Abstract
Building on research and measures on solitude, ethical leadership theories, and decision making literatures, we propose a conceptual model to better understand processes enabling ethical leadership neglected in the literature. The role of solitude as antecedent is explored in this model, whereby its selective utilization focuses inner directionality toward growing authentic executive awareness as a moral person and a moral manager and allows an integration between inner and outer directionality toward ethical leadership and resulting decision-making processes that will have an impact on others’ perceptions of leader authentic ethical leadership. Thus it is proposed that utilization of solitude positively predicts executive-level authentic ethical leadership action and in turn, ethical decision making perceived fairness and integrity. We also propose two moderators, strengthening the hypothesized (positive) association between solitude and ethical leadership; these are the executive’s ability for moral reasoning and a motivation for socialized (as opposed to personalized) power.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Akrivou, K.: 2008, Differentiation and Integration in Adult Development: The Influence of Self-Complexity and Integrative Learning on Self-Integration. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH.
Akrivou, K. and H. Bradbury-Huang: in press, Executive Catalysts: Predicting Sustainable Organizational Performance Amid Complex Demands, Leadership Quarterly.
Anderson L.: 1998, ‘Loneliness Research and Interventions: A Review of Literature’, Aging & Mental Health 2(4), 264-274.
Avolio, B. J., W. L. Gardner, F. O. Waluabwa, F. Luthans and D. R. May: 2004, ‘Unlocking the Mask: A Look at the Process by which Authentic Leaders Impact Follower Attitudes and Behaviors’, The Leadership Quarterly 15, 801-823.
Bandura, A.: 1977, Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Barbour, J. D.: 2004, The Value of Solitude. The Ethics and Spirituality of Aloneness in Autobiography. Charlottesville, VA. University of Virginia Press.
Bass, B.M.: 1990, Bass & Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership. 3rd ed. New York: The Free Press.
Bass, B. M.: 1998, Transformational Leadership. Mahway, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bass, B. M. and P. Steidlmeier: 1999, ‘Ethics, Character and Authentic Transformational Leadership Behavior’, Leadership Quarterly 10(2), 181-218.
Baumeister, R. F. and K. D. Vohs: 2002, ‘The Collective Invention of Language to Access the Universe of Possible Ideas’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25, 675-676.
Bishop, J. D.: 1990, ‘The Moral Responsibility of Corporate Executives for Disasters’, Journal of Business Ethics 10, 377-383.
Brown, M. E. and L. K. Trevino: 2006, ‘Ethical Leadership: A Review and Future Directions’, The Leadership Quarterly 17, 595-616.
Brown, M. E., L. K. Trevino and D. Harrison: 2005, ‘Ethical Leadership: A Social Learning Perspective for Construct Development and Testing’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 97, 117-134.
Bruch, H. and S. Ghoshal; 2004, A Bias for Action. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Burger, J. M.: 1995, ‘Individual Differences in Preference of Solitude’, Journal of Research in Personality 29, 85-108.
Caldwell, C.: 2009, ‘Identity, Self-awareness, and Self-deception: Ethical Implications for Leaders and Organizations’, Journal of Business Ethics 90, 393-406.
Carroll, A. B.: 1987, ‘In Search of the Moral Manager’, Business Horizons 30(2), 7–15.
Carroll, A. B. (1999). Ethics in Management. In: R. E. Frederic (ed.), A Companion to Business Ethics (pp. 141–152). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Chatterjee, A. and D. C. Hambrick (2007). It’s All About Me: Narcissistic Chief Executive Officers and Their Effects on Company Strategy and Performance. Administrative Science Quarterly 52: 351-386.
Czerwinski, M., E. Cutrell and E. Horvitz (2000). Instant Messaging and Interruption: Influence of Task Type on Performance. In: Paris, C., N. Ozkan, S. Howard and S. Lu (Eds.), OZCHI 2000 Conference Proceedings (pp. 356–361). Sydney: Ergonomics Society of Australia.
De Hoogh, A. H. B. and D. N. Den Hartog: 2008, ‘Ethical and Despotic Leadership, Relationships with Leader’s Social Responsibility, Top Management Team Effectiveness and Subordinates’ Optimism: A Multi-method Study’, The Leadership Quarterly 19, 297-311.
Den Hartog, D. N.: 2009, ‘Empowering Behaviour and Leader Fairness and Integrity: Studying Perceptions of Ethical Leader Behaviour from A Levels-of-analysis Perspective’, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology 18(2), 199-230.
Densten, I. and J. Gray: 2001, ‘Leadership Development and Reflection: What is the Connection?’, The International Journal of Educational Management 15, 119-124.
