Leaders' Power and Its Ethical Implications in The Context of Today's Organization

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Running head: LEADERS’ POWER AND ITS ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS
EC-0088
Leaders’ Power and its Ethical Implications in the Context of Today’s Organization
Orathai P. Gunaseelan
Samittra Pornwattanavate
National Institute of Development Administration, Thailand
Copyright © 2018 Orathai P. Gunaseelan & Samittra Pornwattanavate
17th International Asian Conference of AHRD P a g e | 456

LEADERS’ POWER AND ITS ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS
Abstract
The concept of leadership and power has always been and will remain interrelated. There are
various definitions of power, depending on school of thoughts and aspects of study. For
leaders, there are various tools at their disposal to cope with human resources at hand as well
as to manage work environment and the complexity of the organization. Yet, power is one of
the most crucial tools that leaders use to meet this end. In this paper, we examine the five
classic types of power available for leaders to explore and employ. The purpose is to have a
profound study of the types of power, how each of these types of power is being used by
leaders, and their links to ethical implications. There is also an attempt to find an alternative
type of power for leaders’ consideration that is ethical and suitable for today’s organization.
Keywords: ethics, leaders, leadership, power, types of powers

Leaders’ Power and Its Ethical Implications in the Context of Today’s Organization
“With great power comes great responsibility” (Lee & Ditko, 1962, p. 11), a phrase
popularized by the character Uncle Ben in the movie Spider-Man (Ziskin, Bryce, & Raimi,
2002), the reference of which allows us to understand the use of power by leaders and its
consequences throughout human history, from the Roman Empire to today’s Donald
Trump’s. The argument is that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely” (Dalberg, Lord Acton, 1887, p. 9); a famous quote from John Emerich Edward
Dalberg-Acton. It demonstrates the misuse of power by leaders that has resulted in negative
and many times, fatal consequences such as collapses of Empires or political regimes in
different countries, which history has shown time and time again.
Power is one of the most significant aspects of all organizations in general and
political organizations in particular. Not a single organization can function or accomplish its
goals without power. While an individual may exert power without being a leader, an
individual cannot be a leader without having power (Nikolas and Peter, 1991). In this case,
power can be perceived as the potential to influence others. In organizational settings, leaders
must employ power to attain individual, team, and organizational goals. Leaders must be able
to influence their followers to achieve greater performance; their superiors and peers to make
important decisions; and stakeholders to ensure the vitality of the organization.
There are different definitions of power for different schools (Dahl, 1957). Yet, in a
workplace, we have noticed that power is very little discussed topic openly. It is easier for
employees and subordinates to talk among each other about power in terms of who has it, is it
centralized, or is it misused or not. Leaders have a unique opportunity to shape an ethical
environment in the workplace because they have access to power. With this understanding, it
is important to understand how leaders can be more effective and ethical in using power at

their disposal by studying different types of power being used by leaders and the connections
to ethical implications.
There is a classic study on power which was conducted by French and Raven (1959),
who categorized five types of power by their distinctive sources: (a) legitimate power, (b)
reward power, (c) expert power, (d) referent power, and (e) coercive power. When we carried
out our research, it was clear that leaders cannot to be successful to use just only one type of
power to attain a certain goal or complete a mission. Leaders tend to mix-match among these
five types of power, depending on different situations and circumstances.
It has been more than 50 years since the study of power and the development of the
five categories (French and Raven, 1959). We found in our research that there have been
some studies and research on different types of power later on, providing us with knowledge
and information that can be used for further research on other alternative types of power and
the aspects on ethical implications to suit today’s organization.
Questions that this paper attempts to examine are:
1. What is the relationship between the five types of power, the way each of these
types of power is being used by leaders, and their links to ethical implications in
today’s organization?
2. What might be an alternative type of power, which is ethical and suitable for
today’s organization for leaders’ consideration to use and that has been developed
further from the five classic types of power?
Literature Review
The following paragraphs examine the literature with regard to power and leadership.
The first section examines the question as to what is power. The second section reviews
some selected literature on leadership. The last section discusses the relationships among
power, leadership, and ethics.

