Role modeling is probably better known as “leading by example.” It is the expectation that those who are in leader roles in the workplace, community, schools, clubs, and the church will set the example of how to behave properly based on personal morality, laws, and accepted social and organizational norms. Growing up, we all have had role models and those persons to whom we looked for guidance, direction, and acceptable behavior at home and in public. Early tutors of the proper example, of course, should be parents, school teachers and administrators, spiritual leaders, coaches, elected and appointed governmental and civic leaders, and those who have an influence or authority relationship with others. Not many persons can opt out of the role-modeling occupation. Many of us found role models in fictitious heroes or heroines depicted in the comics or on television. People today find heroes and heroines in the sports and music arenas. When we look up to others as role models, we tend to imitate or mimic their attitudes, actions, and behaviors.
Take a look at Figure 3.1 and note the action of the young boy:
Figure 3.1 Role Model
The young boy is mimicking the behavior of an inanimate object. The picture serves to remind us how impressionable others are, whether they are young or old, at home, at school, or in the workplace. Followers are imitators of the behaviors of their leaders. Any time that a person assumes an influence or authority relationship with others, he or she becomes a “leader by example,” where “actions speak much louder than the words” he or she utters. Role modeling is the most important occupation a person can have; it is a duty and the outcomes are far reaching.
Think of the people who have influenced your life for better or worse. What did you learn about life and the treatment of others from your parents, teachers, coaches, spiritual leaders sports figures, music and television personalities, and government officials? What behaviors have you learned and even imitated from the example of key persons in your life? Morals and their application to daily living (ethics) are learned at an early age from the actions of our role models and mentors. Early role models have a critical responsibility to forge and shape the moral compass of children, adolescents, teenagers, and college-aged persons. That moral compass continues to take shape over the course of a lifetime, as we grow in our moral reasoning. The workplace becomes the next influencer and shaper of that moral compass since people spend a majority of their waking lives at work. It now becomes critical that the workplace is a source of people who role model proper attitudes, actions, and behaviors as set by the workplace.
Theoretical Basis for Organizational Role Modeling
Role modeling is a key aspect of ethical leadership theory (ELT) (Treviño et al. 2003; Treviño et al. 2000).1 Leaders and managers who share influence and hold authority relationships within the organization have a duty and privilege to role model proper legal, societal, and workplace standards of conduct and to also apply those standards in the daily operation of the company. ELT is adamant in its belief that executives and top company leaders must demonstrate, promote, and manage their company’s ethical environment (Brown and Mitchell 2010; Brown et al. 2005; Treviño et al. 2003; Treviño et al. 2000).2 Our stipulated definition of ethical leadership is the consistent role modeling of the appropriate application of workplace morality in the daily influence of the organization. Executives need to be reminded that no matter whether they want to be role models or not, they are. Top leaders lead the implementation of workplace values by their daily example. Employees see those who sit atop the organizational hierarchy as the epitome of company codes. Employees best see what the company values by what they see in executives or top company leaders.
Role modeling, as we have seen, happens early in our lives through those in influence or authority relationships over us. The same influence or authority relationships exist in the workplace as a foundation of ELT based on social learning theory (SLT) and social exchange theory (SXT). As with deontological and teleological ethics, ELT, SLT, and SXT are critical ideas for an effective CEMS (Dunn 2013; Mulki et al. 2009).3
SLT
SLT posits that we learn proper, social ways of acting and behaving based on what is seen in those who have an authority relationship over us. Bandura (1990)4 understood that there is a reciprocal relationship and interplay between our environmental influences and personal actions. Bandura believed that an individual’s behavior could alter his or her environment and environmental influences, as role models and peers could alter an individual’s behavior. Boyce (2011)5 agreed with Bandura that a person learns from a combination of personal experiences in life, the behavior of others, environmental determinants, and even the person’s individual behavior.
