Ethical Leadership at Cardinal IG: The Foundation of a Culture of Diversity - Assignment Example

Management 16 November Ethical Leadership at Cardinal IG: The Foundation of a Culture of Diversity How has David Pinder embraced ethical leadership to create an ethical culture at Cardinal IG? Gaining great experience during his work as a commander in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, David Pinder understands the importance of ethical culture better than anybody else does. Being a good professional, this plant manager is aware about the key factors of effective leadership. David acts according to the principle of role-model. Hence, being a leader by nature, he shows other managers what kind of features they have to foster in order to benefit the company’s prosperity. The implementation of effective leadership and acknowledgement of major indicators that help in combining workers and directing them to the mutual goal started when Pinder got a task to build the Cardinal Insulated Glass plant from scratch. The manager was not in hurry with any decision until his view about how exactly the plant was supposed to run and the philosophy of business were not clearly visualized. Before switching to practice, David elaborated and thought through every little detail regarding the business launch, including the purchase of equipment and methods that would help employees stray from personal interests only and strive to achieve company’s incentives by working in a team. David was absolutely sure that a key to the company’s success was a combination of three main targets, such as profitability, customers and employees. Disregarding any of the mentioned aims will abruptly affect other sectors. Hence, demotivation and lack of employees development will lead to employees dissatisfaction and decrease in productivity that influence on the product attractiveness and customer’s loyalty, which in turn make a significant impact on the company’s profits. The major element of Cardinal IG plant’s success is that company’s mission is combined with practical ways of Pinder regarding how exactly business aims should be attained. In this respect, the business values get practical and concrete character instead of an abstract vision. 2. What steps has he taken to ensure an ethical culture? According to David Pinder’s plan, Cardinal Insulated Glass is arranged in a traditional organizational structure with a vertical hierarchy and high level of centralization. A lot of economists assume that such factors as technology, size and environment form the structure of any organization. In this respect, according to Tran and Tian, “The more certain the environment is, the more centralized hierarchy the firm’s organizational structure may have, with formalized rules and procedures” (229). Along with classical hierarchic system, there are specific departments, such as marketing or account, which specialize on particular administrative functions. All departments and divisions are linked with each other with the help of a team network. David elaborated the approach of teambuilding, due to which each level of hierarchy has a team that helps every employee direct own performance to the achievement of the general purpose of the company. In addition, Pinder aims to foster real team leaders whose decisions will make business processes run effectively. One of the most efficacious steps that have been taken to ensure ethical culture is a provision of long-term and extensive leadership-training program. Every quarter, managers take training sessions that help them improve their leadership skills and make proper decisions during practical situations. Furthermore, David Pinder teaches managers to be always available for their subordinates who seek for suggestion or piece of advice and become role-model mentors for employees so that others get aware about what direction in the work environment they should strive for. The policy of open door encourages employees to share their concerns and express their dissatisfaction with managers, who in their turn should strive to eliminate any inconveniences cause at the workplace. 3. Compare and contrast at least two other organizations that are similar to Cardinal IG. Discuss the similarities and differences. Discuss what steps they have or have not taken to create an ethical culture. Discuss other important concepts discussed in class. According to the research conducted by Forbes, thousands of companies have been studied in order to detect the most diligent and successful organizations with high ethical standards (Smith par. 2). In that brilliant list, there are such companies as Alcoa and General Electric Company, which leadership policy has similarities with Cardinal Insulated Glass. Alcoa is a company that operates in the metals and mining industry. Its former chairman once showed that it was possible for any company to cherish values without reservations (Thomas, Schermerhorn and Dienhart 60). Paul O’Neill focusing on human dignity persuaded everyone in the company that each employee had a right for safety on a workplace. During the leadership of Paul, the safety of worker was not protected by law; it was merely a matter of ethics. In this respect, O’Neill set an aim to achieve zero level of lost workdays. To do so, he used traditional and effective techniques of the leadership, such as raising stakeholders and managers’ awareness about ethical issues and company’s mission. He made a meeting with entire executive team and in a form of ordinary conversation, he emphasized how exactly saved life and health of a worker would benefit company’s profitability. He insisted that every manager should be open for communication with own employees and should not turn their backs to the problem of safety. Hence, as much as Cardinal IG, Alcoa propagandized availability, awareness, participation and support of executives in the day-to-day working processes of each employee. In the General Electric Company, there has been a radical refusal from established authority of management when one day “workers meet to decide how to fix problems and make the company better” (Freeman and Stewart 5). This action led to more effective decisions due to the fact that more and more employees stared to be retracted in the decision-making process. Since workers got opportunity to express their dissatisfaction, this prevented them from doing any crucial mistakes in job. The company only wins because of such leadership approach. 