What is Power?
We found that scholars have not yet succeeded formulating the concept of power into
a systematic study. That leaves different perceptions and perspectives as to the definition of
power. Even the word ‘power’ and its synonyms are everywhere embedded in human
language, and the meaning is slightly different, such as power, influence, control, pouvoir,
puissance, Macht, Herrschaft, Gewalt, imperium, potestas, auctoritas, potential (Dahl, 1957).
There is a quote by former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher
that says, “Power is like being a lady…if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t”
(Dhiman, Austin, & Anderson, n.d., para 1). Dictionary.com gives definition of power as “a
person or thing that possesses or exercises authority or influence”.
In social science and politics spheres, power can be defined as the ability to influence
or outright control the behavior of people. Power can be understood as sinful or unfair, and
the use of such primitive exercise of power has been historically widespread. Power is later
seen as good and beneficial as social structures started to form, and power can be inherited or
given for implementing humanistic purposes that will help, enable, and move people
(Luthans, Luthans, & Luthans, 2015).
In the business perspective, power is defined as success, and as such it is a zero-sum
game which can be expressed as being ‘upward’ or ‘downward’. With downward power, a
company’s superior influences subordinates for attaining organizational goals. When a
company exerts upward power, it is the subordinates who influence the decisions of their
leader (Greiner, & Schein, 1988).
Deutsch (1964) stated that power means the ability to be involved in conflict, to
resolve it, and to remove the obstacles, while Raphael (1976) has made the analysis on power
from various aspects. The latter believed that generally power means ‘ability’ and argued that
in French there is a word ‘Pouvoir’, in Latin ‘Potestas’ both of which are commonly used.

Both these words mean “to be able” (Dunbar, 2004, p. 236) and thus, power can be defined as
the ability to “control the behavior of another person” (Dunbar, 2004, p. 238).
Perhaps one of the most influential definitions was given by Dahl in his work “The
Concept of Power” in 1957. Dahl defined power as a type of relationship in respect of
capability and control. By proving his point, he gave a simple example. There are two men: A
and B. If A has the capability to control B, then it will be assumed that A has the power.
In our opinion, we view power itself neither good nor bad, and the way to determine
which it is depends exactly on how the power is used. When power is used in an ethical way
in achieving goals and objectives, there is nothing wrong with the definition it holds.
Effective and successful leadership is not based on having power, but rather on how the
leader uses the power.
Leadership
Power and the ability to use power are clearly identified as crucial aspects of
leadership. For centuries great philosophers and thinkers as well as an average person have
tried to identify exactly what in fact defines one as a leader. There are many views and
models of leadership that have been developed, replaced, and readdressed throughout history.
There is a great deal of debate about the correct definition of leadership. The famous German
leadership theorist Oswald Neuberger (2002) listed 38 different definitions across nation, and
even this list is not complete.
Historically identifying leaders and leadership was relatively simple, meaning that
either one was born to it, or one seized it through military or political maneuvering. History
has shown the world with class-based societies, precisely two classes; those with power and
those without. Essentially, leadership was a result of one’s position. If you had the power to
force someone else to do something, you were their leader (Kessler, 2010). However, as we
know that throughout the world history, there were numerous revolts, purges, wars, and the

rise and fall of various political leadership ideologies that have proven that leadership is no
longer the purview of a single class of people.
In today’s world, a political leader’s position very much depends on the economic
performance of their subjects, possibly with militaries as tools in helping to protect economic
interests. While government leaders are unquestionably important, today a majority of those
individuals recognized as leaders are not in the political or military arena. They are found in
organizations of all sectors, from small businesses to global multinationals, in both profit and
non-profit.
Leadership has been a subject for studying in different contexts, almost in all forms of
social organization, ranging from nation, army, business, etc. Different theories have been
argued about leaders since the time of Plato and Aristotle, whether they are born or created
by a number of factors and psychosocial surroundings. Sinclair (1998) argued that leadership
can be better understood as a phenomenon constructed in minds and eyes of the audience, as
much as in the deeds and character of the observed leader.
Northam (2005), in his research paper, attempted to find an answer to reflect a
personal change of beliefs regarding what leadership is. The finding came out that “a leader is
someone who can engage people without using authority” (p 15). This is similar to the words
attributed to President Eisenhower that “by leadership we mean the art of getting someone
else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it” (Peters & Woolley, n.d.,
para 14).
Leadership has characteristically been defined as the influential process on the
activities of an individual or a group for achieving a desired goal. Therefore, leadership may
be perceived as the process in which a leader exerts power to influence others. Given that a
leader must use power to influence others, and given that leadership is evaluated on how well