ELT, based on SLT, holds that there exists an authoritative and role-modeling relationship between executives and employees through which executives must demonstrate appropriate moral and value-oriented behavior in the workplace (Mulki et al. 2009; Mayer, Aquino, Greenbaum, and Kuenzi 2012).6 Employee workplace behavior is the result of the interplay between personal actions and the ethical environment set by executives, and employee behavior can be altered to align with company standards based on role modeling (Dunn 2013; Treviño et al. 1998; Treviño et al. 2003; Treviño et al. 2000).7
From SLT, we learn the critical nature of learned behavior even in the workplace. Top-tier (TT) leaders do set the “tone at the top” by their attitudes and actions visibly demonstrated in the day-to-day processes within the organization. The ways in which executives or TT leaders keep company values and treat employees, customers, and all stakeholders are examples that may be reciprocated by lower-level employees. Executives certainly need a saliency and intentionality toward setting an appropriate ethical agenda in the workplace (Treviño et al. 2003; Treviño et al. 2000).8
Employees often imitate the behavior of superiors, even when those behaviors run contrary to a personal moral compass. What is “good for the goose, is good for the gander” so to speak. If the boss is not ethical, why should we be ethical? However, if executive behaviors were unethical, SLT would teach us that the personal behaviors of employees could alter the behaviors of executives. Employees would certainly then need a strong moral compass based on personal morality and/or on workplace morality. Workplace morality is based on adherence to company values, as discussed later in this book.
SXT
SXT also forms a foundation for ELT. In any dyadic or one-on-one relationship between persons, those in the relationship usually and secretly complete a cost/benefit analysis. Persons think of the benefits and the costs of being in relationship with each other; this is a natural human response to the entrance and continuation of any relationship. Some relationships bring us joy and great benefits; other relationships seem to engage us at an emotional level that is too heavy a cost to pay. If the cost is too high, we can choose to terminate some relationships, but others we cannot—like family or work relationships. We can, however, choose to minimize the relationship and not put too much of our energy into making that relationship a reciprocal exchange of goodwill.
SXT is built around the idea that persons weigh the costs and benefits of any relationship (Eby, Butts, Lockwood, and Simon 2004).9 Eby et al. (2004) understood the SXT principles of Thibaut and Kelly in that a relationship is strengthened when the benefits outweigh the costs.10 A relationship with benefits tends to attract and to bond people to each other. A relationship with the opposite effect tends to make the bond less appealing. Persons in a strong dyadic relationship in which benefits abound seem to exchange or reciprocate benefits.
ELT would then posit that workplace relationships between executives and employees should be formed whenever the benefits outweigh the costs so that employees will reciprocate the ethical behavior shown to them (Dunn 2013).11 The exchange, then, is that of ethical behavior that matches the organizational values or code of ethics (COE). In other words, if an employee has benefited from the ethical actions of the boss, he or she will want to reciprocate or exchange that benefit by acting ethically to the boss. The overall organizational effect is a snowball of ethical activity.
From a theoretical perspective, ELT has a direct relationship with SLT in that employees learn proper workplace behavior from those who hold authority over them. From a tangential or indirect relationship with SXT, ELT consists of strong dyadic workplace relationships in which employees reciprocate the ethical actions of leaders and managers because of the benefits from those relationships. From a practical perspective, it is important for executives to think about methods to assure role modeling and to create beneficial relationships with employees. These methods form the role-modeling dimension of an effective CEMS.
Role Modeling: TT and Peer-to-Peer
As demonstrated, role modeling is a key dimension of ELT and a critical element in an effective CEMS. The extant research literature already noted in this book is adamant of the need of executive role modeling in order to have an ethical workplace. There is a trickle-down effect of ethical behavior from top leaders to lower-level employees. I called this TT role modeling (Dunn 2013).12 TT leaders or those in the upper echelons of company leadership and management must set the example for other organizational members to follow. The question is what specifically should these TT leaders role model?
