Ethics and Leadership in Public Organisations

Recently, we have witnessed a series of significant events that have raised fundamental questions about ethical judgments of many leaders. A great attention have been given the so-called "#Meetoo" movement; an international grass roots campaign that has largely taken place in social media. The main goal has been to uncover sexual abuse and harassment especially aimed at young women in working life. The many revelations have come down like "ethical bombs" in politics and media houses, academic institutions, public administrations, art and cultural institutions, churches, sports, etc. Both single events and the massive extent of this have become a strong awakening to many employees and leaders. In this article, the focus is on how managers experience these and other ethical problems in practice. The article asks three questions: (1) How do municipal leaders respond to knowledge of issues that tend towards corruption or direct illegal activities? (2) How do leaders deal with ethical issues such as corruption, embezzlement, sexual harassment, and unethical acts to public service users? Moreover, (3) what explains variation in the managers' handling of unethical behaviour? Theoretically, the article builds on articles and books on leadership and management in general and ethical leadership in particular (e.g. Ciulla 2014, Northouse 2018). The main impression from the review of publications in the fields is that this is a strikingly normative field; there are many more assumptions about what the leader ought to do, rather than what is tested empirically. The proposed article aims to improve this. The data has been collected through the project "Administrative managers in Norwegian municipalities”, a collaboration between the University of Agder, the University of Oslo and OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University. The purpose of the survey has been to map attitudes, patterns of action and strategies for dealing with various problems in everyday life of leaders in Norwegian municipalities. The survey cover middle managers in 64 municipalities, based on a cross section. The key finding from the survey is that middle managers typically become "transit stations" or organizational "lifts" for ethical problems. Thus, when ethical problems are raised in organizations, handling the challenges becomes an important task for top managers. The study also shows that a clear majority of the leaders seek to solve ethical problems in-house. This is perhaps an intuitive reaction, yet it illustrates the risk of organisational lock-in effects, institutional camouflage and - not least – indication the need to protect "whistle-blowers". The study also reveals an interesting paradox; formal laws, regulations and various ethical standards, a main strategy for dealing with ethical issues in many organizations, seems to play a marginal role. References: Ciulla, J.B. (ed.)(2014). Ethics, the Heart of Leadership, 3rd Edition. ABC-CLIO Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and Practice. SAGE Publications