Fiol, C. M. and E. J. O’Connor: 2003, ‘Waking up! Mindfulness in the Face of Bandwagons’, Academy of Management Review 28, 54-70.
Fulmer, R. M.: 2004, ‘The Challenge of Ethical Leadership’, Organizational Dynamics 33(3), 307-317.
Gardner, W. L., B. J. Avolio, F. Luthans, D. R. May and F. Walumba: 2005, ‘“Can You See the Real Me?” A Self-based Model of Authentic Leader and Follower Development’, The Leadership Quarterly 15, 343-372.
Gosling, J. and P. Case: 2010, ‘Taking Up a Role as an Affordance of Knowledge: A Psychodynamic Interpretation of the Rebirth Motif in Plato’s Myth of Er’, Organization Studies (In Press).
Graen, G. B. and M. Uhl-Bien: 1995, ‘Relationship-based Approach to Leadership: Development of Leader-member Exchange (LMX) Theory of Leadership over 25 Years: Applying A Multi-level Multi-domain Perspective’, The Leadership Quarterly 6, 219-247.
Hambrick, D., S. Finkelstein and A. Mooney: 2005, ‘Executive Job Demands: New Insights for Explaining Strategic Decisions and Leader Behaviors’, Academy of Management Review 30, 472-491.
Heifetz, R. and M. Linsky: 2002, June, ‘A Survival Guide for Leaders’, Harvard Business Review, pp. 65– 74.
Hogg, M. A.: 2005, ‘Social Identity and Leadership’ in Messick, D. M. and R. M. Kramer (Eds.), The Psychology of Leadership: New Perspectives and Research (pp. 53–80). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Hollander, E. P.: 1964, Leaders, Groups, and Influence. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hollander, E. P.: 1978, Leadership Dynamics: A Practical Guide to Effective Relationships. New York: Free Press.
Hollenhorst, S. and C. Jones: 2001, ‘Wilderness Solitude: Beyond the Social-Spatial Perspective’, in USPA, Forest Service Proceedings, RMRS-P-20, pp. 56–61.
House, R. J. and R.N. Aditya: 1997, ‘The Social Scientific Study of Leadership: Quo Vadis?’, Journal of Management 23, 409-73.
Jett, Q. R. and J. M. George: 2003, ‘Work Interrupted: A Closer Look at the Role of Interruptions in Organizational Life’, Academy of Management Review 28, 494-507.
Kegan, R.: 1994, In over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life. Cambridge, MA; London, UK: Harvard Business Press.
Khuntia, R. and D. Suar: 2004, ‘A Scale to Assess Ethical Leadership of Indian Private and Public Sector Managers’, Journal of Business Ethics 49, 13-26.
Koch, P.: 1994, Solitude. A Philosophical Encounter. Chicago: Open Court.
Kolb, D. A.: 1984, Experiential Learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Kolb, D. A.: 1986, ‘Integrity, Advanced Professional Development and Learning’ in S. Srivastva (Ed.), Executive Integrity. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
Kolb, A. Y. and D. A. Kolb: 2009, ‘The Learning Way: Meta-cognitive Aspects of Experiential Learning’, Simulation and Gaming: An Iinterdisciplinary Journal 40(3), 297-327.
Lahey, L., E. Souvaine, R. Kegan, R. Goodman and S. Felix: 1988, A Guide to the Subject-object Interview: Its Administration and Interpretation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate School of Education, Laboratory of Human Development.
Larmer, R.: 1996, ‘Corporate Executives: Disasters and Moral Responsibility’, Journal of Business Ethics 15, 785-788.
Larson, R. W.: 1990, ‘The Solitary Time of Life: An Examination of Time People Spend Time from Childhood to Old Age’, Development Review 10, 155-183.
Larson, R. and M. Lee: 1996, ‘The Capacity to Be Alone as A Stress Buffer’, Journal of Social Psychology 136(1), 5-16.
Loevinger, J.: 1976, ‘The Meaning and Measurement of Ego Development’, American Psychologist 21, 195-206.
Long, C. R.: 2000, A Comparison of Positive and Negative Episodes of Solitude. Unpublished Master’s Thesis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Long, C. and J. Averil: 2003, ‘Solitude: An Exploration of Benefits of Being Alone’, Journal of the Theory of Social Behavior 33, 21-44.
Long, C., M. Seburn, J. Averill and T. More: 2003, ‘Solitude Experiences: Varieties, Settings and Individual Differences’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 29 , 578-583.
McClelland, D. C.: 1975, Power: The Inner Experience. New York: Irvington.
McClelland, D.C.: 1985, Human Motivation. Gleview, IL: Scott, Foresman.