Personal Morality
Trevino et al. (2000) emphasized the need for executive leaders to role model a personal morality in an intentional and salient fashion.13 In fact, the more physical distance between an executive and the employees, the more intentional and salient a leader must be in order to role model ethical behavior (Trevino et al. 2003).14 According to Trevino et al. (2000), an executive leader should not hold two personas; the private and public persona should be one and the same.15 Research points to the fact that character does count in leadership and that there is sameness between the public and private leader. The leader’s persona has a sense of integrity or wholeness—“what you see is what you get.” The perception and reality of ethical leadership are critical factors to a strong ethical climate in the workplace. So, TT leaders should always feel free to role model a personal morality and an applied ethics in daily life at the workplace. Though some employees may not agree with a top leader’s personal morality, the executive still needs to set that example. Modeling personal morality does not mean that the TT leader or manager expects the same personal morality from employees, unless a particular standard of right and wrong is part of the company COE. When an executive does not live out his or her personal standards of right and wrong in applied ethics, employees can easily distrust that TT leader so that he or she loses the influence aspect of his or her leadership. It does not take much of a leap for employees to wonder how else that leader might compromise his or her standards, not only in life, but especially in the workplace.
Company COE
TT leaders should not only role model personal morality, but should also role model company values, specifically as detailed in the company COE (Dunn 2013).16 From my organizational research, codes and value statements formed one of the top three components for an effective CEMS, along with communication and discipline for noncompliance to company codes (Dunn 2013).17 Organizations have company codes or a code of conduct or a COE for good reasons: (1) to demonstrate to stakeholders what the company holds as priorities or values for daily operation, (2) to guide the company in the fulfillment of its vision and mission, (3) to use as a decision-making tool for ethical situations, (4) to set a standard of right and wrong for employees to follow, and (5) to give executives and employees a model by which to evaluate workplace behavior.
However, it seems that most employees do not know what is contained in their company COE; some do not even know if their company has a COE. Reasons for this lack of COE knowledge could be that the COE is not memorable; the COE is not well published, presented, or trained; employees are not held accountable for the COE; and that TT leaders do not intentionally model the COE.
TT leaders must be cognizant of the company COE with its stated values and specified behaviors. TT personnel must use the COE as an extension of personal morality because the COE basically serves as the company’s morality or standards of right and wrong for organizational operation. Top leaders and managers must be passionate about the COE with its tenants and behaviors in order to effectively role model its contents. As executives lead or manage by walking around the organization, they should be conscious of behaviors that exhibit or detract from the values of the COE. When asked, a TT leader should be able to recite the COE and employees must see the COE in action from TT personnel.
The COE is a powerful tool to guide the organization; it is certainly the most powerful ethical tool to elevate ethical behavior and the ethical climate of any organization. However, the COE is only as powerful as the TT leaders and managers make it by their role modeling of its tenants.
Ethical Leader Attributes
Researchers have studied leadership for 100 years and ethical leadership for nearly that length of time (Baumhart 1961; Donham 1929; Rost 1991).18 In all the efforts to understand characteristics or attributes of effective leaders, researchers have not identified a single, unifying list; however, some attributes or central traits seem consistent: determination, integrity, intelligence, self-confidence, and sociability (Northouse 2016).19 In the same vein, the research literature expressed many ethical leader attributes (Alahmad 2010; Baucus and Beck-Dudley 2005; Brown et al. 2005; Javidan, Dorfman, de Luque, and House 2006; Morris et al. 2005; Mulki et al. 2009; Treviño et al. 2003; Treviño et al. 2000)20; but no single, unifying list is available.
It is not difficult to create a personal list of ethical leader behaviors based on personally and socially acceptable attributes. Your personal list might include traits or attributes of honesty, integrity, transparency, concern for justice, care for and service to others, compassion, selflessness, dependability, trustworthiness, empathy, and other descriptions of ethical behavior. Treviño et al. (2000) discovered that ethical leaders had attributes of integrity, honesty, and trustworthiness.21 Ethical leaders also did the right thing, had a concern for people, were open, had a personal morality, and made decisions that were objective, fair, and value-oriented, with a concern for society, the Golden Rule, and justice (Treviño et al. 2003; Treviño et al. 2000).22
I teach 25 to 30 courses to 500 to 600 students annually. To begin our class journey into ethical leadership, in many of those courses, each student writes a paragraph describing his or her perceived ethical leader attributes. After the individual paragraphs are formed, students then do speed interviewing of each other to create detailed lists of the ethical leader attributes they hear from classmates’ paragraphs. Students next place the large number of attributes discovered from the interviews through a quick qualitative and quantitative analysis to synthesize the varied attributes into the top five to seven characteristics. Take a look at some of the ethical leader attribute lists created by my students (Figures 3.2–3.6).
