Leadership

We have all been leaders or have been lead by someone in more ways than one. This week covers whether or not those leaders have been ethical or unethical. Eisenbeiß and Brodbeck(2014), did a cross-cultural and cross-sectoral analysis on ethical and unethical leadership. They wanted to examine the similarities and differences between the eastern and western cultures in regards to ethical and unethical leadership. In the opinion of many it was concluded that unethical leaders mainly lack the skill of decision making. Why do you think this is to be true across all societies. In a nutshell it is important to know that in order to be a good ethical leader, one may have to go against the companies' ethics and go by their personal moral code. 

Going by a book will not tell you how to feel when certain situations arise. There may be a rule at work that says not to feed the homeless. Do you let the guy on the corner outside starve or will you buy him a sandwich? Sometimes you have to do whats in your heart and what you know is right opposed to reading from a manual that doesn't have the ability to express emotion. 

Have you ever ran across a situation where you had a set of rules to follow, however your heart, moral and ethics steered you into a different direction? Think about what it would have done to you had you not followed your heart. How did making that decision effect you at the workplace. Lastly, where there any consequences given by to you by the employer for not following the rules?

A good leader is able to assess a situation and understand what route they should choose and the benefit/cost of the situation. If a situation ever arises where that leader must make a choice you want to be assured that they can do so without little or no supervision. 

Have you ever been in a situation that was lead by ab unethical leader? If not, it has happened to me several times. A good example would be taking advantage of someone and their skills and not compensating them for it. A former general manager of mine made an unethical decision of hiring someone they where romantically involved with. This caused problems within the organization because any special request that the person had it was granted just because they where romantically involved with the boss. Many times my former co workers and myself where inconvenienced to accommodate the outlandish requests. At some moments it was presented as if we had no choice. The issue was not resolved until the relationship ended badly and the employer became spiteful and reported the GM simply because they didn't work out romantically. This resulted in a full investigation, which gave the organization a bad name. 

To avoid situations like the one listed above organizations can do several things.

1. Implement ethical training

2. Ensure best fit of the employers prior to hiring

Following these two steps will minimize the need for a leader to become unethical because they should fit with what your organization is all about. In contradiction to that, we never know what a person is thinking and we will probably never know what a persons personal ethical code it. We could ask, however we would be taking a chance on them giving us an honest answer. 

We want to make sure that if we have to follow someone that we are following the right people. There is nothing worse than following something that can lead to a disastrous situation. We can do this by getting to know one another, asking follow-up questions and just being aware of the person and the actions that they mostly  display. Another great example to see if one is ethical or not is to examine their work ethic. A good ethical leader is one that who not only delegates task, they actually help get the work done. The reason why a good ethical leader doesn't have a problem expecting good quality from their employers is because they are not shy of producing such quality themselves.

The next time that you are lead by someone at work or you are the one leading, take a step back and evaluate. If you are the leader observe how people are receiving the information that you provide. Sometimes observation can give you the answer to many questions!

Personal Dilemma

Ethics, morals, and values are things that one must learn overtime. We must start by learning what is important to us as individuals before we do anything else. After taking a short quiz about my ethical opinion I was paired up with the philosopher now as Jean-Paul Sartre. He believed in staying true to yourself and always giving people who you really where. This does not mean that an individual isn't allowed to grow and better themselves. It just means that you shouldn't change yourself because someone thinks you should be a certain way. Sartre agreed with a theory known as Marxism; I believe some of that as well. 

In my class discussion I shared my opinion in regards to the western society and its association with class struggle. My example I presented was about the government offering people in need assist with food, utilities, and other daily essentials for families and individuals. However, I believe that this assistance comes with a price. The price of accepting this assistance is possibly giving up the chance to ever save up to do better. As many may know in order to qualify for assistance an individual cannot have a savings account, and not make over a certain amount of money. This keeps people at the lowest level ever and not giving them the opportunity to strive to do better. This only makes them feel the need to have additional children, keep a low paying job, or stay unemployed. Doing so will allow these individuals to collect additional assistance at no cost to them aside from freedom; which is unethical.

What if they situation was different? What if steps where put in place to slowly get individuals away from needing governmental assistance. This will both allow individuals to strive to do better, as well as continue to help those who are really in need. The United States Census Bureau(2014) noted that 46.0 million Americans received some type of governmental assistance in the year 2013. We should ask ourselves one question. Did the individuals really need the funds, or where they stuck with a choice of saving and risk being cut off from assistance too early? If they only needed the assistance for 6 months the other six months of tax payers hard earned money could have went to someone else. 

I am not sure if any of you have ever seen Madam Secretary, but I watched one clip and I must say that it peaked my interest. It was basically about a husband and wife who had two totally opposite views on morals and ethics. The father stated,"The whole purpose of ethics is that they cant be trumped." How many of you feel as if ethics is something that you must stand by regardless of the situation? The wife felt that in order to get things done she needed to compromise her ethics at some point. 

After reviewing the clip I sent it to a few friends and asked for their opinions on it. Some of my friends where unsure of where they stood on this point.They said they couldn't answer the question unless a situation presented itself. A few more of them said that they would not go against their personal code of ethics because that's all they have to go by. Lastly, one said that they would have to do what was needed to do what was best for them at that particular time. I personally feel as if I would have sided with the husband and stuck to what it was that I believed. What if you happened to go against it for someone and the outcome was not what you expected?

One of the many things that one of my grandparents taught me was, "If you ever run across someone and they state that they don't have any moral values...run!" Not having anything the to live by or drive you on a daily basis is scary. Its almost like waking up without a purpose or a set goal in life. If a person does not know what is important to them then they will not respect what is important to you! As we grow our expectations and the way we view things will change. However, we need to evaluate our choices and make sure that the decisions we make are ones that we can live with. 

Welcome: First Timer

My name is Kendall however most people call me Ken for short. I am from the wonderful city of

Savannah, Ga. however i now call Atlanta home. My life revolves around my two sons Jack and Jodi.Outside of that I enjoy theme parks, poetry, and volunteering my services to those in need. I graduated from with a B.S. in Psychology with a minor in business. I am now pursuing a Masters degree in Public administration. This blog will discuss the various ethical issues in the public sector. Problems will be identified, and potential solutions will be sought after. This will be done on a weekly basis. The official url for my blog will be krhoe.blogspot.com .My goal is to establish a relationship with my readers as I explore many topics about ethics. As a Public Administrator, I want to learn more about ethics by discussing various topics and possibly teaching others. I also strive to gain knowledge that will help me become a better person ethically, in all aspects of life!