Ethical Behaviour Beyond Convergent Calculative Thinking: From Modern to Meaningful Leadership

This chapter examines modern leadership, which can accelerate business progress through a convergent calculative mindset. It can also suppress an individual’s internal tendency for existential meaning, resulting in unethical behaviour. Ethical behaviour has been critically reviewed from the philosophical perspective beyond the prevalent structural approach, such as law-like ethical codes. Findings show ethical leadership cannot be constrained to convergent ethical codes at the structural level. Modern and meaningful leaderships have been conceptualised and compared to demonstrate that ethical leadership is inherently paradoxical and needs both convergent calculative thinking and divergent meditative thinking. Innovative collective action can help individuals to effectively direct paradoxes, resulting in meaningful experiences, psychological well-being, and internal motivation for ethical behaviour.