Ethical Leadership

ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND POLICYMAKING
"A squirrel makes itself productive by burying nuts in the summer. This is worthwhile work for the squirrel. So, every day at work, think what would a squirrel do. Think squirrel. Think nuts." (Anonymous)

There are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people who have tried to define it, and although as many as 65 different definitions can be identified, the most common definition is that leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal (Northouse 2003). The keywords here are process, influence, and goal. Process means that leadership is not a personality trait, but a transactional or interactional phenomena which occurs between people. Influence is the central part of the definition, meaning nothing more than getting people to follow. Goal attainment is always the object of leadership, because leadership involves a focus of energy upon something to be achieved.

One of the more basic ethical problems with leadership is the management-staff divide, with staff here referring also to line personnel. Most leadership positions in criminal justice, as in most government work, involve removal from the day-to-day activities of "grunt work." Police leaders rarely if ever deal face-to-face with criminals, chief prosecutors usually have their assistants do all the litigation, and correctional administrators often go weeks at a time without seeing a single inmate. It is the problem of administrators being divorced from the "front line" entanglements which causes policies to be divorced from reality. Also, what often passes for professionalism in criminal justice is simply a cover to maintaining the "great divide" between management careers and the rest of the organization.

As many commentators have noted (Skolnick & Leo 1992; Pollock 2004), criminal justice organizations are run on the basis of ideology more than anything else. An "ideology" is a set of beliefs or assumptions about the proper state of things, particularly with respect to the moral order and political arrangements which serve to shape one's position on issues (Hornum & Stavish 1978). Conflicting ideologies usually influence policy by creating goal ambiguity. An ideology also refers to a belief in something as true that is actually false, or at the base of it, containing a falsehood. Ideologies survive by putting a positive spin on something negative. Ideologies always rest on a lie. They are the opposite of the word "institution" because anything that reaches the level of social institution must rest on a kernel of truth, at least according to the great sociologist, Durkheim. Ideologies also require "myths" to survive (Kappeler, Blumberg & Potter 2000). Let's briefly explore the so-called "liberal" and "conservative" ideologies in criminal justice.

The liberal ideology tends to view all of society as a "school" of some kind where everyone is still learning. Criminals are seen as influenced by factors outside of their control. In policing, nothing better represents the liberal ideology than the movement toward community policing, or better, public relations programs. It doesn't matter if any of these programs work, since it's the ideology or myth that matters. In courts, the liberal ideology sees human nature as complex and the law as something which should avoid labeling. Thus, the inherent goodness of discretion is an important myth. In corrections, the liberal ideology is to use programming to make inmates "more like us" by focusing on need rather than risk, and seeing to it that if only the inmate is given a chance for a "different environment," they would no longer commit crime.

The conservative ideology tends to view all of society as one big "family" which just needs a good, disciplinary patriarch as the "head of the household." Criminals are seen as weak-willed individuals who have freely chosen to act bad and must be held accountable for that. Public safety and following the rules are more important than any inconvenience citizens might face. In policing, the conservative ideology is that police should be morals enforcers, and the courts ought to get off their backs and let them do their job. In courts, the conservative ideology is that too many judges are do-gooders who let guilty people go free and don't respect the rights of victims. In corrections, what is needed are old-fashioned punishments, like chain gangs and rock piles, which teach that there are no rewards for crime.

All of the above would be fine if it was just honest debate over differences of opinion, but the problem is that ideologies are deadly serious (to leaders) and trump ethics every time. Leaders seem to think that just because their high position requires looking at the "big issues," that ideologies are a part of looking out for the external front, or image, of the organization. Morris & Hawkins (1970) and Walker (1985) were some of the first to point out how a lot of unsupported "truisms" found their way into criminal justice policy. The media is to blame, surely, and criminal justice researchers have also helped out by being "researchers for hire" but the real problem is that administrative leadership should have had an ethics which prevented policy from being guided by misguided ideologies. In other words, there should have been (and needs to be) more ETHICAL LEADERSHIP, a matter to which we now turn.

