Managers as Moral Leaders : Moral Identity Processes in the Context of Work

This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Copyright: Rights: Rights url: Please cite the original version: CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Managers as Moral Leaders : Moral Identity Processes in the Context of Work © The Author(s) 2020 Published version Huhtala, Mari; Fadjukoff, Päivi; Kroger, Jane Huhtala, M., Fadjukoff, P., & Kroger, J. (2021). Managers as Moral Leaders : Moral Identity Processes in the Context of Work. Journal of Business Ethics, 172(4), 639-652. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04500-w 2021 Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Business Ethics https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04500-w ORIGINAL PAPER Managers asMoral Leaders: Moral Identity Processes intheContext ofWork MariHuhtala1· PäiviFadjukoff2· JaneKroger3 Received: 20 March 2018 / Accepted: 7 April 2020 © The Author(s) 2020 Abstract This qualitative study explores how business leaders narrate their personal ways of recognizing, reasoning, and resolving moral conflicts and what these stories reveal about their moral identity processes within organizational contexts. Based on interviews with 25 business leaders, 4 moral identity statuses were identified: achievement (commitment to a personally meaningful moral value framework that had been established through a period of self-exploration), moratorium (selfexploration of one’s moral value framework that was ongoing), foreclosure (commitment to a given moral value framework that was present with little or no personal self-exploration), and diffusion (neither clear commitment to nor exploration of a personal moral value framework was present). The moral identity statuses were based on how leaders approached and interpreted moral conflicts and what the influence of the organizational context was in their moral decision-making processes. Some remained steadfast in adhering to their previous value commitments, while others tried to avoid taking any clear moral standpoint. Still others experienced moral conflicts as disequilibrating events that triggered reflective processes and developmental cycles of moral identity change. These moral identity statuses hold implications for facilitating moral identity development among business leaders in the context of work. Keywords Moral identity· Identity development· Leaders Introduction Contemporary understandings of business leadership acknowledge that effective management cannot be reduced to a morally neutral stance that focuses only on achieving organizational ends without ethical considerations (see, for example Nielsen 2006). Rather, being a leader includes “the management of meaning” (Smircich and Morgan 1982). Regardless of their official, hierarchical position as managers, leaders can be defined by a potential to influence others (Day and Harrison 2007). Leaders elicit processes of identification and act as role models for others (Zhu etal. 2016). Because of this influential position, responsibility and morality are an inherent part of leadership. Moral identity provides a central concept for understanding the moral core of leadership, as it refers to a strong sense of being a moral person and to the importance of moral values to an individual (e.g., Aquino and Reed 2002; Hardy and Carlo 2011a, b). Thus, moral identity motivates people to take moral actions (Hardy and Carlo 2005; Mayer etal. 2012). Because moral identity can act as a strong motivator for personal moral behavior (see, e.g., Detert etal. 2008; Greenbaum etal. 2013; Mayer etal. 2012; Shao etal. 2008; Skarlicki and Rupp 2010), it has sparked interest also in the organizational leadership domain (e.g., Mayer etal. 2012; Skubinn and Herzog 2016; Zhu etal. 2016). A moral leader should be a moral person who shows integrity and consistent, principled decision-making (Brown and Treviño 2014). However, there is little understanding of the processes that relate to moral identity development and moral maturity * Mari Huhtala mari.huht[email protected] Päivi Fadjukoff paivi.f[email protected] Jane Kroger jane.krog[email protected] 1 Department ofPsychology, University ofJyväskylä, PO Box35, 40014Jyväskylä, Finland 2 Research andInnovation Services, University ofJyväskylä, PO Box35, 40014Jyväskylä, Finland 3 Department ofPsychology, University ofTromsø: The Arctic University ofNorway, Postboks 6050 Langnes, 9037Tromsø, Norway M.Huhtala et al. 1 3 among adults (Krettenauer etal. 2016). How do business managers become ‘moral leaders’? There is also very limited evidence of the influence of the context in which these moral identity processes occur: how do adopting and applying personal moral values actually occur within organizations (Jennings etal. 2015)? This dearth of information is a significant problem, as organizational pressures for optimizing effectiveness can deter leaders’ moral behaviors by limiting one’s ability to discern right from wrong and restraining one’s capacity to act according to what is ethical. Thus, the organizational context could potentially prevent one from practicing moral leadership behaviors (Nielsen 2006) and represent a potential barrier for moral identity development. On the other hand, organizations can also provide positive elements such