the leader influences others to achieve desired goals, there may be a relationship between
power and leadership.
Relationships among Power, Leaders and Ethics
Power is considered the main linkage between leadership and ethics in the context of
an organization. It is explainable in such a way that ethics requires power, in that the
individual must have the power to act; while leadership requires power, it is the power given
by those being led. The decisions made by an individual on how they use power determine
both their ethical and leadership qualities. Just as ethics cannot exist without leadership
(Northam, 2005), leadership cannot exist without ethics since the very act of leadership
causes ethical dilemmas that must be resolved, even the simplest acts have ethical
implications.
To define ethics in organization, we quote Northam (2005) in his research on
Leadership and Ethics, “ethics can be defined as a systemic organizational process to build
and maintain the cycle of trust, thereby delivering an honest return of the stated product”
(p. 30). Ethics’ primary role is similar to that of quality, where developing a reputation for
quality, stability, and reliability can provide a sustainable competitive advantage that not only
increases an organization’s ability to endure organization and industry downturns, but may
also help maximize long-term success.
In today’s business world, ethics or perceived ethical practices of organizations and
their employees have drawn public attention and even led to investigations. There is a
growing awareness by customers, investors, employees, and the public at large that ethics
played an important factor in several organization failures (e.g., Enron). It follows that
maintaining ethical practices in an organization is at least a necessary preventive measure to
be taken against long-term organizational failure. Many organizations, thus, have concluded
that ethics is not merely a precaution against failure, but that keeping up with ethical practices

is rapidly becoming a minimum core competency, which is necessary to maintain
competitiveness. And, with the ability to avoid legal battles and reduced public confidence,
ethical practices provide the competitive edge necessary for long-term success of the
organization (Northam, 2005).
What we have found in our research is that nowadays organizations, governments,
investors and the public do seem to care for and take ethics seriously, especially specific
attention goes to organizations’ leadership and the way power is used by these organizations’
leaders. Many cases of high-profile failures due to unethical behavior and misuse of power
have drawn public scrutiny and led some governments to take actions against unethical and
immoral actions of organizations, specifically the leaders of the organizations (e.g., Enron,
WorldCom and Volkswagens).
What we seem to understand from the gathered information is that by virtue of being
ultimately responsible for the actions and behavior of the organization, all elements of
leaders’ ethics impact their leadership and power. In other words, all elements of leadership
and power are in some way impacted by ethics. This leads to an all-inclusive view of leaders’
ethics and their ability to lead an organization that is becoming significant in the business
community. In the old days, a leader’s personal ethics were considered unimportant as long
as the company succeeded in making profits and realizing goals, and neither the leader nor
the organization was subject to legal action. Today, however, the issue goes in a different
way which have shown in several cases that ethics is gaining its crucial role in relation to the
organization’s leadership and power (Daniel, 2005).
Research Methods
Our purpose in this paper was not to determine the truth or falsifiability of the existed
theories and concepts of power, leadership, and ethics. What we wanted to achieve was to
undertake a deep exploration on how different types of power are being used by leaders and

to find the linkage of power, the leaders’ use of power, and the ethical implications. We also
wanted to explore an alternative type of power for leaders’ consideration to use which is
ethical and suitable for today’s organization.
In order to have a deep investigation and profound understanding of power,
leadership, ethics and their interrelations, we used exploratory research and secondary
research methods. Through literature review, we gathered data and information from reliable
database sources such as Google Scholars, SAGE Journals, Wiley Online Library, JSTOR,
Researchgate, Harvard Business Review, and Emerald Insight by using the following
keywords: power, leaders, leadership, types of powers, ethics. The data and information were
also collected from news, retrieved from the internet.
Data Analysis
In the data analysis part, through the exploratory and secondary research methods, we
reviewed each type power, identified how each of these types of power used by leaders, and
translated their links with ethical implications in organizations. Randall (2012) and Barksdale
(2008) mentioned that power can be divided into two broad categories, called positional
power and personal power. The five types of power identified by French and Raven (1959)
can be then grouped into those two categories. Thus, legitimate power, reward power, and
coercive power can be categorized in the subgroup of positional power, while expert power
and referent power are in the subgroup of personal power. Table 1 presents this
categorization. In addition to indicating the power sources, it displays how the power is used,
the types of leaders that use those powers and their links to some ethical theories.
As for an alternative type of power part, in our research we found that there is “smart
power”, offered by Joseph Nye Jr. in the 1980s, combining soft power (similar to personal
power) and hard power (close to positional power), that could be considered to be used by

