Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Journal of Business Ethics
Published in: Journal of Business Ethics 3/2022

22-10-2020 | Original Paper

Moral Recovery and Ethical Leadership

Author: John G. Cullen

Published in: Journal of Business Ethics | Issue 3/2022

Log in

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

Research on ethical leadership generally falls into two categories: one celebrates individual leaders and their ‘authentic’ personalities and virtuous stewardship of organizations; the other decries toxic leaders or individuals in positions of power who exhibit ‘dark’ personality traits or dubious morals. Somewhere between these extremes, leadership is ‘done’ by imperfect human beings who try to avoid violating their own ethical standards while at the same time navigating the realities of social and organizational life. This paper discusses the concept of ‘Moral Recovery’ as an ethical leadership process that begins in moral failure, but enables eventual personal, organizational, and social change. It builds on the concept of ‘Moral Injury’ from the work of the psychiatrist Johnathan Shay and refers to the experiences of armed service personnel traumatized by experiences where either they, or their leaders, violated their own values. ‘Morally injured’ parties recover their sense of wellbeing through engaging with restorative communal actions which address the social causes of unethical practices. The process of Moral Recovery requires restorative communal actions which address the social causes of unethical practices. This paper will outline the concept of ‘Moral Recovery’ as a form of practical ethical leadership and change. It will illustrate its relevance to ethical leadership practice with reference to one high-profile case; Ray Anderson of Interface. As this paper is primarily conceptual, avenues for future research are identified, and implications for teaching practice are discussed.
previous article Fear and Violence as Organizational Strategies: The Possibility of a Derridean Lens to Analyze Extra-judicial Police Violence
next article How Unbecoming of You: Online Experiments Uncovering Gender Biases in Perceptions of Ridesharing Performance