Figure 3.2 Bachelor-Level Students
Figure 3.3 Master-Level Students I
Figure 3.4 Master-Level Students II
Figure 3.5 Doctoral-Level Students I
Figure 3.6 Doctoral-Level Students II
As you can see, there are reoccurring attributes from the perceptions of students.
Several years ago for a doctoral project, I researched ethical leader attributes and synthesized nearly 50 terms into Figure 3.7.
Figure 3.7 Dunn’s Ethical Leader Attribute Taxonomy
From these lists, it is acceptable to conclude that an ethical leader has the attributes and character qualities of integrity (a sense of wholeness internally and externally), honesty or truthfulness, concern for the welfare of others through fair and just treatment, trustworthiness, and dependability. It is these attributes that a leader or manager should seek to role model to his or her constituents, clients, employees, family, friends, and direct reports. In short, to be an ethical leader or manager, these attributes must be front and center in the ethical leader’s daily example to those with whom he or she has an influence or an authority relationship.
It would be appropriate for organizational leaders and managers to collaborate with employees to determine the company’s personal list of ethical leader attributes. The collaborative time could start with employees writing paragraphs that describe their ethical attributes. As a fun exercise, employees could interview each other and listen for ethical leader attributes. The same simple qualitative and quantitative analysis as described earlier could then synthesize the employees’ lists into the company’s personal attribute list of five to seven attributes. The final list could be promoted as a part of orientation and yearly training for all employees. It would be expected for all TT leaders or managers and all employees to role model these attributes (see Workplace Application Exercises, no. 4).
Any TT leader should be trained on and expected to role model the values and behaviors of the company COE and ethical leader attributes, including his or personal morality that is not in conflict with company standards. If an organization is to operate ethically, the tone begins at the top through TT leaders behaving in sync with personal morality, the company COE, and the lofty ethical leader attributes.
Peer-to-Peer Role Modeling
In ELT and most ethical leadership research, role modeling is considered the responsibility of TT leaders, as just discussed. From my organizational research, the idea of peer-to-peer (P2P) role modeling emerged from the interviews conducted with employees (Dunn 2013).23 One interviewee stated that she learned company ethics through a coworker in her department or a lateral-level employee. A coworker or P2P employee demonstrated strong adherence to company policies and behaviors, which was a form of orientation or training for this interviewee. The interviewee learned company ethical policies through P2P role modeling. As TT leaders are often far removed physically from middle- to lower-level employees (Treviño et al. 2003),24 employees may not always be able to witness the role modeling of executives. It is then important to intentionally offer lateral-level or P2P role-modeling opportunities in the company.
Non-executive-level employees should be expected to demonstrate a personal morality and trained to demonstrate specific company values and behaviors. If an organization is to operate ethically, the tone may begin at the top, but it continues through P2P employees behaving in sync with personal morality, the values and behaviors of the company COE, and the lofty ethical leader attributes accepted through company collaboration. When TT and P2P role modeling are intentional activities and expectations, there is a saturation effect of company ethical policies that creates an awesome ethical climate. This ethical climate results in the benefits described in Chapter 2. After years of practice, ethics may become second nature to employees and engrained in the company culture (Dunn 2013).25
Applied Mentoring Systems for TT and P2P Role Modeling
Many trade and professional organizations have mentoring programs in which new hires are paired with seasoned employees as part of the orientation or on-boarding process. Some trades have apprenticeships and other professions require some type of “shadowing” as part of a new hire’s training for organizational duty. It is not unusual for companies to invest considerable time and money into a program that allows new employees to see and to practice the skills necessary to fulfill their position descriptions.
