus, the craft-like science conception distinguishes professional knowledge from scientific knowledge; the former is created on demand, while the latter is predetermined as a contingency. Reflective practice is about professional knowledge creation by ‘deciding what to do. What purposes should be pursued? What strategies and practice should be used? What should be emphasized and when? In what ways should resources be deployed? How will we know we are on track, and so on’ [ 20 ].

Another distinction implicit in our understanding is that scientific knowledge is prescribed by theory, while professional knowledge is informed by theory. It is informed by interacting elements of reflective practice: practice episodes, theories of practice and antecedents (p. 15). Practice episodes consist of intentions, actions and realities. Leader’s priorities, preferences, strategies and decisions determine his or her intentions that impel actions in the form of leadership and management tactics and behaviours. After actions are performed, realities occur as results, outcomes and consequences. The realities further affect intentions and then actions in a loop which never ends ( Figure 1 ). This infinite loop of practice episodes affects and is affected by theories of practice and leadership antecedents. Theories of practice are mental scenes of a leader’s beliefs and assumptions about how things work in the real world. These are greatly affected by leadership antecedents especially by the theoretical knowledge antecedent. These mental images perform as mindscapes that govern leadership actions both consciously and unconsciously. ‘A reflective mindscape is a perspective in which purposeful activity…is always subject to disciplined examination and re-examination using whatever resources are helpful’ [ 21 ]. Theories of practice may arise from social interactions between leader and others or even from myths on how organizations work. ‘The bundles of beliefs and assumptions about how organizations work, the role of power, authority, management, and leadership, the organization’s purposes, the role of competition, and the nature of human nature’ may evolve into theories [ 20 ]. Workplace is where leaders can best learn about their theories of practice. Therefore, a detailed explanation of these implicit theories cannot be made.

Figure 1.

Elements of reflective practice [ 20 ].

At this point, we will focus on five key leadership antecedents, which play an essential key role in understanding the reflective practice. They are cultural milieu, theoretical knowledge, craft knowledge, self-knowledge and critical knowledge.

3.1. Cultural milieu

As reflective practice is expected to be contextualized in work, it should not be considered separately from the cultural milieu together with the setting and purposes of organization. The cultural milieu includes the elements of educational background, social background, religious background, economic background and historical background, which plays a key role in shaping in what ways a person sees and interprets the outer world. This means that reflective practices will differentiate from individual to individual and from organization to organization and that companies will form different reflective practices that emerge from and further inform their backgrounds mentioned above.

On the other hand, reflective practice can occur through a visioning process or a bigger process of culture change or organizational change. Tucker and Russell [ 22 ] concluded that transformational leaders can have a major influence on organizational culture and change. As culture is a medium by means of which leadership travels and affects performance of the organization, reflective leaders play a key role in transmitting the culture that they believe will most augment organizational functioning.

3.2. Theoretical knowledge

The second antecedent of leadership is the theoretical knowledge, which consists of technical, cognitive and rational knowledge. It means that theoretical knowledge is factual in nature, based in scientific rationality. Reflective approach to leadership is important to the integration of theoretical knowledge, skill development and individualized contexts. The learning organization was often based on a systems theory that handled practice as a result of theoretical knowledge [ 23 ]. Professional learning communities, the name given to leaders’ collaborative professional learning, have become so overused that the term’s meaning is often lost. Only when leaders reflect on their practice based on their theoretical knowledge, consider the impact leadership has on workers and implement insights gained from a meeting to improve their leadership performance can this process be called a professional learning community.

3.3. Craft knowledge

Craft knowledge is believed to be implicit in practitioner; it provides the ‘feel for’ what one does [ 24 ] and manifests itself in the refined ability to interpret what is and to discern what ought to be and what one should do to get there. According to Kluge [ 25 ], knowledge management shows unique leadership challenges. ‘From a leadership perspective, knowledge management has been viewed more like a craft and less like a science. Because of the very nature of knowledge, it is difficult for managers to predict what measures can really improve performance, and how to encourage and guide knowledge flows within an organization’ [ 25 ]. The leaders, according to them, should presume the function of advancing leadership and knowledge in the organization. They should set the tone for the organization and demonstrate that knowledge together with its administration are carefully taken into consideration.

Leaders, from this standpoint of view, should signal a shift in tone when they ask their team to reflect on their learning. Reflective leaders help them realize that they can now look back rather than move forwards. They will take a break from what they have been doing, step away from their work and ask themselves, ‘What have I (or we) learned from doing this activity?’ Some leaders could use music to signal the change in thinking.

