Organisational Culture and its Impact on Decision-making: Ethics Champions and Systemic Leadership

1. UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA centre for business & PROFESSIONAL ETHICS Organisational Culture and its Impact on Decision-making:Ethics Champions and Systemic Leadership Prof. Mollie Painter-Morland mpainter@depaul.edu

2. Definingethics Ethics = a balancing act between our own self-interest, the interests of others and our values Investors, Management, colleagues, clients, suppliers, the profession, the public Values ME Others

3. Rules: Compliance with governance regulations Compliance with laws Reliance on disciplinary codes and policies Sound controlenvironment Values: Values = enduring beliefs about a preferable state of existence Culture = shared values Organisational culture as tacit knowledge The balancing act is guided by:

4. Approaches to managing ethical behaviour • Compliance-based approaches • Values-based approaches • Good example of a holistic approach = Organisational integrity approach

5. Clear guidelines, less room for misunderstanding/ misinterpretation Control + predictability Easier to prosecute misconduct Sends zero-tolerance message Little discretion when faced with unprecedented dilemmas No moral imagination Target hardening Minimalist rule adherence not understanding of principle Pro’s & cons of compliance-based approaches

6. Values create expectations/ norms which defines roles + ID Discretion Communicates trust and empowerment, respect Allows for flexibility whilst providing guidance > can deal with change, flux Risk of abuse of discretion Employees less clear about violations… may hesitate to report? Makes misconduct harder to prove Cultural diversity might lead to misunderstandings ORG. CULTURE tacit Pro’s and cons of values-based approaches

7. Organisational culture = the shared values of the organisation Its accepted system of meaning or assumptions = tacit knowledge Organisational climate: The visible expression of the organisational culture What is organisational culture?

8. Organisational culture • Culture = the way we do things around here , i.e. how we perceive, think, feel • How we do things = based on our beliefs about is valuable, i.e. our shared values • Values emerges from a shared sense of what is meaningful, important, necessary • Compliance safeguards values • Ethics helps us live according to these values, even in the absence of rules

9. Indicators of culture and values • The way we talk: look at all documents; speeches, communications, minutes of meetings, water-cooler conversations • The way we walk the talk: do we practice what we preach, are we consistent in applying values and rules, • The way we organize our workplace: recruitment, promotion, reward and punishment, decision-making, checks and balances

10. Tips to enhance culture • Encourage staff to think about the value-ladenness of everything they are doing • Talk about loyalty, organisational and professional pride, and personal integrity • Talk about WHY we are doing what we are doing • Revisit the values, redefine or choose new ones to revise the code.

11. Can’t fix a network of ethical problems with straight-jacket compliance Rules influence, but don’t change culture A set of POLICIES, or a PROGRAMME is not a CULTURE

12. Organisational Integrity approach Culture of shared responsibility Codes Resources Systems Leadership Structures Skills VISION VALUES External environment Strategies Communication Policies and procedures

13. Building an ethical culture Integrate Formulate Evaluate Risk assessment Formulation & Buy-in Research Evaluate Align Engage Structures Policies People Discipline Reward

14. 1st pillar: Formulate • Do we understand the corruption risks? Research? • Public Service Code of Conduct roll-out? • Specific Departmental Codes? • Specific role/ professional responsibilities and links with professional organisations?

15. 2nd pillar: Integrate • Anti-corruption Units in Department: do they exist? • Who are they and where are they located? Who do they report to? • How are they composed? • Are they equipped? • Ethics training? African case studies? Lessons learn from failures? • Dissemination of DPSA’s and OPSC’s research • Sharing of best practices?

16. 3rd pillar: Evaluate • Efficient use if OPSC Hotline database > research teams and cooperation • Trends analysis • Equipping anti-corruption units to utilize research • Establishing feedback loops

17. YOUR role:Shift(ing)(in) leadership

18. Defining systemic leadership Collier and Esteban come to describe leadership as “the systemic capability, distributed and nurtured throughout the organization, of finding organizational direction and generating continual renewal by harnessing creativity and innovation.”

19. Does this mean that there are only chiefs and no Indians? No…..

20. Co-existence of leadership types Uhl-Bien, Marion and McKelvey: • Administrative leadership: managerial roles and actions of individuals who occupy positions of authority • Adaptive leadership: “collaborative change movement” that allows adaptive outcomes to emerge in a nonlinear fashion as a result of dynamic interactions between interdependent agents • Enabling leadership is what catalyzes adaptive leadership and hence allows for the emergence of adaptive leadership

21. How does it work? • Relation between the value orientations of individual members of an organization is one of congruence, not strong sense of consensus • Boal and Schultz: “cognitive consensuality” emerges through “memes”, i.e. units of cultural knowledge transmission that operate as carriers of mental pictures • Tagging: subtle influences • Co-existence of and interdependence between various forms of leadership is therefore important

22. Systemic leadership dynamics • Values and passion • Eliciting and appreciating contention • Fostering collaboration • Building relationships of trust • Wisdom and humility • Diversity and authenticity • Interdependence

23. Too relative? Too fluid? • Not “anything goes” • Unarticulated and inexpressible, BUT congruity of purpose and priority = powerful • Effects sense of common cause and normative propriety

24. Paradoxes within systemic leadership • Hierarchy-participation: jazz band, where certain unspoken conventions dictate who will be “soloing”, and “comping” • Symmetry-mutuality: differences in capabilities, roles, responsibilities and opportunities affect the way in which systemic leadership works in practice • Discipline-creativity: Not all ideas are good ones, and hence the organisation must celebrate and reward creativity, but exercise discipline

25. Opportunities • Develop systemic ethics capacity for organisation within various functional areas • Balance normative congruence with ability to question, challenge groupthink • Distributed notion of accountability towards all relationships • No passing of the buck

26. Skills: Observation Close reading of organizational “texts” Interpersonal skills: Eliciting and dealing with dissent Tagging Assessment of ethical efforts Personal integration Building trust HOW? Discussion: Influenceon leadership development?