The most common excuse among administrators in scandal-ridden criminal justice organizations is that they simply didn't know what was going on. When this fails, they seem to do everything in their power to deny their personal responsibility for the wrongdoing. Both of these reactions are entirely unethical. What a public leader is supposed to do is step up and say something refreshing like: "I'm responsible for what happened, and I'm sorry for it." This is simply acceptance of the larger role responsibilities of any leader position. Leaders can choose to step down (resign) or take a lower position if they want, but that is not what is expected. They are expected to be so honest, sincere, and forthcoming with their acceptance of responsibility that the audience is most likely to excuse them from punishment. At least, that's how it is supposed to work. The American Society for Public Administration holds that responsibility and responsiveness are more important than accountability.

The next most common reaction among administrators is to create more rules governing a greater range of behavior. The problem here is that as more rules are written, more creative ways are found to get around them. Extensive rules tend to be present in inverse proportion to high ethical standards (Pollock 2004). An administrator can "restructure" an organization only five ways (Champion 2003): by hiring or firing people (organizational size); by changing the function of a unit (organizational complexity); by changing how things get done (organizational technology); by adjusting how many subordinates report to each supervisor (organizational span of control); and by creating more supervisory levels or sub-unit worker levels (organizational differentiation). The ironic, counter-intuitive effect is that by creating more supervisory levels (a process called vertical differentiation), more decentralization of authority occurs, and when more sub-unit proliferation takes place among the workers, centralization of authority occurs. The lesson to be learned is that if you're an executive who wants to centralize authority, then you've got to shrink the size and authority of your VPs and mid-level managers. This is just the opposite of what a rookie executive seeking power might do by surrounding themselves with executive assistants, VPs, associates, deputies, and undersecretaries.

Another group of leaders can be found in criminal justice who are basically power-mad or power-hungry. All organizations have a power dimension and an authority dimension. It is easy to see the authority patterns in such things as the chain of command, but it is not always easy to spot power patterns. Using the analogy of a flashlight battery, authority is the electrical current being expended to make the flashlight work, and power is the reserve electricity stored in the battery for future use. There are many definitions of power, but for purposes of studying organizations, power can be defined as any leadership behavior which influences the values, beliefs, or climate of the organization. Power forces people to change their minds about something, not simply out of persuasiveness (cooperation) or force (compliance), but out of sheer, blind, realistic, accommodation to the fact that there is no other way. I hesitate to mention this, but the many popular press books on "office politics" point out (correctly) that by slightly bending the rules at work, a subordinate can exercise power even when not in a leadership role. Max Weber, the famous sociologist, was a student of power, and he said there were three types: charismatic; traditional; and legal-rational. The following table extends that typology and represents French and Raven's (1959) five types of power: legitimate; reward; coercive; expert; and referent.

Legitimate	Based on a subordinate's belief that the superior has the right to give orders, not just on the basis of rank (authority), but on the basis of legitimacy, a sense of right, or socio-legal obligation.
Reward	Based on the ability to bestow formal or informal rewards, such as pay, promotion, praise, recognition, special favors, or overlooking rule violations, personal idiosyncrasies, and ethical lapses.
Coercive	Based on the ability to punish, recommend punishment, or make punishment happen by engaging in rumor, harassment, mental abuse, or making someone's work difficult or unpleasant.
Expert	Based on a subordinate's belief that the leader is a true expert and one in whom confidence is placed without question because they have attained special knowledge and are also familiar with the tasks performed by followers.
Referent	Based on friendship, liking, respect, admiration, or the desire to emulate and be like the leader not just because of charisma but because of a belief that the leader will come to their rescue or aid at some time of great need.

The descriptions provided above are less technical than the ones French and Raven provided, which were stated in terms of positive and negative valences. It is important to know that the first three (legitimate, reward, coercive) make up what is called position power, or power that normally accrues to the office, not the office-holder. First-line managers usually rely on position power. The last two (expert and referent) make up what is called personal power, and is what top-level leaders usually rely upon. Research has shown that legitimate and reward power produce the quickest gains in worker performance, in terms of generating compliance in following orders, but research has also shown that expert and referent power produces commitment, where workers share the leader's point of view and enthusiastically carry out instructions, giving more than 100%. Numerous other criminal justice research exists on what type of power correctional and police officers rely upon, and there are other typologies of power than the French and Raven model, but this is the one most often seen in the literature.

There are about six (6) different types of leadership theories, although sometimes those categories are cut down to two or three, such as trait and style, or trait, style, and situational. Whole courses have been put together on leadership, so this is only a primer.