In the reflective settings, leaders could invite the teams to learn from their experiences orally or in written form. They ask them to reflect on their learning, to evaluate their metacognitive strategies, to compare intended with actual outcomes, to analyze and draw causal relationships and to synthesize meanings and use their learning in different and future events. Members of the team realize that they will not ‘fail’ or make a ‘mistake’, because these terms are broadly described. Nonetheless, reflective teams realize that they can learn from all their experiences and develop personal insight.

3.4. Self-knowledge

Self-knowledge, even though it is often neglected, enables a vital lens through which leaders could better understand, realize and interpret organizational reality and their position in it. It mainly includes self-awareness, self-understanding and self-management. Without self-knowledge, it is hard for the leaders to understand their weakness and strengths together with their super powers. It lets the best business builders walk the tightrope of leadership: projecting conviction while at the same time staying humble enough to be open to different ideas and opposite thoughts since it is an essential element for organizational functioning. To improve self-knowledge, we highly recommend reflective leaders to (1) observe yourself to learn, (2) keep testing and knowing yourself better and (3) be conscious of other people as well.

While building a team, self-knowledge is also a crucial factor as being aware of one’s weaknesses together with strengths makes them a better recruiter and allocator of talent. In the meantime, you should also be an acute observer of others’ weaknesses and strengths. Reflective teams consist of people who both understand and complement each other. Whenever you notice people developing a common goal by pursuing different ways, there is an implied feedback loop based on peers and systemic learning in that observation itself. Should you have the right complement of people as well as a supportive learning organization, it lets you look at yourself and other people.

That is called the leash of self-awareness: know, improve and complement thyself. They are the common sense principles even though they are not generally practised. In other words, people do not often commit to stand in the face of truth. Rigorous commitment, intellectual honesty and active truth seeking are sine qua non to any process of self-awareness.

3.5. Critical knowledge

The final antecedent of reflective practice is critical knowledge, which includes assumptions, beliefs and values. In other words, critical knowledge (sometimes called ‘philosophical’ or ‘ethical’ knowledge) is a conscious awareness of that which is of transcendent or ultimate value and which perjures beyond the individual. Reflective practice creates an opportunity for development for people holding leadership positions. If you want to manage a team, you should have a clear balance between technical expertise and people skills because this type of role is hard to play. Reflective practice gives an opportunity to leaders to re-evaluate what has been achieved and what improvements could be made.

As discussed earlier, reflection is the conscious and intentional examination of one’s behaviour. Through this process, new understandings and appreciations may be acquired. Leaders should be an active reflector keeping their personal journals. When a difficult event takes place, they can often scribble in their journal to decanter their emotions and thoughts. Schön [ 4 ] described three processes to reflection—awareness of uncomfortable feelings or thoughts, followed by a critical analysis of experience, leading to the development of new perspectives. The phases are not necessarily linear and can involve both looking forwards and looking back.

Asking open and curious questions: let yourself practise asking genius-level questions, which only other people can answer, and about which you should not have any possible theory. For example, you could ask your colleagues about what they are genuinely excited in their work or what their biggest worries are.

Reflecting on the iceberg: doing so takes us back from repairing symptoms and being sensitive to what is going on around us. For example, you can think of a certain event and detail whatever you saw at the level of any event or action. You can then note the different patterns of behaviour seeming to contribute to that action. Detail on different organizational structures and cultural milieu, which created those behaviours.

Using visual art: this is basically a practice for shifting out of words. You could use newsprint or flipchart material with large coloured magic markers and start scrawling, drawing, scribbling or sketching whatever you think. Do not use any words till you feel that you are tired and leave the ‘artwork’ overnight. Look at it for a few minutes, give a name and date it the following day.

Journal writing: to give a chance to what our own inner wisdom says and listen. Doing so, you could learn from your own lives. This sort of practice helps create a greater awareness of your processes of thought. Give yourself some time every day to write in a free way with no prejudice. This process of writing might reflect the sense you possess about tomorrow or what now breaks for you about yesterday.

Role models: without any prejudice, you could observe a leader having a different approach different from that of ours. This practice will help you identify leaders whom you admire. To shadow those leaders, give yourself a day and observe them. Try to have a short interview with any of them asking how they think about leadership and handle the change.

Tackling creative endeavour: spend some time each day for some creative capacity such as writing poems, cooking, playing music, painting or sketching. These can rest our mind placing you in a flow state and enable significant perspectives to understand the world in different ways.

Reaching physical wisdom: to have a better reflection, you should devote to attempt in processes creating different understanding in your body. You may spend some time for some activities like playing golf, jogging, taking up skiing, woodworking or gardening courses.

