Leadership, Trustworthiness, and Ethical Stewardship and Their Correlation

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The problem to be investigated is what are the ethical concepts of leadership, trustworthiness, and ethical stewardship and how are they correlated. Many interpretations of the terms leadership, trustworthiness, and ethical stewardship have been developed by scholars and researchers. However, the meaning of these topics as they relate to business organizations and business ethics need to be explored and more importantly, a discussion is necessary of how these topics interact or correlate with one another. This paper will explore these topics with first providing my opinion of each topic followed with a discussion of current research regarding each topic. This is followed with an examination of how these topics are correlated and the significance of the correlation.

Leadership, as it is applied to business and business ethics, has many attributes and approaches. Defining leadership, as it is applied in stakeholder theory, involves the manager, executive, or CEO wearing many hats in the effort to satisfy the needs of the various stakeholders of the business organization. In stakeholder theory, the CEO is not in a position of dominance and power over employees and other individuals in contrast to the CEO in the traditional leader-follower structure of businesses. The CEO or executive becomes a relationship manager and a coach in trying to create a balance between the conflicting objectives of the various stakeholders of the business. Maak and Pless (2006) explained that

the purpose of leadership can be understood as to build and cultivate sustainable and trustful relationships to different stakeholders inside and outside the organization and to co-ordinate their action to achieve common objectives, business sustainability...

... middle of paper ...

... (2002). A role for business ethics in facilitating trustworthiness: JBE Springer Science & Business Media. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy1.ncu.edu/docview/198054781?accountid=28180

Caldwell, C., Hayes, L. A., Bernal, P., & Karri, R. (2008). Ethical stewardship - implications for leadership and trust: JBE Springer Science & Business Media. doi:10.1007/s10551-006-9320-1

Caldwell, C., Hayes, L. A., & Long, D. T. (2010). Leadership, trustworthiness, and ethical stewardship: JBE Springer Science & Business Media. doi:10.1007/s10551-010-0489-y

Maak, T., & Pless, N. (2006). Responsible leadership in a stakeholder society - A relational perspective: JBE Springer Science & Business Media. doi:10.1007/s10551-006-9047-z

Mihelic, K. K., Lipicnik, B., & Tekavcic, M. (2010). Ethical leadership. Clute Institute for Academic Research. Retrieved from

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