Most mentoring or shadowing programs and apprenticeships teach new employees certain skill sets required for the job. Technical skills, machine skills, computer skills, customer service skills, conflict-management skills, or any number of work-related skills are trained and demonstrated through mentoring processes. What is often missing is the intentional and consistent demonstration of company ethics. The company COE may have some visibility in the orientation meeting, but beyond that it is assumed that all employees are on the same ethical page. I proposed assumption theory from my organizational research meaning that many not-for-profit, service-based companies just “assume” that everyone is operating from the same value system (Dunn 2013).26 It is easy to remember what happens when one assumes. Unethical, organizational disasters often find cause in the lack of intentionality and the proliferation of assumption in the area of company ethics. Mentoring programs, both TT and P2P, offer intentionality to the role modeling of codified company values and behaviors.
Employees must see the ethical role modeling of TT leaders, as already discussed. Each organization should create ways for that to happen. Brown et al. (2005) expected that a paired relationship of younger managers with ethical senior executives would result in the development of ethical leadership.27 New hires could be paired with TT leaders for a short period of time in order for the new hire to shadow and to watch the executive in action, both ethically and practically. As noted by Treviño et al. (2000), most employees are removed from the executive leader due to distance hierarchically from the proverbial executive suite.28 It is therefore critical for new hires, especially, to grasp the ethical heart of the senior executive. In larger organizations, the top executive is a busy leader and manager, and he or she may not have or allot time for one-on-one or even group sessions with new employees. But, this beginning ethical relationship is of utmost importance to the continued strong ethical climate of the organization. The TT leader should schedule some amount of time to share his or her company ethics with new hires, either individually or in small group sessions. If the top company leader cannot complete this type of mentoring for all new hires, then a proxy TT leader must have this assignment. Stronger relationships between TT personnel and employees could be developed through this type of mentoring program for new hires.
There also could be weekly focus sessions for all employees with TT leaders to not only discuss organizational objectives, but to talk about organizational ethics and what employee behaviors are expected or need correcting. Monthly lunch sessions between employees and TT leaders could also provide an opportunity to learn from a top leader how he or she views company ethics.
Whatever process is created or implemented in the workplace, the process must assure contact with the TT leadership of the organization. From SLT, employees learn proper workplace behavior from those in authority over them; from SXT, employees use strong dyadic relationships with leaders to reciprocate ethical behavior. The critical nature of TT role modeling cannot be overstated, and a mentoring program is one way to ensure intentionality.
The interviewee discussed earlier learned proper workplace behaviors from a peer relationship with a coworker. That learning happened without a great deal of purpose or intentionality, which is often the case organizationally. It is good that peer relationships develop naturally and that by osmosis employees learn how to live company ethics.
While not discounting unintentional P2P mentoring in the workplace, it is important to be more intentional about those relationships by creating pairing or shadowing opportunities for new hires. As a part of the orientation process, new hires should be paired with lateral-level coworkers who have served the company well and who understand company ethics. Mentors for new hires should carefully be chosen based on their compliance with company values and behaviors. The mentors should have a track record of adherence to and implementation of the company COE and all ethical policies.
To implement a P2P mentoring program in the workplace, mentors who are chosen for the task must also have a period of training to prepare them for intentional ethical mentoring. Mentors must have a strong relationship style and the ability to communicate well with mentees. Mentors also should fully understand company ethical values and policies and how to talk about values and policies while working with new hires. Mentors should be trained on the daily demonstration of personal morality that does not conflict with company values and to be aware of how their daily routine displays the company COE. Mentors should have the accepted list of ethical attributes memorized and each attribute understood in such a way that natural conversations can occur around the practice of each attribute.
Each organization has to decide how long the P2P mentoring process lasts, but it seems reasonable to allow a new hire to shadow his or her mentor for 1 to 2 weeks, specifically to understand and see company ethics in practice.
Role modeling at the peer level is just as essential as TT role modeling, maybe even more essential. It is the coworkers who see each other daily, while many employees only occasionally see the TT leaders in action. Kohlberg and Hersh (1977) insisted that higher levels of moral reasoning come from our desire to please or to fit in with our peers.29 Organizations need to recognize this stage of moral reasoning and implement a P2P role-modeling process.