The delegation problem is perhaps the biggest problem in criminal justice leadership, since delegation is what allows lower-level employees to get things done. There is a right way and a wrong way to delegate as a leader. The most commonly repeated axiom in textbooks is that you never delegate without giving away authority, and that has, frankly, scared a lot of managers. When you delegate some of your administrative tasks to a subordinate, you are actually giving away responsibility. You will, of course, follow up and see that the subordinate does a good job. That's responsibility. The problem often arises, however, that this subordinate doesn't have the authority or power to obtain the needed compliance or cooperation from co-workers. That's a lack of authority. To get beyond this paradox, most modern principles of delegation (in the field of human resource management) say that you should only delegate things that are part of your subordinate's professional development. This is the phenomenon of "grooming" and it's here to stay until someone figures out how to delegate both responsibility and authority.

According to Kuykendall & Unsinger (1982), not enough delegation goes on in criminal justice agencies. In fact, it is the least frequently used thing by police leaders, always has been, always will. There may be liability reasons for it, or employee turnover reasons, but subsequent research has shown it to be more commonly replaced by the phenomenon of "micro-managing." Administrators in criminal justice just seem to prefer keeping their hands in about everything. Since leadership style also helps to feed morale and climate, the infrequent use of delegation may mean that criminal justice employees feel like they are being treated as incompetent (unable) or uncommitted (unwilling). In fact, the most frequently used leadership style in criminal justice is the telling style. The telling style is characterized by one-way communication in which the leader tells the followers what, how, when, and where to do various tasks. Telling is an appropriate style for a high task, low relationship environment, but it doesn't do much for morale, growth, professional development, and organizational success.

The most frequently used styles of leadership in criminal justice are the telling-selling style and the participating-selling style. The telling-selling style uses a little more two-way communication and the leader is concerned about employee "buy-in" to the decisions that have been made. It's not that the employees were consulted in advance, but the relationship concern is simply about "buy-in." The participating-selling style is frequently seen when the administration see the workforce as a whole demonstrating average levels of maturity, competence, and willingness. This style will not work, however, where there are problem employees, or regular disciplinary matters.

In sum, there's no one right leadership style for all situations. Your perception of people and the organization will dictate your choice of styles. Leaders must be flexible, always assessing how important it is for the organization to be "one big happy family" (relationship oriented) or how critical time is to get the work done (task oriented). With new employees, it's probably best to be direct and hands-on in your approach. As employees demonstrate more talent and maturity, it's best to back off. A lot of police administration textbooks (from O.W. Wilson's on down) will tell you that an administrator should NOT fraternize with the workers off-duty. It may very well be that in criminal justice what is needed instead is more getting together on and off the job, as long as the proper posture can be maintained.

A final note on women and minorities and the implications for leadership theory. As stated previously, little is known about these areas because not enough research has been done. I wanted to mention a couple of resources for those who might be interested: (1) Black Leadership (1998) by Marable Manning, NY: Columbia Univ. Press; and (2) Talking Leadership: Conversations with Powerful Women (1999) by Mary Hartman, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press. Either of these hard-to-find books would make excellent starting points for research, thoughts, or ideas.

Today and tomorrow's world will involve legislators more and more into controversial areas of policymaking which impinge upon morality or private values. Variously called "morality politics" (Meier 1994; Mooney 2001) or "culture wars" (Hunter 1991), the regulation of social behavior (how we wish to live with others), including alternative and diverse behavior (e.g., abortion, gambling, homosexuality, pornography, drugs, etc.), will become more important as cultural shifts and societal progress take place. It may very well be that traditional models of policymaking will need to be replaced by new ones. Traditionally, most policymakers think in terms of economic interests (who stands to benefit; who stands to lose), but newer policymaking models will need to be grounded in deep-seated moral values rather than mere consideration of the material issues at stake. For criminal justice, this probably means that enforcement of such "morality laws" will be problematic since the U.S. doesn't have the best track record in that regard, but the signposts are already here, and the biggest dilemma we will face involves how to be "sensitive" to the diverse moral beliefs of others while at the same time insisting that the "extremes" of such toleration (e.g., sexual predation, addiction, etc.) are kept in check.

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Last updated: Sept. 30, 2006
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