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now
Literature
Alford, C. F. (2001). Whistleblowers: Broken lives and organizational power, Ithaca. London: Cornell University Press.
Alford, C. F. (2016). Depoloticizing moral injury. Journal of Psycho-Social Studies, 9(1), 7–19.
Allen, T. E. (2014). Life of Pi and the moral wound. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 62(6), 965–982.
Alvesson, M., & Einola, K. (2019). Warning for excessive positivity: Authentic leadership and other traps in leadership studies. Leadership Quarterly, 30(4), 383–395.
Anderson, R. C. (1998). Mid-course correction: Toward a sustainable direction; the interface model. Atlanta: Peregrinzilla Press.
Aristotle & Thomson, J. A. K. (1976) The ethics of Aristotle : the Nicomachean ethics, Revised ed./revised with notes and appendices by Hugh Tredennick. ed., Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Bakan, J. (2004). The corporation: The pathological pursuit of profit and power. London: Constable.
Bedi, A., Alpaslan, C. M., & Green, S. (2016). A meta-analytic review of ethical leadership outcomes and moderators. Journal of Business Ethics, 139, 517–536.
Bell, E., Taylor, S., & Driscoll, C. (2012). Varieties of organizational soul: The ethics of belief in organizations. Organization, 19(4), 425–439.
Brown, M. E., & Trevino, L. K. (2006). Ethical leadership: A review and future directions. Leadership Quarterly, 17(6), 595–616.
Brown, M. E., Trevino, L. K., & Harrison, D. A. (2005). Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97(2), 117–134.
Bennis, W. G., & Thomas, R. J. (2002). Crucibles of leadership. Harvard Business Review, 80(9), 39–45.
Boltanski, L., & Chiapello, E. (2005). The new spirit of capitalism. London: Verso.
Brenner, G. H. (2018). Considering collective moral injury following the 2016 election. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 53(4), 547–560.
Carey, L. B., Hodgson, T. J., Krikheli, L., Soh, R. Y., Armour, A. R., Singh, T. K., et al. (2016). Moral injury, spiritual care and the role of chaplains: An exploratory scoping review of literature and resources. Journal of Religion & Health, 55(4), 1218–1245.
Carroll, A. B. (1999). Corporate social responsibility: Evolution of a definitional construct. Business & Society, 38(3), 268–295.
Casey, C. (1999). “Come, Join Our Family”: Discipline and Integration in Corporate Organizational Culture. Human Relations, 52(2), 155–178.
Ciula, J. (2014). Ethics: The heart of leadership. anta Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Clohessy, S., & Ehlers, A. (1999). PTSD symptoms, response to intrusive memories and coping in ambulance service workers. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38, 251–265.
Corbett, K. (2017). Trump trauma. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 27(2), 117–118.
Conan, N. (2012). Moral Injury: The Psychological Wounds Of War. Talk of the Nation [podcast]. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
Corley, M. C. (2002). Nurse moral distress: A proposed theory and research agenda. Nursing Ethics, 9(6), 636–650.
Cullen, J. G. (2018). Moral Injury & Ethical Leadership. In International Studying Leadership Conference, Lancaster University.
Cullen, J. G. (2020). Varieties of responsible management learning: A review, typology and research agenda. Journal of Business Ethics, 162(4), 759–773.
Dashtipour, P., Frost, N., & Traynor, M. (2020). The idealization of 'compassion' in trainee nurses' talk: A psychosocial focus group study. Human Relations, Forthcoming, 1–24.
de Vries, M. (2014). Coaching the toxic leader. Harvard Business Review, 92(4), 100.
Fraher, A. L. (2016). A toxic triangle of destructive leadership at Bristol Royal Infirmary: A study of organizational Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Leadership, 12(1), 34–52.
Foroughi, H., Gabriel, Y., & Fotaki, M. (2019). Leadership in a post-truth era: A new narrative disorder? Leadership, 15(2), 135–151.
Freud, S. (1930/2001). Civilization and its discontents. In Strachey, J. (Ed.) The Future of an Illusion, Civilization and its discontents and other works: The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. Vol XXI (pp. 64–145). London: Vintage/The Hogarth Press.
Gabriel, Y. (1999). Beyond Happy Families: A critical reevaluation of the control-resistance-identity triangle. Human Relations, 52(2), 179–203.
Gabriel, Y. (2016). Psychoanalysis and the study of organization. In R. Mir, H. Willmott, & M. Greenwood (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy in Organization Studies (pp. 212–225). Oxford: Routledge.
Gabriel, Y., & Carr, A. (2002). Organizations, management and psychoanalysis: an overview. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 17(5), 348–365.
Ghoshal, S. (2005). Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 4(1), 75–91.
Gerard, N. (2020). Reparation compulsion: Theorizing the pitfalls of guilt-driven labor. Organization Studies, 41(5), 621–639.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Gilligan, C. (2014). Moral injury and the ethic of care: Reframing the conversation about differences. Journal of Social Philosophy, 45(1), 89–106.
Hall, E. A. (2018). Aristotle’s way: How ancient wisdom can change your life. London: The Bodley Head.
Hawken, P. (1993). The ecology of commerce: A declaration of sustainability. New York, N.Y.: HarperCollins.
Hook, D. (2018). Melancholic psychosis—A Lacanian approach. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 28(4), 466–480.
Hirschhorn, L. (1988). The workplace within. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Ho, K. Z. (2009). Liquidated: An ethnography of Wall Street. Durham: Duke University Press.
Islam, G. (2020). Psychology and business ethics: A multi-level research agenda. Journal of Business Ethics, 165(1), 1–13.
Jagannathan, S., & Rai, R. (2017). Organizational wrongs, moral anger and the temporality of crisis. Journal of Business Ethics, 141(4), 709–730.
James, W. (1906). [1902]) The varieties of religious experience: A study in human nature. London: Longman.
Just, S. N., & Muhr, S. L. (2019). “Together we rise”: Collaboration and contestation as narrative drivers of the Women’s March. Leadership, 15(2), 245–267.
Kalkman, J. P, & Molendijk, T. (2019). The role of strategic ambiguity in moral injury: A case study of Dutch Border guards facing moral challenges. Journal of Management Inquiry, Forthcoming, 1–14.
