Question 1 [20 Marks] The role of self-leadership in becoming an ethical leader in the South African work context.

Unethical behaviour has reached unacceptable levels in South Africa. Ethical leadership is an important source of ethical influence and, therefore, provides an impetus for finding ways of managing ethics in an organisational context. Ethical leadership, however, is influenced and affected by self-leadership.

The objective of this conceptual and theoretical research, therefore, was to indicate how self- leadership can contribute to leaders becoming ethical leaders within the current South African work context. The social learning theory can be made applicable to self-leadership and ethical leadership and was used as the basis for this study. It is indicated that self-leadership strategies can have an effect on the ethical behaviour of leaders.

Source:

Van Zyl, E. 2018. The Role of Self-Leadership in becoming an ethical leader in the South

African Work Context. African Journal of Business Ethics. 8(2):5-14. Retrieved from:

https://ajobe.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/82/86 [Accessed 10 September 2023].

Required:

Using the compulsory sources referenced, and conducting additional research of your own, scrutinise the leaders of South Africa addressing the below focus concepts:
• Identify the critical characteristics that an ethical leader should possess.

• Elaborate on how the aforementioned identified critical characteristics can address the challenges faced by South Africa.
• Suggest practical solutions to unethical leadership and the damage caused by inefficient and ineffective leadership in South Africa.

Answers to Above Question on Leadership

Answer 1: Ethical leadership is highly essential in an organisation because it helps in supporting a culture of integrity, trust and accountability. However in the case of South Africa, it is observed that there is a high level of unethical behaviour identified within employees in the majority of the organisation. It is therefore essential that leaders should possess adequate leadership abilities in order to stop such practices of unethical behaviour in the organisation.