smart, successful and effective leaders of today’s organizations. Table 2 exhibits the smart
power, how it is used and its links to ethical theories.
Table 1
Categorization of Power used by Leaders
Category Power How the power is Type of leaders using Link to ethical
sources used each type of power theories
Positional Legitimate Legitimate right Officially appointed Deontology
power power leaders, i.e. police, Utilitarianism
soldier, chief
executives
Reward power Ability to provide Leaders provide valued Virtue Ethics
valued incentives incentives such as Egoism
career advancement,
bonuses, time off,
compliments, etc.
Coercive Ability to punish Leaders can punish Utilitarianism
power their employees by
firing, demotion,
reprimands, threats and
disincentives
Personal Expert power Knowledge and Leaders who are Virtue Ethics
power skills recognized as an expert
in a specific field

Referent Identity of leader Leader who are Care Ethics
power admired and loved by
other employees
Legitimate Power
Legitimate power is based on the power of a leader who has a legitimate right
through an official position or certain position title, such as police and military officers, and
appointed positions like directors and chief executives. Legitimate power is being part of
positional power. The organizational structure authorizes formal power by responsibility in
order to drive the organizational goals. The legitimate power can be linked to the deontology
ethical theory as the source of this type of power comes from the official position and
organization structure. A leader gets the legitimate power by their position and being part of
their duty in driving the organization. This type of power can also be related to utilitarianism
approach which is a normative theory that mentions the best actions or decisions that
maximize the benefits to most people.
Legitimate power can, however, create a relationship gap between superior officers
and subordinates (Barksdale, 2008). Legitimate power depends on leaders’ exercising their
power. The position power has some limitation due to lacking of personal power. It can lead
to power dilution and disregard for the leader‘s mandate (Goncalves, 2013). The ethical
implication of legitimate power happens when leaders use their position for personal benefit
such as police bribes.
Reward Power
Reward power depends on a leader’s ability to provide valued incentives, such as
career advancement, bonuses, time off, and compliments to subordinates (Gioia & Sims,

1983). The reward power is a subcategory of positional power that means a leader has
authority to allocate the rewards for achieving the mission. The reward power can be linked
to virtue ethic and egoism theories as when the followers have good performance, they get
the valued incentives. In terms of work performance evaluation, the leader should have virtue
ethics. Justice is one of the cardinal virtue that is really crucial for the leader in reward
distribution. However, the reward power is not always used as a reinforcement, but it also can
be used as a punishment (coercive power). For example, a leader revokes the reward due to
underperformance of an employee. Some of ethical implications in using reward power is that
this kind of power can deliver a strong message to subordinates to perform ethical and
unethical actions (Trevino, 1986; Trevino & Brown, 2005).
Coercive Power
Coercive power is based on the leader’s ability to control and punish their
subordinates though firing, demotion, reprimands threat, and disincentives (Barksdale, 2008;
Randall, 2012). The coercive power is a negative form of power that instills fear in human
being. Ordinarily, coercive power is used to punish an employee who infringes on the
organization’s policy or organizational expectations. The coercive power can be linked to the
utilitarianism theory. The leader should bring some forms of punishment to the followers
only based on their poor performance or their violating behaviour on the organization’s
policy and rules. The coercive power should not be used to serve the leaders’ personal
interest. However, there are some ethical challenge in using coercive power. The coercive
power can create ethical dilemmas. Subordinates may have to engage in an unethical action
due to fear of power of the top management. For example, South Korea’s former president
Park Gun-hye has been sentenced to 24 years in prison after being found to have misused
power and coercion. “The accused is guilty of abuse of power,” said Judge Kim Se Yoon,
ruling that Ms. Park had forced major conglomerates, including Samsung and Lotte to donate

large amount of money to non-profit foundations, controlled by her secret confidante, Choi
Sool Sil (Smith, 2018).
Expert Power
Expert power does not depend on the formal position. The power is based on a
subordinate’s perception that a leader has an outstanding personal skill, knowledge,
experiences, and expertise in specific field (Barksdale, 2008). The leader who has expertise in
specific field, though after having resigned from his position, retains the expert power. A
professional leader tends to be outstanding and promoted among general personnel. This type
of power can be related to wisdom characteristic in cardinal virtues. The leaders who have the
professional power are the leaders that have a body of skill and knowledge that lead to make
an effective decision-making or judgment. However, if the professional leader uses expert
power to influence their colleagues and subordinates without respect, though they can have
expertise, they will not receive appreciation, admiration or respect from their employees
(Goncalves, 2013).
Referent Power
Referent power is based upon personal identity of a leader, who is admired, loved,
and gained royalty by other employees. The position of leader does not make an impact on
employees. The employees follow the leader because of their admiring characters and
adorable personalities (Barksdale, 2008). Referent power can be linked with the care ethics
theory which focuses ethical attention on relationships before other factors. As a result, acting
rightly involves building, strengthening, and maintaining strong relationships. Acting rightly
thus displays care for others and for the relationships of which they are a part. The
subordinates would like to follow the leader’s order because of the leader having admirable
characteristics and having strong interpersonal relationship skills, i.e. increasing
collaboration, feeling comfortable to work with.