as ethical role models or a strong ethical culture that can support and strengthen moral identity among both leaders and employees (Weaver 2006; Zhu etal. 2016). The aim of this study was to examine moral identity processes among business leaders within their organizational contexts. Since moral identity cannot be observed directly, we used moral decision-making processes (i.e., moral identity exploration and commitment) to postulate various underlying dimensions of moral identity. The practice of examining identity-related decision-making processes has been commonly used to study underlying dimensions of ego identity more generally (e.g., Marcia etal. 1993). Identity, can be seen as a form of adaptation between person and context, where conflict is needed to trigger identity change (Bosma and Kunnen 2001). In line with this reasoning, moral identity processes are likely to be triggered by moral conflicts, which offer a relevant context for studying these processes. To summarize, we investigated how middle managers and executives narrated experiences of confronting and resolving moral conflicts and what these narratives revealed about their moral identities. Theoretical Framework Identity andMoral Identity Identity is the culmination of an individual’s values, experiences, and self-perceptions, of the meanings that individuals attach to themselves and to their interactions with their contexts (Erikson 1964). Identity is developed and sustained in social interaction, especially as the integration of different experiences of the self in challenging environments. This personal search addresses the question ‘who am I?’, and it results in a self-conceptualization that can range from relatively simple and unsophisticated understandings of oneself to complex and integrated perceptions (Day and Harrison 2007). People have multiple identity components which may become activated in different contexts; here, our interest is in moral identity in the context of work. Generally, the definitions of moral identity involve a personal sense of morality and the degree to which being a moral person is important to an individual’s identity (for reviews, see Jennings etal. 2015; Shao etal. 2008). Thus, moral identity can be understood as “a self-conception organized around a set of moral traits” (Aquino and Reed 2002). Individuals whose identity is centered on morality will show high motivation for moral actions, because they experience the desire to live according to their core sense of self (Hardy and Carlo 2005). The degree to which a set of moral traits is central to one’s identity is referred to as internalization, whereas symbolization refers to the degree to which these moral traits are expressed publicly (Aquino and Reed 2002). However, we have a rather limited understanding of the processes through which individuals can attain a strong and mature moral identity. Ideally, a higher level of moral centrality develops through a process of integration (Blasi 1995), whereby the individual’s sense of self is infused with moral convictions that provide the basis for moral behavior (e.g., Hardy and Carlo 2011a; Lapsley and Hardy 2017). But how does this integration take place? Commitment and exploration have been identified as core processes of identity formation more generally, capturing personal identity-related decisions one makes in different life domains (see, e.g., Bosma and Kunnen 2001; Marcia 2002). Exploration is defined as the process of examining different identity alternatives that might be compatible with one’s own interests, talents, and values, and commitment is defined as having made an identity-defining decision to which one intends to adhere for the foreseeable future. Thus, although identity cannot be observed directly, processes of exploration and commitment that individuals describe in their identity decision-making can be considered indicators of underlying dimensions of one’s general identity (Kroger and Marcia 2020). However, this approach has not yet been used extensively to understand more about the processes of moral identity development in adulthood (Lapsley and Hardy 2017). We will next review theoretical underpinnings between moral identity and the context in which identity processes are likely to take place: the organizations where leaders act and the moral conflicts that they are likely to face as an inherent part of their work. Moral Identity Processes inContext: Organizations andMoral Conflicts Within organizations, leaders can encounter constraining and/or enabling contexts that help determine the options for moral actions available to them. For example, coherent and prominent ethical organizational norms can support moral Managers asMoral Leaders: Moral Identity Processes intheContext ofWork 1 3 actions, but less coherent or less-than-ethical organizational norms (e.g., if an organization emphasizes short-term monetary value over ethical considerations) can constrain leaders’ moral behaviors by providing little scope for individual moral consideration (Weaver 2006). Thus, leaders can face tensions that arise from coming to terms with various social roles and norms in different contexts and maintaining a coherent self-image at the same time. When people try to resolve the tensions between less and more context-appropriate or desired selves, these