Workplace leadership encompasses several tasks whose effective performance requires the possession of a strong sense of justice. According to Ryback and Motsching (71), one aspect of good workplace leadership is effective communication. Effective communication requires a leader to listen to their followers and encourage them to offer suggestions on pertinent issues. The goal of a good leader should be to sustain the flow of information between them and their followers and figure any problems the followers could be facing. Justice plays a significant role in making a leader effective in communication. If a leader upholds justice, their followers will have the incentive to offer suggestions on the major issues of concern in the workplace. However, if the followers perceive their leader to be unjust, they are not likely to offer them suggestions on the appropriate way to handle various workplace issues, and this will make the leader ineffective in communication.
A second element of effective leadership is good organization (Ryback & Motsching 105). When a leader is skilled in organization, they can set goals that match the capabilities of their followers, and if none of their followers has the requisite capabilities, they can find a way of developing these capabilities. Justice enables a leader to figure out the appropriate way to match the organizational goals with their followers’ capabilities. A just leader knows that it is unfair to assign a follower a task for which they lack the capability to perform. Similarly, a just leader understands that it is unfair to force their followers to develop a capability in a way that is incompatible with their learning habits. Effective organization enables a leader to deploy the workplace’s resources in a manner that yields the greatest outcomes, and considering the role of justice in making a leader an effective organizer, justice facilitates the judicious use of the workplace’s resources.
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Effective workplace leadership requires a leader to be flexible in executing their tasks (Ryback & Motsching 200). Organizations are an element of a wider macro-environment that comprises diverse and ever-changing variables. The dynamism of the external environment implies that leaders must create contingencies for the plans that they have formulated. When a change occurs and a leader has to redeploy some resources, they have to inform their followers of the unexpected developments that have led to the alteration the initial plans. Leaders who uphold justice will explain the rationale for the changes in the existing plans in order to elicit the support of their followers in the implementation of the changes. Leaders who do not value justice, on the other hand, are unlikely to see the need to explain the rationale for these changes to their followers, and if the followers do not understand this rationale, they will resent the changes and frustrate their implementation. Therefore, justice enables a leader to implement changes easily and it makes a leader flexible in discharging their mandate.
Effective workplace leaders understand the importance of delegating some of their tasks to their followers (Ryback & Motsching 218). For a follower to be effective in performing a delegated task, they need wide discretion. A just leader understands that it is only fair to allow a follower the discretion they need in order to perform a delegated task effectively, but an unjust leader does not acknowledge the need to allow this discretion and they are likely to have no scruples micromanaging a follower to whom they have delegated some task.
To sum up, justice enables a leader to perform their roles effectively. In most of their tasks, a leader needs to exercise fair judgment. Without a strong sense of justice, a leader will almost certainly fail in exercising fair judgment, and in turn, they will be ineffective in performing their leadership tasks.
- Motschnig, Renate, David Ryback, and Motschnig. Transforming Communication in Leadership and Teamwork. Springer, 2016.
