Business ethics and gender equality: the basis for a new leadership model

Business Ethics remains necessary in a globalized world. Companies need to listen to their stakeholders and identify their needs. As social institutions, companies should display moral behavior because society expects good actions of them. As a result, they need to integrate social and environmental problems into their day-today work because that is their responsibility. Consequently, gender equality has to be integrated into company management because it is a global, social interest. Since the dichotomist division of public and private spaces, cultural constructions of gender have been determined, which are based on values and restrictive principles that build a conflicting model for men and women. In contemporary western societies, these roles are the basis of our education and lifestyle, and they impregnate all areas of society cross-sectionally, from politics to economy. This gender differentiation becomes gender inequality, which is reproduced by companies. In the present communication, our main task is to identify the real relation between Business Ethics and an emerging form of leadership: Women's Leadership. Our hypothesis centers on the notion that Business Ethics can enhance the presence of women as leaders in companies. Moreover, we have to work on the possibilities of defining a women's leadership model, which is not often done visibly, and highlight its main features which come close to the transformational leadership model. We will also see how in a context of change and economic recession that the need to reformulate the basis of the traditional leadership model, traditionally associated and practiced by men, is evident. Companies demand complementary leadership, transformational leadership, and need to respond to the principles and values of Business Ethics.