efforts are referred to as identity work (Brown 2015; Watson 2008). Identity work is “more necessary, frequent and intense insituations where strains, tensions and surprises are prevalent, as these experiences prompt feelings of confusion, contradiction and self-doubt, which in turn tend to lead to examination of the self” (Brown 2015, p. 25). Moral conflicts can represent such situations, as they often involve several competing, controversial, and/or conflicting perspectives regarding the best resolution. Leaders are especially susceptible to facing these kinds of tensions, because leadership is always embedded within interpersonal relationships; a leader without a social context simply cannot be a leader (Day and Harrison 2007). Leaders have numerous commitments to different roles, with potentially conflicting expectations from different stakeholders, and such circumstances can challenge leaders’ abilities to act according to their own moral identities. If a leader’s values are not compatible with external expectations or the demands of an organization, or he or she cannot express personal moral values in actions, a potential threat to a leader’s moral identity may occur. Thus, moral conflicts can represent disequilibrating events, where one’s existing values and ways of thinking are challenged (Marcia 2002). However, this challenge can also precipitate change by opening up the possibility of development towards new and more mature, as well as more nuanced, forms of identity. Thus, moral conflict can trigger an identity reformulation phase. However, this moral identity meaning construction requires the capacity for both self-reflection and the critical examination of established social and organizational orders (MacIntyre 1999, see also Wilcox 2012). Therefore focusing on moral conflicts in more detail could produce insights into how leaders actually reflect upon the moral problems they have faced and the efforts that they have applied to learn from these experiences. These issues are central to understanding how individuals construct their identities (see, e.g., Ashforth and Schinoff 2016), because identity, including moral identity, is not something that one can observe directly. As Kroger and Marcia (2020) have noted, one can infer something about one’s identity by the way in which identity-defining decisions are made. Therefore, we focused on leaders’ narratives of their encounters with moral conflicts and the moral decisions that they made (or not) as a means of learning about underlying dimensions of moral identity. Research Aims The purpose of this study was to investigate how leaders’ moral identity was constructed through retrospective descriptions of personally meaningful moral conflict at work. Qualitative research methods were adopted in order to understand what these descriptions indicated about their moral identity processes. Although our study design did not allow us to examine leader moral development over time on a longitudinal basis, our premise was that by investigating the retrospective stories leaders described about their meaningful encounters with moral conflicts, we could obtain important information about how leaders’ moral identities were constructed and developed and/or maintained within organizations. Thus, we investigated whether or not moral conflicts could trigger moral identity development and what kinds of typical moral identity patterns (progression, regression, or stability) appeared in these stories. More specifically, we wanted to learn about leaders’ personal value commitments and any exploration of these values, the salience of morality to the self, and the role of context in which moral decisions occurred in order to understand how contexts might facilitate or impede moral identity change. We posed the following general research question for our study: How do business leaders describe their moral identity processes insituations of moral conflict at work? Method Participants The data was collected from two distinct sources in Finland: managers (N = 17) in a large public sector organization with multiple service areas (i.e., education and health care) and a group of executive Master of Business Administration (eMBA) participants (N = 8), an education program targeting experienced business managers with at least 3years of work experience in a managerial or supervisory position. All participants worked with stakeholders (i.e., employees, management, customers, media) and had direct subordinates; thus, they were important decision-makers and role models in their organizations. Within this context, their personal moral identity could have far-reaching effects on the morality of their entire organizations and the employees in them (Brown and Treviño 2006, 2014). An invitation to participate in the study was sent by email via contact persons to each leader in the public sector M.Huhtala et al. 1 3 organization and to all participants in the eMBA course. The invitation included a description of the study aims and procedure, as well as information about confidentiality. All participants were asked to contact the first author directly to receive further information about the study and to arrange an appointment for the interview if the individual wished to proceed. All the individuals participated on a voluntary basis. Data collection