Women in Ethics

The month of March brought many changes – warmer weather, NCAA March Madness and an extra hour of sunshine as we moved our clocks forward. March is also a month set aside to honor women who have made significant contributions in American history.

According to an article  in the Midlands Business Journal exploring the Glass Cliff Phenomenon, “women are more likely to advance into higher positions of leadership during times when an organization is experiencing significant financial duress, cultural chaos and /or other types of crises when failure is likely.” The authors go on to say, “this disappointing, fragile and potentially harmful phenomenon may be especially true if ethical transgressions are involved.”

The article discusses three studies the co-authors found while studying women in ethics. The first, a 2015 study from the Pew Research Center on Women in Leadership, found that “women are perceived to have an edge when it comes to being honest and ethical,” especially when it comes to “providing fair pay, benefits and offering mentorship.” The second study was a 2016 research report from the National Business Ethics Survey conducted in 2013 on behalf of the Ethics and Compliance Initiative (ECI). It found that “male and female leaders act similarly when it come to ethics.” “However, despite many shared priorities between male and female leaders, female employees and female leaders face tougher ethics environments than male employees.”

The third study published in 2020 in the Journal of Research in Education found that “female leaders in higher education (director, dean, vice-president, president) internalized and lived out an ethical framework based on social responsibility. These women perceived ethical leadership as much bigger than a role or title and were most concerned with equity and fairness.”

So, what is the bottom line for women in ethical leadership? The article concluded that in a world where only 10 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, “leadership at all levels makes a difference in organizational culture, especially when it comes to ethical behavior.”

The NASBA Center for the Public Trust applauds the excellence and dedication of women in leadership, in recognition of Women’s History Month and throughout the entire year. Women leaders center ethical practices that support balanced, equitable and healthy organizational culture practices which, in turn, increase positive outcomes in an organization’s bottom line.

-Sharrona Reaves, Director of Programs and Development