What we found in our literature analysis is that subordinates or followers are dynamic
human beings; therefore a leader cannot exert just only one type of power in order to achieve
organization’s goals or mission (Nye, 2009). The leader has to learn how to apply each type
of power to suit with the right people and the right situation. The use of power has to be
grounded in ethical and moral actions. Abuse of power by leader can damage trust,
relationships, and confidence among employees and result in an ineffective team
management (Lauby, 2012), leading to tremendous long-term lost to the organizations
(Crosby, 1997).
Table 2
Smart power as an alternative type of power
Category Power sources How the power used Link to ethical
theories
Smart Soft power (similar to Leading by examples, Virtue Ethics
power personal power: expert attracting others to follow Care Ethics
power and referent leaders’ ideas and visions
power)
Hard power (similar to Using command and Deontology
positional power: control, employing the Utilitarianism
legitimate power, methods “carrots and Virtue Ethics
reward power, and sticks” Egoism
coercive power)
Alternative Type of Power: Smart Power
Table 2 shows what we found in our research that there exists another type of power,
which is suggested to be an alternative type of power for a leader’s consideration to use.
When some people think of power, they tend to think of command and control, which

represent the core elements of “hard power.” Joseph Nye Jr. in his article “Smart Power: it’s a
blend of soft and hard” defined power as the ability to affect others to get the outcomes you
want in one of the three basic ways: you coerce them with threats; you induce them with
payment; or you attract and co-opt them (Nye, 2009), it shows that there is more than just
hard power. Nye introduced the idea of “soft power” in the 1980s.
According to Nye (2009), smart leaders of any organizational settings realize that
leadership is not just a matter of issuing commands but also involves leading by example and
attracting others to buy into your values and vision. Soft power involves the ability to attract,
and attraction often leads to acceptance and cooperation. That enables leaders to avoid using
hard power that may result in resistance, obstacles, and damage that might diminish their own
power and the organization as a whole.
Nye (2009) argued that a smart, effective and successful leader knows how and when
to use both hard power and soft power; these are interconnected since both types can be used
to achieve a goal by affecting the behavior of others. Thus, the ability to combine both hard
power and soft power is reflected as “smart power” (Nye, 2009). Leaders with smart power
have an ability to integrate transformational soft power skills (vision, communication, and
emotional intelligence) with transactional hard power skills (managing structures and
political skills of bullying, bargaining, and tough-minded negotiation), depending on a
context at hand, or called “contextual intelligence” that includes a situation, conditions,
problems, and degree of change.
Within smart power, there is an ethical aspect to be observed. This occurs when
leaders truly understand that they need to employ their ability of combining hard power and
soft power to deal with human resources and the complexity of the organizations. As ethics
also covers rights and responsibilities as well as moral decisions – what is right or wrong –
leaders with smart power are able to realize that unethical behaviors by them can result in

tremendous long-term costs to the organizations (Crosby, 1997). Thus, these leaders seem to
be open-minded and willing to learn from their employees as they deeply realize the
significance of attractiveness, emanating from credibility and legitimacy, as well as know
when and how to employ “carrots” and “sticks” methods, for the sustainability of the
organizations. Leaders with smart power are likely to replace networks instead of hierarchies
and use a more integrative and participatory style. Such leaders are likely to think of
themselves as the center of a circle, with engaging attitude, rather than being at the top of the
hierarchy pyramid (Nye, 2009).
Conclusions
As we conducted our research to answer the two raised questions, we have come to
the findings as follows. For the first question, by conducting research through exploratory
and secondary research methods, we confirmed that there appears some evidence that shows
the relationship between leaders’ power, the use of the power, and the links to ethical
implications, resulting in both desired and unfavorable consequences of organizations. Our
research also provided us with a deep understanding that not a single type of power can be
successfully and effectively employed; most of the time leaders, with intention or
unconsciously, mix-match different types of power to attain goals, depending on
circumstances and situations.
Regarding the second question, our research methods provided us with an answer that
there is another alternative type of power that smart, successful and effective leaders may
consider using. The alternative type of power we found in our research is called “smart
power”, combining both hard and soft power with contextual intelligence as the key skill.
Leaders, using smart power with the contextual intelligence are likely to have ethical
behaviors and have more success in managing their employees and leading the complexity of
today’s organizations and the demanding workplace.