included the individual semi-structured interviews that were conducted by the first author and a questionnaire that was administered to the participants after the interview; the questionnaire included demographic background questions and an informed consent form. To summarize, the invitation to participate was addressed to individuals who worked in formal managerial positions. However, based on our conceptual definition of managers and leaders, regardless of their hierarchical position in middle or upper management, we will hereafter refer to all study participants as leaders. This decision was made because of their influential roles within their organizations and their responsibilities for others (e.g., followers, clients, and colleagues). A total of 25 leaders (12 men and 13 women) were interviewed. The participants’ ages ranged from 36 to 65years, with a mean age of 49years (SD = 8.5). They worked in the public sector (19), private companies (3), or had their own companies (3). Participants had a mean of 47 direct subordinates (range 5–300, SD = 66), and their working experience in the current job varied from 1 to 40years, with a mean of 9years (SD = 9.4). For reporting purposes, pseudonyms were given to each participant from among the most common first names in Finland. Procedure Because we wished to study moral conflicts that may evoke a disequilibrating state and trigger moral identity change (Bosma and Kunnen 2001), we chose to use the critical incident technique (CIT; Butterfield etal. 2005; Flanagan 1954) as the primary means of gathering interview data for our study. The CIT involves collecting personal self-recollections of different incidents, which can provide a rich insight into the phenomenon that is under investigation (Gremler 2016). In the current study, the CIT was conducted using semi-structured interviews focusing on personal reflections related to an actual moral conflict that the participant had experienced. The participants were asked prior to the interview to consider a conflict that they would be willing to share during the interview. In this way, we aimed to elicit stories about personally meaningful events, as the participants had the possibility to choose the incident they wished to discuss. The following descriptions and questions (the themes that guided the semi-structured interview) were sent to the participants by email before the meeting. First, the following definition was presented to the participants: An ethically problematic situation means that the decision-maker does not know what would be the right thing to do, or he or she cannot act according to what they see to be right for one reason or another. The decision also includes a choice between options that are equally good or equally bad. Solving the ethically problematic situation has consequences for others: either to the subject of the decision, possibly collateral individuals, or to the decision-maker him/herself. Time pressures, conflicting expectations, interests, and values often are involved in these decisions. Because leaders act in social contexts and because their organizations can provide several factors which might constrain and/or enable their moral behaviors and moral identities (such as different opportunities for modeling, identification, and learning), the interviews aimed to investigate the role of the organizational context in moral conflicts, an issue neglected by most previous studies of moral identity (Schwartz 2001; Weaver 2006). The semi-structured interview asked the following questions: (1) “Please think thoroughly about your experiences of ethically problematic situations in your work. Describe one situation in as much detail as possible that you experienced as ethically problematic.” If the participant did not spontaneously describe the following aspects, each was probed separately: “Why did you find the situation ethically problematic?” “Describe the circumstances under which the situation took place.” “What did you do to solve the problem?” (2) “What influence (if any) did the following factors have on your decision-making and your attempts to resolve the problem?” The latter question was aimed to evoke descriptions about how different contextual factors had affected moral decision-making in the situation. The factors were based on the framework of Weaver (2006): (a) your organization or other institutions (e.g., professional networks, professional ethical guidelines, ethical codes), (b) your supervisor or upper management, (c) your colleagues or subordinates, (d) your personal values and (work) experience, (e) situational factors, (f) other factors (e.g., other than work, such as family). Each of the participants was able to identify and discuss at least one conflict situation that they regarded as ethically problematic. If the participant described two different events, the one that was discussed in more detail during the interview was used in the analysis. The interviews lasted from 23min to over an hour (mean duration 42min); interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Analysis We analyzed the data using a three-step inductive content analysis (Berg and Lune 2012; Elo and Kyngäs 2008; Miles and Huberman 1994; Strauss and Corbin 1998). The first Managers asMoral Leaders: Moral Identity Processes intheContext ofWork 1 3 