Ethical leadership involves the intentional act of role modeling. Based on theories of ethical leadership, social learning, relationship exchanges, and Kohlberg’s middle stages of moral reasoning, employees learn proper workplace behavior from those who have authority, influence, and peer relationships with them through role modeling. TT leaders and P2P coworkers should role model a personal morality in harmony with company standards, the company COE, and the list of ethical leader attributes chosen by company collaboration. A mentoring process, both at the TT and P2P levels, should be created and intentionally implemented in order to facilitate the act of role modeling in the organization.
Chapter 3: Workplace Application Exercises
1. Take some time to make a list of your company’s values represented in the COE. Beside each value, list how you are demonstrating or role modeling that value to your employees.
2. Analyze your public and private personas. Are there differences?
3. Create your personal list of ethical leader attributes and integrate those attributes into a paragraph to succinctly describe your ethical leadership.
4. Make a two-column list of the ethical behavior, based on your attribute list above, you role model well and the ethical behavior you wish to improve.
5. Set a company-wide meeting to collaborate on creating a company list of ethical leader attributes as described in Chapter 3 under TT Role Modeling—Ethical leader attributes.
6. Create a TT and/or a P2P mentoring program to teach and demonstrate your company’s ethics. Would you send your program(s) to Dr. Don Dunn at [email protected] for inclusion in future editions of this book, with your permission?
1. Treviño, “A Qualitative Investigation,” 5.
Treviño, “Moral Person and Moral Manager,” 128.
2. Brown, “Ethical Leadership: A Social Learning Perspective,” 117.
Brown, “Ethical Leadership: A Review and Future Directions,” 595.
Treviño, “A Qualitative Investigation,” 5.
Treviño, “Moral Person and Moral Manager,” 128.
3. Dunn, “The Moldable Model,” 1.
Mulki, “Critical Role of Leadership,” 125.
4. Bandura, “Some Reflections,” 101.
5. Boyce, “Applying Social Learning Theory,” 31.
6. Mayer, “Who Displays Ethical Leadership,” 151.
7. Dunn, “The Moldable Model,” 1.
Treviño, “The Ethical Context in Organizations,” 447.
Treviño, “A Qualitative Investigation,” 5.
Treviño, “Moral Person and Moral Manager,” 128.
8. Treviño, “A Qualitative Investigation,” 5.
Treviño, “Moral Person and Moral Manager,” 128.
9. Eby, “Protégés’ Negative Mentoring Experiences,” 414.
10. Ibid.
11. Dunn, “The Moldable Model,” 1.
12. Ibid.
13. Treviño, “Moral Person and Moral Manager,” 128.
14. Treviño, “A Qualitative Investigation,” 5.
15. Treviño, “Moral Person and Moral Manager,” 128.
16. Dunn, “The Moldable Model,” 1.
17. Ibid.
18. Baumhart, “How Ethical are Businessmen,” 6.
Donham, “Business Ethics,” 385.
Rost, “Leadership for the Twenty-First Century,” 44.
19. Northouse, “Leadership: Theory and Practice,” 23.
20. Alahmad, “To Be Ethical or Not to Be,” 31.
Baucus, “Designing Ethical Organizations,” 355.
Brown, “Ethical Leadership: A Social Learning Perspective,” 117.
Javidan, “Leadership and Cultural Context,” 335.
Morris, “Bringing Humility to Leadership,” 1323.
Mulki, “Critical Role of Leadership,” 125.
Treviño, “A Qualitative Investigation,” 5.
Treviño, “Moral Person and Moral Manager,” 128.
21. Treviño, “Moral Person and Moral Manager,” 128.
22. Treviño, “A Qualitative Investigation,” 5.
Treviño, “Moral Person and Moral Manager,” 128.
23. Dunn, “The Moldable Model,” 1.
24. Treviño, “A Qualitative Investigation,” 5.
25. Dunn, “The Moldable Model,” 1.
26. Ibid.
27. Brown, “Ethical Leadership: A Social Learning Perspective,” p. 131.
28. Treviño, “Moral Person and Moral Manager,” 128.
29. Kohlberg, “Moral Development,” 53.