Karanikola, M. N. K., Albarran, J. W., Drigo, E., Giannakopoulou, M., Kalafati, M., Mpouzika, M., et al. (2014). Moral distress, autonomy and nurse-physician collaboration among intensive care unit nurses in Italy. Journal of Nursing Management, 22(4), 472–484.
Ko, C., Ma, J. H., Bartnik, R., Haney, M. H., & Kang, M. G. (2018). Ethical leadership: An integrative review and future research agenda. Ethics & Behavior, 28(2), 104–132.
Lear, J. A. (2015). Freud (2nd ed.). Abingdon: Routledge.
Lemoine, G. J., Hartnell, C. A., & Leroy, H. (2019). Taking stock of moral approaches to leadership: An integrative review of ethical, authentic, and servant leadership. Academy of Management Annals, 13(1), 148–187.
Levi, P. (1966). If this is a man, translated by Woolf, S., London: Bodley Head.
Lipman-Blumen, J. (2006). The allure of toxic leaders: why we follow destructive bosses and corrupt politicians and how we can survive them. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Litz, B. T., Stein, N., Delaney, E., Lebowitz, L., Nash, W. P., Silva, C., & Maguen, S. (2009). Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy. Clinical Psychology Review, 29(8), 695–706.
Margolis, J. D., & Molinsky, A. (2008). Navigating the bind of necessary evils: Psychological engagement and the production of interpersonally sensitive behavior. Academy of Management Journal, 51(5), 847–872.
Matthews, M. D. (2014). Stress among UAV Operators: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Existential Crisis, or Moral Injury? Ethics and Armed Forces: Controversies in Military Ethics & Security Policy, 1(1), 53–57.
McDonald, M. G. (2007). The nature of epiphanic experience. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 48(1), 89–115.
Mintzberg, H. (2004). Managers not MBAs: A hard look at the soft practice of managing and management development. New Jersey: Pearson Education.
Molinsky, A., & Margolis, J. (2005). Necessary evils and interpersonal sensitivity in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 30(2), 245–268.
Parr, A. (2009). Hijacking sustainability, Cambridge, Mass. London: MIT.
Padilla, A., Hogan, R., & Kaiser, R. B. (2007). The toxic triangle: Destructive leaders, susceptible followers, and conducive environments. Leadership Quarterly, 18(3), 176–194.
Pelletier, K. L. (2010). Leader toxicity: An empirical investigation of toxic behavior and rhetoric. Leadership, 6(4), 373–389.
Petriglieri, G., & Petriglieri, J. L. (2020). the return of the oppressed: A systems psychodynamic approach to organization studies. Academy of Management Annals, 14(1), 411–449.
Press, E. (2018). The Wounds of the Drone Warrior. New York Times Sunday Magazine (June 17 2018), p. 30.
Prottas, D. J. (2013). Relationships Among Employee Perception of Their Manager’s Behavioral Integrity, Moral Distress, and Employee Attitudes and Well-Being. Journal of Business Ethics, 113(1), 51–60.
Shay, J. (1994). Achilles in Vietnam: Combat trauma and the undoing of character. Oxford, New York: Maxwell Macmillan International, Atheneum.
Shay, J. (2002). Odysseus in America : combat trauma and the trials of homecoming. New York: Scribner.
Shay, J. (2014). Moral Injury. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 31(2), 182–191.
Silverman, D. K., & Byrne, S. (2009). Character. In R. M. Skelton (Ed.), The Edinburgh international encyclopaedia of psychoanalysis (p. 79). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Stein, M. (2016). Fantasy of fusion' as a response to trauma: European leaders and the origins of the Eurozone crisis. Organization Studies, 37(7), 919–937.
Taylor, S. (2017). Forming character in business school leadership education: Rejoinder to “The Development of Leader Character Through Crucible Moments”. Journal of Management Education, 42(2), 301–305.
Taylor, M. (2006). Rationality and the ideology of disconnection. New York, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thomas, B. (2012). ’Kicking the hornet’s nest: The rhetoric of social campaigning in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. Language and Literature, 21(3), 299–310.
Thoroughgood, C. N., Padilla, A., Hunter, S. T., & Tate, B. W. (2012). The susceptible circle: A taxonomy of followers associated with destructive leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 23(5), 897–917.
Tourish, D., & Vatcha, N. (2005). Charismatic Leadership and corporate cultism at Enron: The elimination of dissent, the promotion of conformity and organizational collapse. Leadership, 1(4), 455–480.
van Velsen, C. (2009). Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In R. M. Skelton (Ed.), The Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanlysis (p. 372). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Voegtlin, C. (2016). What does it mean to be responsible? Addressing the missing responsibility dimension in ethical leadership research. Leadership, 12(5), 581–608.
Werbach, A. (2009). Strategy for sustainability: A business manifesto. Boston, London: Harvard Business School Press, McGraw-Hill.
Wright, A. L., Irving, G., & Thevatas, K. S. (2020). Professional values and managerialist practices: Values work by nurses in the emergency department. Organization Studies, Forthcoming, 1–22.
Yavas, A. (2016). Sectoral differences in the perception of toxic leadership. Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 229, 267–276.
Zuboff, S. A. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. London: Profile Books.
Metadata
Title
Moral Recovery and Ethical Leadership
Author
John G. Cullen
Publication date
22-10-2020
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Journal of Business Ethics / Issue 3/2022
Print ISSN: 0167-4544
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0697
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04658-3

Other articles of this Issue 3/2022

Journal of Business Ethics 3/2022 Go to the issue

Original Paper

How Unbecoming of You: Online Experiments Uncovering Gender Biases in Perceptions of Ridesharing Performance

Original Paper

Corporate Social Responsibility and NGO Directors on Boards

Original Paper

The Case for Ethical Non-compete Agreements: Executives Versus Sandwich-Makers

Original Paper

Arguing to Defeat: Eristic Argumentation and Irrationality in Resolving Moral Concerns

Original Paper

Cure or Sell: How Do Pharmaceutical Industry Marketers Combine Their Dual Mission? An Approach Using Moral Dissonance

Original Paper

Resistance Will Be Futile? The Stigmatization (or Not) of Whistleblowers