Executives as Moral Agents

If I was a cynical person I would say that the two terms “executive” (as in corporate executive) and “moral agent” (as in ethical individual) seem at odds with each other sometimes. However, cynicism isn’t a nice trait and that’s why I will make an attempt to reconcile the two. In this spirit, I investigated the following two questions:

1)    Why are Executives Moral Agents? (the one way or the other) and
2)    How can Executives understand their role as Moral Agents?

Organizations as Moral Institutions

Some of you might already assume that the writings about Chester Barnard, an American Business Executive in the 20th century, must have been on my post natal reading list... right... (;-)

Unknown to many people, Barnard’s ideas have influenced the literature about Authentic Leadership immensely, particularly its moral aspect. He was the first management scholar to portray formal organizations as social systems that reflect a certain ‘culture’ (convictions, beliefs) and to suggest that management decisions are to a great extent concerned with moral issues. If you look at organizations under this light, then many decision executives make, the objectives they lie out and the actions they perform get a whole new meaning. Meaning which they can ignore, or meaning which they can accept, along with an increased importance of their managerial and leadership role that they have.

“Functions of the Executive”

In his book with the same title (1938) he brings up the aspect of morality in Leadership, but more than describing a philosophical ideal he assigns a great honor/burden to executives: he challenges them to become moral creators of values:

“The distinguishing mark of executive responsibility is that it requires not merely conformance to a complex code of morals but also the creation of moral codes for others.”

In order to be elevated to this level of responsible leadership, the executive needs to be able to:

a)    Recognize the moral intensity of each situation,
b)    Exhibit moral imagination by rising above normative solutions in order to
c)    Create moral efficacy in form of solutions that impact the moral climate of the organization.

Now, hopefully we all have met executives of that caliber!

Managers or – Leaders after all?

Barnard even uses the word ‘Authenticity’ in Leadership when he talks about the responsibility that executives have in their capacity as moral leaders. For him, there are two aspects to successful leadership that need to be ‘harmonized’ by all means:

•    Quality of competence to perform the formal role (technical aspect)
•    The quality of the role responsibility (moral aspect)

So, for all of those executives, managers and leaders who like to hide behind their technical expertise, behind their formal role in the organizational hierarchy, or simply behind their glass tower office desks: there is no escaping the harsh reality that they shape their follower’s moral agency as much as they shape their every day work. To the better, or to the worse, mind you.

Can we recognize the manager from the leader by assessing how much of the moral agency and the awareness of that responsibility they display in their actions and behaviors? I’m happy to hear your point of view.

Authentic Leadership

In any case, as fashionable as the concept of Authentic Leadership seems to us today, Barnard already talked about it in 1938. He answered the two questions asked at the beginning:

Ad 1) Executives are Moral Agents due to the powerful position they are in. Unknowingly or not, they shape their environment and the people working with them. (I think they might as well make use of that and do it well.)

Ad 2) They can do this by being aware of that very fact, and by following Barnard’s suggestions as listed above (a-c)

The Authentic Leader is one who not only follows the existing moral code within an organization, but who helps to shape the existing moral culture. And along with that comes a whole lot of responsibility for the outcome.

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As usual, I welcome your comments on this issue. If you’d like to get in touch with me personally, please write to andrea@derlercoaching.com. Thanks.

References:

Novicevic, Milorad M. et al., 2005. Barnard on conflicts of responsibility; Implications for today's perspectives on transformational and authentic leadership. Management Decision, 43(10), 1396.