McClelland, D.C., and R. E. Boyatzis: 1982, ‘Leadership Motive Pattern and Long-term Success in Management’, Journal of Applied Psychology 67, 737–743.
McDonald, E.: 2005, A Portrait of the Role and Value of Solitude for Educational Leaders. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ.
Messick, D. M. and M. H. Bazermen: 1996, ‘Ethical Leadership and the Psychology of Decision Making’, Sloan Management Review 37(2), 9-22.
Moustakas, C.: 1961, Loneliness. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Paine, L. S.: 2003, Value Shift: Why Companies Must Imerge Social and Financial Imperatives to Achieve Superior Performance. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Pedersen, D. M.: 1997, ‘Psychological Functions of Privacy’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 17 147-156.
Pedersen, D. M.: 1999, ‘Model for Types of Privacy by Privacy Functions’, Journal of Environmental Psychology 19, 397-405.
Perry, W.: 1970, Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in College Years, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Raskin, R. and H. Terry: 1988, ‘A Principle-components Analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and Further Evidence of Its Construct Validity’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54: 890-902.
Rooke, D. and W. Torbert: 2005, April, ‘Seven Transformations of Leadership’, Harvard Business Review, pp. 1–12.
Seibert, K. and M. Daudelin: 1999, The Role of Reflection in Managerial Learning: Theory, Research and Practice, Quorum, Westport, CT.
Senge, P.: 1990, The Fifth Discipline, New York: Double Day.
Speier, C., J. S. Valacich and I. Vessey: 1999, ‘The Influence of Task Interruption on Individual Decision Making: An Information Overload Perspective’, Decision Sciences 30, 337-360.
Storr, A.: 1988, Solitude: A Return to the Self, New York: Free Press.
Thomas, A. R. and J. Ayres: 1998, ‘A Principal’s Interruptions: Time Lost or Time Gained?’, International Journal of Educational Management 12, 244-249.
Torbert, W. and Associates: 2004, Action Inquiry: The Secret of Timely and Transforming Leadership (Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA).
Trevino, L. K.: 1986, ‘Ethical Decision Making in Organizations: A Person-situation Interactionist Model’, Academy of Management Review 11, 601-617.
Trevino, L. K.: 1990, ‘A Cultural Perspective on Changing and Developing Business Ethics’. in Woodman, R. and W. Pasmore (Eds.), Research in Organizational Change and Development, Vol. 4 (pp.195–230). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Trevino, L. K., M. Brown and L. P. Hartman: 2003, ‘A Qualitative Investigation of Perceived Executive Ethical Leadership: Perceptions from Inside and Outside the Executive Suite’, Human Relations 55, 5-37.
Trevino, L. K., L. P. Hartmann and M. Brown: 2000, ‘Moral Person and Moral Manager: How Executives Develop A Reputation for Ethical Leadership’, California Management Review 41, 131-151.
Trevino, L. K. and S. A. Youngblood: 1990, ‘Bad Apples in Bad Barrels: A Causal Analysis of Ethical Decision-making Behavior’, Journal of Applied Psychology 75, 378-385.
Uhl-Bien, M.: 2006, ‘Relational Leadership Theory: Exploring the Social Processes of Leadership and Organizing’, The Leadership Quarterly 17, 654-676.
Uhl-Bien, M., R. Marion and B. McKelvey: 2007, ‘Complexity Leadership Theory: Shifting Landscape from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Era’, Leadership Quarterly 18, 298-318.
Waddock, S.: 2007, ‘Leadership Integrity in A Fractured World’, Academy of Management Learning and Education 6(4), 543-557.
Waddock, S.: 2008, ‘Building A New Institutional Infrastructure for Corporate Responsibility’, Academy of Management Perspectives 22 (3), 87-108.
Walumbwa, F. O., B. J. Avolio, W. L. Gardner, T. S. Wernsing and S. J. Peterson: 2008, ‘Authentic Leadership: Development and Validation of A Theory-based Measure’, Journal of Management 34(1), 89-126.
Weaver, G. R., L. K. Trevino and B. Agle: 2005, ‘“Somebody I Look up to”: Ethical Role Models in Organizations’, Organizational Dynamics 34, 313-330.
Winnicott, D. W.: 1958, ‘The Capacity to Be Alone’, International Journal of Psychoanalysis 39, 416-420.
Winter, D. and N. Barenbaum: 1985, ‘Responsibility and the Power Motive in Women and Men’, Journal of Personality 53, 335-355.
Yukl, G.: 2002, Leadership in Organizations, 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Akrivou, K., Bourantas, D., Mo, S. et al. The Sound of Silence – A Space for Morality? The Role of Solitude for Ethical Decision Making. J Bus Ethics 102, 119–133 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-0803-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-0803-3