Discovering people who draw the best out of you: identify who in your life draws your best energies and in whose presence you are the one who you would like to be. Also identify what you have in common. Spend more time with those people who give you best energies.

Through these processes, it will be much easier to learn from colleagues; write downshifts in your awareness and in your sense of purpose. Ask yourself whether you are aware of things you have not noticed earlier, by virtue of any of these processes or practices. The possible responses you will have will contribute to your effectiveness as a leader; increase the capacity to lead change. When people are asked about the most effective leaders, they will talk about the extraordinary capacity of leader to listen. Listening is an essential cognitive skill for a leader. One might conclude from this that reflective practice begins within yourself, and it is a significant transformational leadership skill, which will help you notice and change the profound processes of thought.

3.6. The models of reflective practice

To make reflective practice more concrete, there are some models offered to leaders. A useful model that explains reflective practice is the ALACT model of Korthagen [ 26 ]. The model has continuous phases of action, looking back on the action, awareness of essential aspects, creating alternative methods of action and trial ( Figure 2 ). A leader or manager does an action; judges how well he or she did the action; considers elements that attributed to success of the action or prevented the action to be successful, based on that judgement develops better ways of doing action; and finally tries the action in a better way. Note that the first and the last phases are the same. A sample implementation of this approach would be like this one [ 26 ]:

A: A mathematics lesson was given.

L: This lesson went fine. They were a bit noisier than usual, but I could control them all the same.

A: Ronnie was not present; that may have been a cause of the extra noise. In my opinion he is a kind of ‘leader’, and because he was always cooperative, the others cooperated too. Now that he wasn’t there, the others didn’t know how to behave. Yet they all worked well. Another cause may be that we started at 8:30, which is earlier than usual. The children hadn’t blown off steam yet, but I wanted to start quickly all the same, for I had only 1 h.

Figure 2.

The ALACT model of reflection [ 26 ].

C: The next time I will take more time.

Reflective questioning is another way of performing reflective practice. This model offers questions to be asked by reflective practitioners in three levels of reflective practice, which are descriptive, that is, theory-building, knowledge-building and action-oriented levels of reflection ( Table 1 ). The levels are a type of reflection in action. Reflective leaders first describe the situation they are in and then move to scrutinize the situation to construct knowledge to be used in the action-oriented level of reflection. In this final level, questions to improve the consequences of the action are asked by the reflective leaders.

Table 1.

Reflective questioning [ 27 ].

Gibbs’ model of reflective cycle takes feelings into account when reflecting on and learning from experience. It starts with a brief description of an event and then feelings about the event are expressed ( Figure 3 ). In the evaluation stage, value judgements are made for further analysis in the next stage to draw a personal understanding of the event. In the conclusion stage, insights into how behaviour affected the outcome of the event are developed. Finally, an action plan is developed to be used when encountered the same or similar event. The plan should constitute learned intuition of what a leader would do differently in the next time. This model is a type of reflection on action. A very good example reflection done by a leader using Gibbs’ model can be read at [ 29 ]. Instructions about how to implement each stage are further detailed in Table 2 .

Figure 3.

Reflective cycle [ 28 ].

Table 2.

Stages of reflective cycle [ 28 ].

Kolb’s reflective model presents another circular approach to reflective practice ( Figure 4 ). New knowledge is generated upon experience building on prior experiences and knowledge. The cycle starts with a concrete experience in which a person is actively involved. In the reflective observation stage, reviewing of what has been done and experienced takes place. The next stage is called abstract conceptualization that involves making sense of what happened by interpreting relations between events. The final stage of active experimentation is about testing implications of concepts, which are developed in the previous stage, in new situations.

Figure 4.

Kolb’s reflective model [ 30 ].

Experience needs to be seen as constructed, shaped and contained by social power relations.

Complex and unequal relations around knowledge are constructed between people as an integral part of the learning process.

There is a need to focus on the here-and-now experience and the mirroring process between the people within the education environment and the organizations they represent.

Finding ways of working with underlying and unconscious processes, particularly defence mechanisms, is necessary.

Second-order or metaprocesses relating to each aspect of the cycle are included.

4. Conclusions

Leadership is so complex that everything about it cannot be written in a handbook nor can be prescribed in the literature on leadership. So, how can new knowledge about leadership be generated when it is needed but not available at hand? Reflective leadership fills the gap between theory and practice by enabling leaders to construct their own theories of practice during, after and even before their actions. It teaches leaders how to catch fish instead of giving them fishes. It is a self-development tool and requires little mastery to use. We believe that this chapter is a good starting point for all leaders to acquire this mastery that paves the way for growing as reflective leaders who are self-efficient in creating and updating their own practice of leadership.

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