step of the analysis was the preparation and unitizing phase, where the transcripts were broken down into meaning units (e.g., Butterfield etal. 1996; Gioia and Sims 1986). The first and second author read all the interviews in order to find common themes related to the way individuals described their chosen moral conflict and how they had tried to resolve the situation. The aim was to identify distinguishable themes of how the managers described experiencing the moral conflict and what kinds of thoughts, perceptions, and values they had before, during, and after the moral conflict occurred. Two main themes were found: the first related to the content of the moral conflict, the second to the personal processes that took place when trying to resolve the conflict. In the second step, organizing and categorizing, the first two authors took part in an iterative, intersubjective process. They discussed the similarities and differences among thought units and organized them into further categories. Here, the main conclusion was that the personal processes found in the data could be classified into different combinations of moral identity commitment and exploration. Exploration was defined as the process of examining different moral identity alternatives that might be compatible with one’s own interests, talents, and values, and moral identity commitment was defined as having made a moral identity commitment to which one intends to adhere for the foreseeable future. At this point these moral identity categorizations were discussed and finalized in agreement with the third author. The third and final step was classification and abstraction. In some of the stories, we were able to identify a cycle that took place over time related to the personal moral exploration and commitment processes that the leaders described. Some described their identity-related values, thoughts, and feelings (1) before they were confronted with the conflict, (2) during the event, and (3) after the conflict. For some, there was an identifiable change in values, thoughts, or feelings that occurred over this process. We found that reconsideration and reconstruction of previous value commitments may be generated in the course of addressing a moral conflict, including some domain-specific factors related both to moral issues and to the organizational context that affected the moral identity processes. Results Moral Identity Statuses Identified Through Moral Conflicts When the leaders discussed their critical incidents (i.e., moral conflicts) and how they approached resolving them, the focal themes within their narratives related to two main processes of moral identity formation: commitment and exploration. The narratives fell into four distinct groupings, based on the firmness of commitment to a certain moral value framework and on the personal exploration and prioritization processes that were used in order to develop a personally meaningful value framework. As we describe below, these processes were found to be comparable to the four identity statuses described in the general identity literature (Marcia 1966, 2007; Kroger and Marcia 2011): achievement (commitment is present after a period of self-exploration), moratorium (commitment is absent, while self-exploration is ongoing), foreclosure (commitment is present with little or no personal self-exploration), and diffusion (neither commitment nor self-exploration are currently present). However, we also identified some context-specific features related to moral identity processes, in particular, which we will next describe in more detail. Moral Identity Diffusion In our data we found a group of leaders (N = 6) who did not describe a clear moral framework that served as the basis of their decision-making, nor did they try to develop such a framework. Rather, moral conflicts for the leaders in this group were experienced as ongoing uncertainty about how to make moral decisions. For example, Ritva wanted to be a flexible leader who was open to others’ opinions, but she described constantly wondering whether to follow organizational guidelines or to give more freedom and responsibility to the employees: For me, being an engaging leader means that I am willing to change my decision if someone has a better idea. I am not the kind of person who just makes a decision and regardless of other, clearly better ideas, still refuses to even consider them. Therefore, if it feels right, of course I can change my mind. It is my way of being a leader. (Ritva) Ritva struggled between using formal rules as a basis for her decisions, and at the same time wanting to show trust by actually leaving the decision-making to her employees: I try to resolve conflicts so that I can find justifications for my decisions in the organization’s rules. So that my choices would not be based only on my personal judgment, but that there is something I can rely on; why I am making the decision in a certain way. However, of course I leave it to the employees to follow these guidelines. (Ritva) She also described being unable to make any final decision about how to deal with employees who smoked within a youth work facility during their breaks, which was against the facility’s formal rules related to substance abuse prevention. Ritva’s uncertainty persisted as a continuous challenge: M.Huhtala et al. 1 3 Should I confront my employees as being the leader and make them feel uncomfortable? Or should I take a step back and trust their professional skills and see how they deal with the situation? I think this is the difficult question. … This discussion about workplace rules arises at regular intervals. (Ritva) Another example comes from Tarja, who talked about a moral conflict that involved planning work time schedules that would be fair for two employees with different needs. She described postponing the decision as a way of refraining from taking responsibility for it: Sometimes difficult situations resolve themselves. There is still some time before I have to make this decision – I mean, what if I have put all this time and energy into finding a solution, and then the employee finds another job and leaves here, which solves the problem? Or maybe as time passes the employee does not see this as a big issue anymore, maybe she will adjust to the current work schedule. Maybe the problem will go away. I mean, there are so many other things on my agenda, perhaps this is resolved over time. (Tarja) We identified these leaders as moral identity diffused, as they did not have a clear idea of what was central to their personal moral identity. They described ongoing uncertainty about how to reach compromises between competing interests (such as supporting employee autonomy versus following the rules and formal policies that governed workplace behavior) and did not make efforts to establish a moral framework, either. In Marcia’s typology (2002), diffusion refers to individuals who lack both identity-defining commitments as well as exploration of different identity alternatives. In a similar manner, morally diffused leaders were likely to drift without clear commitments to a consistent set of moral values to guide one’s thoughts or actions. Rather, they were likely to simply ignore moral conflicts, pass the responsibility to someone else, or in other ways distance themselves from any potentially disequilibrating event (such as Tarja did by postponing her decision). Their moral conflict descriptions (i.e., critical incidents) mostly dealt with everyday struggles instead of telling a coherent story of a specific conflict that had challenged their moral value frame. They also did not describe a clear moral decision after their period of uncertainty. Moral Identity Foreclosure Based on our qualitative analysis, some leaders (N = 7) talked about strong commitments regarding their moral values, without prior periods of uncertainty or exploration. These situations often appeared in authoritarian contexts, where the leader chose to accept the guidelines, expectations and orders that came from higher up in the organizational hierarchy, such as from upper management, without question. These leaders did not consider the organizational guidelines or expectations in relation to their own values nor try to find alternative ways to interpret a specific guideline. For these leaders, organizational contexts had specific elements that restricted leaders’ moral decisionmaking, as Timo described: If I accept the decision made by my supervisor, of course I also personally commit to it; it becomes also my decision. And when the decision is made, it is no longer my role to question it. I guess my militaryrelated background affects how I see these things. That even complicated things can be handled quite simplistically; it is either-or. I am very direct, when it comes to breaking the rules. We have certain protocols on how to deal with it. When the threshold of a wrong-doing has been crossed, we always follow the same procedure, period. (Timo) Here, Timo describes his own background with firm values which are combined with and strengthened by his work context that also had clear norms and guidelines. Another example came from Markku, who described how he saw himself as a representative of the employer and thus carried out employer decisions even when he did not agree with them: I have to trickle down the decisions that come from above me. I need to carry the decisions forward [to my employees] and act in line with them, even decisions that I do not agree with. I’ve been trying to explain this to the employees, but they disagree with all these economic restrictions. However, these restrictions influence our work, and I need to follow them through. After all, I am a representative of my employer, and I have to take things forward. I have to remember this all the time, in the back of my head; I represent my employer. (Markku) Like Markku and Timo, leaders who resolved moral conflicts based on solely on external demands were identified as having foreclosed moral identities. In Marcia’s model (2002), foreclosure refers to identity commitments which are formed with little or no personal self-exploration. Similarly, morally foreclosed leaders had clear norms that they felt important to follow and saw no need to personally consider the norms or any other perspectives or actions outside of this value framework. They were thus reluctant to genuinely listen to various or alternative views: Managers asMoral Leaders: Moral Identity Processes intheContext ofWork 1 3 The employees might think that hearing their concerns means that the decision will be made according to their wishes. But even