Abstract
The main aim of the study was to determine the role of ethical leadership in promoting good corporate governance. Against the background of reported cases of unethical conduct in both the public and private organisations, in which there have been highlights of mismanagement of public funds, corruption, crime, bribery, and much more. It can be argued that the attributes that lead to unethical conduct can be due to the inability of organisational leaders to influence the ethical behaviours in both public and private organisations.
This research study was conducted to explore the processes and procedures that the non-profit organisation’s leaders followed regarding ethical leadership, in terms of how ethical leadership could be used as a mechanism to promote good corporate governance. Twenty participants involving operational managers, project managers, human resource managers, and legal personnel were interviewed. This qualitative study focused on the importance of ethical leadership in today’s business landscape.
Triangulation was the method used to design the questionnaire, and respondents’ opinions and views were based on the open-ended responses, which formed the primary research. The data collection was done online where potential respondents were recruited from a non-profit organisation, using the purposive sampling method. The data was collected from 20 respondents utilising a mechanised questionnaire that was shared with respondents via email and WhatsApp messages. The data of the study was collected online due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus which was declared as a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation. The President of the Republic of South Africa declared a national state of disaster as the country was also impacted by the outbreak. Furthermore, the country introduced the COVID-19 risk adjusted levels, which all the people of South Africa must comply with. Thematic analysis of data analysis for this study was done using Atlas TI.
The findings indicated that for the non-profit organisation to implement good corporate governance principles throughout its operations and to foster ethical leadership while complying with the code of conduct, policies, and processes, the
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organisation must have the four pillars. These pillars are leadership, promotion of honesty and integrity, effective decision-making processes, and accountability and transparency. It is worth noting that the findings of this study are limited to a single non-profit organisation that permitted research with its staff,
The theory is explicit in guiding and assisting non-profit organisation managers with a plethora of literature on what systems and processes to have to effectively run and manage the non-profit organisation. Managers should also be guided by a code of conduct that deals more with a person's morals when running and managing the non-profit organisation, because they deal primarily with donations given for a specific cause, and being unethical has become an inherent behaviour of many managers.