4. How has Cardinal’s principles and values shaped the ethical behavior of employees? How do you feel it helped to shape an ethical culture at Cardinal IG? Correctly formulated and represented mission of the company plays a great role on the success of its performance. Hence, the clearer and more ethically right principles an organization has, the more eagerly and effectively its employees implement them in practice. Cardinal Insulated Glass set priority on ethical values, which require and foster the same ethical attitude of its employees. Being a role-model leader, David Pinder demonstrates what kind of traits ideal manager should have. The plant manager stimulates employees to focus on the company’s goals and with a help of effective teambuilding, elaborate ethical behavior. It is recommended to start from own attitude for each executive manager, whose example will influence other’s perception. Setting ethically right values indirectly encourages managers to foster proper behavior, which in its turn, makes positive impact on employee’s behavior, who also try to act according to the company’s vision and managers’ pattern. Such unanimity in behavior results in solidarity between colleagues, strengthens team spirit, leads to more effective and less fallible decisions, stimulates work productivity and shapes positive ethical culture of the company. When every worker has the same understanding, perception, values and behavioral pattern as others within the company, this creates favorable working climate that encourages everyone to act in accordance with organization’s purpose. In this respect, labor force is united with proper ethical culture that favors good reputation of Cardinal Insulated Glass Company. 5. How has Cardinal empowered its employees to practice responsible and accountable leadership? Cardinal Insulated Glass empowered its employees to practice responsible leadership with the help of leadership techniques of Davis Pinder. It has been proved that implementation of ethical leadership is not limited only with strong character of a manager; instead of this, workers should be demonstrated with ethically right behavior from the top executive management (Trevino and Brown 77). Only by showing appropriate ethical pattern, a manager may expect to see the same behavior from other employees and foster followers of accountable leadership. The ethical leadership consists of the apposite rules within the company that stimulate relevant conduct of the staff. Hence, David Pinder emphasized the importance of making responsibilities and job tasks as clear as possible along with increasing self-regulation of each employee. His leadership skills and approaches, David supplemented with love and interest to employee’s moral condition. The plant manager remembered names of his workers and never disregarded personal problems of the staff considering it as a major indicator job satisfaction. Showing example by own attitude, Pinder encouraged managers to have the same open door policy, pay attention to the worker’s complaints and be available for communication all the time. Creating special bonds with his staff, David demonstrated how exactly his participation in worker’s life helped him stay always aware about the business processes that took place and be prepared for impending challenges. With the help of David’s example, Cardinal Insulated Glass required the same work attitude from other members of the company. 6. What is your opinion of the company? Support your opinion with evidence from the reading and research. In my opinion, Cardinal Insulated Glass has a great plant manager, who knows for sure where each employee should be directed to in order to achieve company’s purpose. The practice proves that it is not enough to have innate leadership skills, every leader should improve and develop own leadership techniques. In addition, it is obvious that in case a person initially does not position themselves as a leader, it does not mean that he or she can never become one. On the contrary, with a proper training and guidelines of effective leaders, such skills can be easily developed. The continual training program in Cardinal Insulated Glass helps to foster good leaders and coaches within the company, who with their constant availability support employees and guide them to make right decisions at the workplace. The idea of ethical leadership is extremely beneficial to the company’s reputation and performance in general since it raises employee’s awareness about company’s mission and goals, clears understanding of own job responsibilities and expectations, increases productivity and effectiveness of decision-making process, prepares managers for unpredictable business problems, enhances job satisfaction of workers and decreases chances of the company to suffer financial losses because of ineffective management and unnecessary fluctuation of manpower. I believe that Cardinal Insulated Glass plant is a bright example of effective ethical policy that other companies should follow in order to avoid any corporate conflicts. Works Cited Freeman, Edward, and Lisa Stewart. “Developing Ethical Leadership.” Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics (2006): 1-14. PDF file. 16 Nov. 2014. . Thomas, Terry, Schermerhorn, John, and John Dienhart. “Strategic Leadership of Ethical Behavior in Business.” Academy of Management Executive 18.2 (2004): 56-66. Print. Tran, Quangyen and Yezhuang Tian. “Organizational Structure: Influencing Factors and Impact on a Firm.” American Journal of Industrial and Business Management 3 (2013): 229-236. Print. Trevino, Linda and Michael E. Brown. “Managing to Be Ethical: Debunking Five Business Ethics Myths.” Academy of Management Executive 18.2 (2004): 69-81. Print. Smith, Jacquelyn. “The Worlds Most Ethical Companies.” Forbes 3 June 2013. Web. 16 Nov. 2014. Read More