though they’ve had the opportunity to state their opinions, my decision might still be different, depending on what the organization demands. (Kari) Thus, leaders with a foreclosed moral identity may be resistant to identity development in a rigid way, avoiding or denying any information that might contradict their adopted values. In our data these values were related to what the organization emphasized (as in Kari’s citation). In line with Marcia’s model (2002), leaders with a foreclosed moral identity seemed to have developed a personality structure built to prevent disequilibration; they would therefore be less likely to re-evaluate their present value commitments. Moral Identity Moratorium Only one of the leaders in our data was identified as being actively processing and exploring her values to (re-)establish a personally meaningful moral value framework in the employment context. Marja described a clearly distinguishable moral problem where she had taken personal efforts to find a resolution to the situation but concluded with a compromise and thus experienced an ongoing moral conflict: I see that one of our employees is not being valued or accepted by others. I see that she is being judged and treated with prejudice because of her national background. Because she is different than others. (Marja) Marja described how she realized that her actions reflected her values, but she still struggled in finding a way to make the right moral choice (representing exploration). She was in the process of trying to resolve the issue: I think this is a problem that we need to discuss more with the employees. I should emphasize that we can have all kinds of people working here. But I don’t feel so certain about this. I would like to do the right thing, to give her a permanent job here, and show that I value those qualities that she has. And I hope that others would value them as well. So that those characteristics that make her different would not be experienced as disturbing or difficult. -- But I haven’t brought up this issue yet. What I’ve tried to do about it is to think how to approach the issue [with the employees]. (Marja) Instead of leaving the situation unresolved or placing the responsibility on others (as diffused leaders might do), Marja decided on a compromise in her actions: I have decided on a compromise, where this employee is currently employed here, but only with a contract for a few months at a time. There are also actual justifications for this, as there have been a lot of short-term substitute positions open. But I haven’t hired her as a permanent employee, although there have been those openings as well. (Marja) The above excerpts represent Marja’s attempt to find a moral solution to the situation (not to discriminate but to keep the employee in the organization regardless of other employees who are prejudiced against her), but simultaneously illustrate her uncertainty about fully standing behind her moral values (Marja had not given the employee a permanent position, although there were possibilities to do so and no official reasons against it). We interpreted this approach as reflecting a moral identity moratorium. According to Marcia (2002), identity moratorium is characterized by being open-minded and thoughtful, continuing to examine alternatives, and trying to make identity-defining decisions for the future. Although we identified similar elements from Marja’s narrative, none of the interviewed leaders spoke of a clear, major exploration time regarding their moral values. In addition, moral identity moratorium was identified in descriptions of previous states; brief periods of personal value exploration before making refined value commitments. This finding aligns with Marcia’s (2002) model, where, for most people, moratorium is a transitional state between two identity statuses initiated by disequilibrating circumstances. One such example comes from Anna, who described a period of active reflection and searching for different options regarding whether or not to employ a person with much absence due to illness: I knew how much this person had been sick before. I guess that was the biggest ethical problem, because I shouldn’t have let that influence me: whether I hire that person or not. -- Another ethical issue was that I knew that this person was a challenging employee; I think it would’ve been immoral of me to move him/ her to another unit. -- So I mapped different options, I called our lawyer, I contacted recruiting services, and I talked with my supervisor. And I talked a lot with this employee. (Anna) The organizational context had a central role in allowing Anna to work through her identity moratorium. Norms related to a leader’s role in different fields of business were found to elicit moral conflicts in and of themselves. For example, Liisa spoke of how a value conflict initiated a disequilibrium phase for her, resulting in further values explorations (facilitating moral identity reconstruction): Of course I understand that in this position [working as a chief customer officer in a private company] the business goals are really important. But then at the same time I find it really important to be just and keep the game fair and clean. And that became the challenge M.Huhtala et al. 1 3 for me: these two goals started to compete with each