Ethical leaders As we see changes in the way of policing, ethical leadership and behavior is becoming more challenging for law enforcement officers. Police officers should be ethical leaders committed to the law and professional standards. Police officers with ethical leadership posses a philosophical moral foundation and his/her actions and decisions will be based on that; many officers may face challenges or difficulties while trying to adapt to the new way of policing, especially when working with unethical peers. With this being said there are specific characteristics in addition to strong ethical and moral values that can successful develop ethical leaders.
Ethics and Morals Ethical leaders must possess strong ethical and moral values. People often confuse ethics with morals, and while they have different meanings many researchers agree that one cannot exist without the other. Ethics can be defined as a code of behavior in reference to a group, for example in the law enforcement police officers have the Code of Ethics, they can be viewed as principles, standards or a guideline of how police officers should behave and act. Groups can vary from law
…show more content…
These characteristics are integrity and authenticity; integrity can be defined in many ways, integrity encloses core values like honesty and justice, and it suggests a sense of moral soundness (Lawton & Páez, 2014). Leaders with integrity would do the right thing when nobody is looking, they would demonstrate exemplary moral behavior and they will keep a consistency between laws and codes. The virtue of integrity in an ethical leader has such a strong impact that when subordinates think about their leaders they think about their integrity and ethics. When leaders demonstrate their integrity daily, they gain credibility from his/ her