Leadership and CSR

Introduction

Leadership is very important issue in any business organization that needs to succeed and reach competitiveness. Globalization today made it difficult for business organization to boost the market and then they all try to add too many values to their organizations via many different practices such as focusing on ethics and corporate social responsibility. According to Godkin and Valentine,  (2016) ethics are very important for any leader who wish to achieve competitiveness in the business organization as ethics are very important for all stakeholders, they are highly needed by those workers within the organization, clients, shareholders and other relevant stakeholders in the society locally and internationally , this is related directly to issues of corporate social responsibility as the organization can use them in order to prove how far it is interested in public welfare and can work as a working party in the local and international society. The current paper is a report presented for a manger of a company shedding the light on the different uses of CSR and ethics in the business organization, how far they are very essential and what they can add to the value of the organization, develop it and improve its profitability and productivity in addition to adding too much value and competitiveness in the market and global and local environment.

Discussion

There are many policies, strategies and techniques for ensuring and enhancing ethics and corporate social responsibility of the business organization, according to Singh and Singh, (2013) leaders who are able to emphasize ethics and apply them within the workplace are more able to communicate the organizational goals and achieve better results, they gain employees' trust and confidence which raises the employees' self -morale and make them able to express their needs, ambitions and complaints easily, those leaders are always encourage positive work-related outcomes via their positive behaviors as well, they respect employees, understand their needs and realize the differences among them which raises their opportunities in empowering each employee and each team based on the knowledge thy have about them. Leaders who are realizing the needs for ethics and CSR are able to enhance employees' attitudes towards effective and positive activities as they help employees participate in the public events, express themselves and the organization's value and represent a positive image of the organization. This was also confirmed by Jackson et al,(2013) who added that creating an ethical work environment by effective leaders can raise employees' job satisfaction and at the same time emphasize employees' positive response to CSR activities in their community locally and internationally.  The ethics leaders should focus on includes employees' human rights, promotion, reward, recognition, empowerment, progress, training, communication and equality within the workplace in addition to the rights of working under fair leadership that is developed and updated and understanding for their needs, the needs of the local and social society.

It is important as confirmed by Waldman et al, (2004) to focus on ethic codes and training for leaders in order to ensure their correct and accurate usage of CSR and ethics within the organization and the local and global community, the leaders are in need for the training in order to respond more effectively to the various events and activities relevant to ethics and CSR in the workplace and to enhance employees' required and needed work attitudes. Employees who are working with leaders who are well aware and educated about the benefits of ethics and CSR are more effective in using and applying ethics and CSR practices than others. This can be done by creating an ethical work environment that raises employees' awareness regarding ethics and CSR. There are different policies that companies can use for ensuing ethics and CSR and for introducing different standards that supervise and guide the implementation of ethics in the organization but Amato et al,(2009) referred that it is not enough to have such standards but leaders are responsible to make employees understand the standard and to ensure the right dissemination of it via the organizational structure. Training leader here can be effective and helpful as training will provide them with the required information and methodology to communicate the ethics and CSR standards with employees. Leaders are also responsible to communicate the needed values through the ethic policies they apply and there should be norms and practices that make employees able to realize the expectations of the workplace and personal ethics of leaders should also reflect the organizational ethics and they have to focus and share in the activities relevant to CSR. There are many programs for being used by leaders to communicate ethics and CSR such as communication channels, employees, governance, periodic ethic audits and reporting mechanisms. They have to choose from them based on the work environment, the nature of the business and the needs of employees and the society. 

According to Lam et al, (2015) Leadership should focus on sustainability as a basic of the organizations' CSR and this should include the different activities the organization is sharing at such as charity in the local and global society, educational programs, sports events and others that people are interested in, there should be sustainable principles the organization and leadership are following, organizations are responsible for presenting voluntary activities for the community where people can feel how far the organization is keen on their welfare, understand their needs and leaves effective and positive impact on their lives. This was also focused on by Strand et al, (2014) who added that environmental concerns are very important to ensure the organization's ethics and CSR as for example, the organization cans hare people in presenting them clean water, clean houses and better atmosphere by using clean materials and stop polluting the environment. Voluntary actions raises the confidence of people and stakeholders in the organization and this gives it good reputation which will in turn result in more profits and more effectiveness in the society. The organization should also show effective leadership who are more transformational in order to apply desired changes in the organization and outside it as a try for proving its effective leadership that can provide the society with better and more opportunities for solving their problems that represent great and general burden on them, for example, the organization can present opportunities for unemployed youth to work and others for the poor to earn a living or it can present free training and education courses for people in the community and local areas. This can raise the level of ethics of the organization, improve its position in the market and enhances its sustainable CSR practices. The effective transformational leadership is able to communicate ethics in the organization and help employees to share in the different activities related to CSR and sustainability by providing employees with the model they need to share in the public services and activities that are voluntary and prove the role of the organization they belong to in the local or even global society. The leadership can also face the challenges that employees may face and work against implementing ethics and CSR in the organization such as lack of time as the leadership can manage time effectively to ensure employees have the right time they can use to share in the different CSR activities, leadership can also improve the image of the organization by training employees and empowering them to be effective figures in the society related to the work they present for helping all stakeholders.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important to refer to the need and necessity of ethics practiced by leaders in the workplace as they have to show respect and regard to all employees, fairness and equality in presenting chances for all employees and regarding the differences among them. The effective leadership should consider CSR and sustainability activities in the work environment, local and international society, they have to focus on the need to have good environment, share in different charity and voluntary events and activities regarding all stakeholders and their needs. This can raise the level of competitiveness and success of the organization and improving its image in the local and global society. It is important to train leaders to perform such role and they themselves have to train employees and empower them to share in the CSR activities representing the organization themselves and via their ethics and positive behaviors.