Limitation and Future Research Direction
During our research work, we recognized the challenges in finding sources, literature,
and articles that directly and evidently discuss the linkages between ethical implications and
the use of each type of power by leaders in business and management world. We discovered
more connections of unethical behaviors and actions of the leaders and the way they misused
their power in the field of political sciences and politics.
As we conducted our research, we also found that leaders in public service tend to use
positional type of power (legitimate, reward and coercive power) or hard power more than
personal power (expert and referent power) or soft power. We also discovered that some
other factors such as cultural and social context, and gender may have their roles in leaders’
ways of exerting power and choices of types of power that they use, leading to ethical or
unethical behaviors of their leadership. Also, we think that other alternative types of power
(beside smart power by Nye) that are ethical and suitable for today’s organizations should be
explored more as future research direction.
It might be useful for future research to employ cross-culture research design to assess
how leaders in different culture exert power and the linkage to ethics, an issue of which in
different cultures may be perceived differently. The cross-gender approach should also be
adopted with quantitative research method to compare how gender may affect the way male
and female leaders use power and their choices of power which lead to ethical implications.
Such future research direction would allow human resource development (HRD) scholars and
professionals to be able to design and introduce alternative types of power which are ethically
acceptable and suitable for today’s and future organizations, contributing to the long-term
benefit, sustainability and credibility of the organization as a whole.

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Leaders' Power and its Ethical Implications in the Context of Today's

Conference Paper · October 2019

Orathai P Gunaseelan Samittra Pornwattanavate

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

National Institute of Development Administration, Thailand

Copyright © 2018 Orathai P. Gunaseelan & Samittra Pornwattanavate

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Keywords: ethics, leaders, leadership, power, types of powers

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important decisions; and stakeholders to ensure the vitality of the organization.

centralized, or is it misused or not. Leaders have a unique opportunity to shape an ethical

17th International Asian Conference of AHRD P a g e | 458

five types of power, depending on different situations and circumstances.

the aspects on ethical implications to suit today’s organization.

Questions that this paper attempts to examine are:

further from the five classic types of power?

power, leadership, and ethics.

17th International Asian Conference of AHRD P a g e | 459

person or thing that possesses or exercises authority or influence”.

(Luthans, Luthans, & Luthans, 2015).

In the business perspective, power is defined as success, and as such it is a zero-sum

company’s superior influences subordinates for attaining organizational goals. When a

leader (Greiner, & Schein, 1988).

17th International Asian Conference of AHRD P a g e | 460

Concept of Power” in 1957. Dahl defined power as a type of relationship in respect of

leader uses the power.

even this list is not complete.

17th International Asian Conference of AHRD P a g e | 461

longer the purview of a single class of people.

much as in the deeds and character of the observed leader.

Northam (2005), in his research paper, attempted to find an answer to reflect a

Leadership has characteristically been defined as the influential process on the

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power and leadership.

Relationships among Power, Leaders and Ethics

To define ethics in organization, we quote Northam (2005) in his research on

also help maximize long-term success.

In today’s business world, ethics or perceived ethical practices of organizations and

maintaining ethical practices in an organization is at least a necessary preventive measure to

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is rapidly becoming a minimum core competency, which is necessary to maintain

organization (Northam, 2005).

What we have found in our research is that nowadays organizations, governments,

WorldCom and Volkswagens).

organization’s leadership and power (Daniel, 2005).

17th International Asian Conference of AHRD P a g e | 464

ethical and suitable for today’s organization.

In order to have a deep investigation and profound understanding of power,

also collected from news, retrieved from the internet.

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power, how it is used and its links to ethical theories.

Categorization of Power used by Leaders

power power leaders, i.e. police, Utilitarianism

Reward power Ability to provide Leaders provide valued Virtue Ethics

valued incentives incentives such as Egoism

bonuses, time off,

Coercive Ability to punish Leaders can punish Utilitarianism

power their employees by