other. (Liisa) Whether or not a leader was able to analyze and resolve the controversies between competing value sets was used to define one’s current moral identity status. In Liisa’s case she chose to resign from her work after she realized the organization had unethical leaders who restricted her from acting according to her moral identity and central moral values: The upper management clearly had their own circle of favorite employees. My own supervisor protected these people, and at the same time tried to influence me so that I would also favor them. The problem was that I always want to treat people fairly and equally. Finally, I just felt that I couldn’t stay in that situation anymore, where I had to be quiet, like I wouldn’t know anything about this [managers’ showing favor] that was going on around me. So I decided it was best that I resign. (Liisa). Thus, she was able to find a solution which did not compromise her core values, although it meant leaving her job. In Anna’s case she was able to resolve her conflict related to hiring an employee: I think that everyone deserves a chance, regardless of what the person’s history includes. That’s why I think I work in this field [in health care], and not somewhere in commercial business. I couldn’t have slept if I didn’t hire this person; I would have felt that I’ve really wronged her/him. I think you should always give new opportunities and see if people are capable of changing and developing. I believe that most employees have this will [to develop] in themselves. (Anna) She described gaining even more confidence about her central values as a leader, treating employees with equality. In the citation she also refers to her line of work; how she felt that her values provided a better fit with working in health care where she could help people than in the profit-driven business sector. Both Liisa and Anna were able to find a way to act according to their personally meaningful and important moral values. In addition, although Marja represented a moratorium (state) regarding her current moral conflict, she also discussed her established value framework regarding her role as a moral leader. This approach, as we will describe next, depicts an achieved moral identity. Moral Identity Achievement In comparison to the foreclosed leaders, described earlier, another group of leaders were faced with similar external pressures and organizational demands. However, instead of accepting these demands without question, they elaborately described their own thinking processes, weighing different points of view, and in the end making decisions that were justifiable and in line with their own personal moral values. For example, Aino talked about how she saw her role in tackling a personnel crisis within her organization: I think that it is my responsibility to take care of things, and I cannot be in conflict with myself. I know that these [employee conflicts] are unpleasant situations for the leader to handle, and you have to make difficult decisions regarding the employees. And people will be disappointed. But the way that I see my work is that I have to do what is right. (Aino) In other words, these leaders were identified to have a ‘moral template’ that they applied to resolving different moral conflicts. They acknowledged contradictions between following various norms and regulations of their organizations and being flexible towards employees and customers as the diffused leaders did. However, leaders in this group described having a clear value framework which guided them in making decisions even when faced with competing demands. They did not try to avoid responsibility or unpleasant confrontations with their superiors or employees, but took actions that they saw as fair and that were aligned with their values, such as Aino described. We interpreted these leaders to have achieved moral identities. According to Marcia’s (2002) definition, an achieved identity involves exploration of different perspectives and options before committing to one’s current value framework. In the context of moral conflicts, a similar status was identified among ten leaders, who talked about high moral value coherence based on personal reflection: I have three simple questions that I follow when I make decisions. First, is it safe? Second, is it right? I mean morally right, not right by the formal guidelines. And third, is it fair? If I can answer ’yes’ to all these questions and act accordingly, even if I end up breaking some rule, I cannot be badly judged because I had good intentions. I think it is my duty as a leader to help the employees so that they can perform their best in their work. Even though I legally represent my employer, I will still take my employees’ side. (Mika) Above, Mika describes how he had found a personal moral template that helped him to make moral decisions according to his own core values (safety, justice, and equality) and to justify his actions even though they could sometimes mean taking a risk to act against a formal workplace rule. However, firm commitments to personally developed moral values can sometimes be difficult adapt to the organizational structure. Some of the achieved leaders described basing decisions on their personal values, even if it meant contradicting an official guideline (as in Mika’s citation