A. Select a leader who you feel has exhibited exemplary ethical conduct and do the following:
1. Discuss at least two ethical traits that the leader demonstrated.
A good example of an individual that exhibited ethical leadership is Sallie Krawcheck. Krawcheck is the current CEO and Co-Founder of Ellevest, and Chair of the Ellevate Network. Her previous employment include head of Bank of America’s investment banking division, CEO of Merrill Lynch’s wealth management division, and CEO of the Wall Street research company Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.. In an industry wherein fraud and dishonesty are rampant, Sallie Krawcheck’s ethical leadership was exemplary. As observed by Fortune Magazine columnists, the quest for an honest financial leader with ethical integrity was not easy, but Krawcheck was one of the few who exhibited high ethical standards (Burke & Florian, 2002). Two of Krawcheck’s significant ethical characteristics were fairness and integrity.
2. Explain how the leader exhibited ethical conduct.
Fairness treads on the principles of justice; that is, giving a person what is due him or her. Integrity, on the other hand, can be construed as a characteristic of an individual wherein he or she can be counted on “to do consistently what is right” (Duggar, n.d., p.2). Krawcheck was fair to the point that she does not want to gain an advantage at the expense of others. Moreover, she has the moral integrity to back-up what she believes is right and fair. At a point in her leadership career, Krawcheck exhibited fairness and integrity in a sense that she took full responsibility for the actions of her organization and remained steadfast in adhering to a high level of ethical principles and professional standards. While working as CEO for Merrill Lynch’s wealth management division, for example, Sallie Krawcheck discovered that one of the low risk funds that the company managed was in fact not low risk, and was causing investors to lose money. She decided that the fair thing to do was to replace the money that had been lost. After all, the investors in this fund, in this case the Wal-Mart employees, were not at fault for the loss. She took her decision to the company CEO who ultimately backed her decision. Although she was fired for making a similar decision by her previous employer, CitiGroup, it did not stop Krawcheck from adhering to ethical principles that she believes is the right thing to do. When asked if she will do it again, Krawcheck did not hesitate to say yes, even if adhering to ethical principles means losing her job.
B. Submit a copy of the PDF file with your results from the Ethical Lens Inventory (ELI), which was completed in the course of study, as a separate document. Reflect on the ELI by doing the following:
1. Explain your preferred ethical lens or what it means to have “none”.
a. Analyze whether you have the same preferred lens in different settings (i.e., work personal, social).
Based on the Ethical Lens Inventory (ELI), I consider my ethical orientation as compatible under the ‘rights and responsibility’ lens. Some of the values that take priority in my ELI lens include life and safety, truthfulness, privacy, free speech, financial transparency, right to contract and freedom of conscience. Under this lens, an action is considered ethical if it meets the rights and fulfills the responsibilities of the person taking the action. My ethical view is somehow consistent with Immanuel Kant’s deontological principles wherein he believes that individuals have a duty to do what is morally right no matter what the consequences are (Hull, 1979, p.7). The ‘rights lens’ resonate well with my personality, primarily because I value my rights as a person as well as the rights of others. Whether in work or in my personal dealings, I always make ethical decisions based on upholding my rights and the rights of others.
2. Describe one of the following: your blind spot, risk, temptation, or vice.
a. Discuss at least three steps you will take to mitigate your blind spot, risks, temptations, or vices in order to make better ethical decisions in the future.
In my opinion, one of the risks of having a ‘rights’ ethical orientation is the tendency to become uncompromising to the ethical principles of other people. I have observed, for instance, that I have a strong tendency to become autocratic primarily because I want others to follow my ethical principles; requiring others to do things my way in order to measure up ethically. Although I see this uncompromising attitude as good when it comes to making ethical decisions, it can also create trouble, especially when my ethical principles are not compatible with the people I live and work with. In order to mitigate this risk, I believe I need to listen and become more open minded regarding the ethical opinions of others. Secondly, I have to evaluate the outcome of things first before jumping into a decision. Third, if it does not cause any harm to anyone, then learning to compromise and make concessions is more desirable in order to maintain a good relationship.
3. Explain your core and classical values from the ELI.
a. Discuss how these core and classical values compare to the top five values from the Clarifying Your Values exercise, found in the course of study.
My core values based on the Ethical Lens Inventory (ELI) are ‘Autonomy and Rationality’. According to the ELI evaluation, I strongly value autonomy over equality. I also strongly value individual rights, believing that it is the best medium of fair treatment. I also strongly value rationality over emotions and that I tend to follow the universal principles of ethics over compassionate options. By comparison, it appears that my core value of autonomy and rationality is perfectly compatible with my top five values from the Clarifying Your Values exercise, which are honesty/integrity, promise keeping, self-discipline, respect, and freedom. I believe that autonomy and rationality can be best achieved by upholding these five values. Honesty, promise keeping and respect, for instance, are interrelated values that promote rationality. In evaluating ethical decisions, such values are universally accepted as the morally good. Self-discipline and freedom, on the other hand, resonate closely with autonomy. Being self-disciplined means that an individual does not need external motivation is needed to do what is right; earning him the right to become free from external control.
4. Discuss how you plan to use the ethical lenses to approach ethical situations throughout your professional life.
Professional life exposes an individual to diverse culture and ethical orientation in the workplace. Without a clear ethical orientation, these organizational cultures will most likely influence the personal ethics of an individual as he or she adapts to the work environment. Knowing my ethical values is necessary in achieving self-awareness, giving me a deeper understanding of why I do things as I do. This self-awareness would help me identify my weak and strong values so I can improve the weak ones and leverage on the strong values that I possess. The ethical lenses will serve as a guide that would help me understand my ethical orientation and would help me make ethical decisions at work.
C. Develop your own ethical framework, using Stephen Covey’s article “Moral Compassing,” that you would use when faced with an ethical dilemma by doing the following:
1. Identify an ethical dilemma in a business setting.
One of the major ethical dilemmas that businesses face today is the adverse social and environmental impact of their operations. Many large corporations, for instance, have been accused of being involved, either directly or indirectly, in operations that harm the environment and society. In the food industry, major chocolate makers are being implicated in the rampant labor abuses of cacao farms that supply the raw materials that are used to produce chocolates. According to a documentary made by Mistrati and Romano, most cacao plantations in Africa employ children; most of which were trafficked and forced to work as farm laborers (Mistrati & Romano, n.d.). In the garment industry, the well-known Canadian producer of basic apparel, Gildan Corporation, has also been accused of unfair labor practices in most of their outsourced facilities, particularly in the Caribbean. Their production facilities in Haiti and Honduras are referred to as sweatshops wherein employees are working under harsh labor conditions, but are earning meager incomes. In the industrial sector, energy and mining companies are also being criticized for their adverse environmental impacts. But because of the nature of their operations, such environmental damage could not be totally avoided.
2. Discuss the context of the identified dilemma.
There is a common notion among business leaders that trying to mitigate the environmental and social impact of a business’ operation can incur costs. Adhering to higher environmental standards, for instance, could mean additional equipment and processes that could adversely impact the net profit of a business organization. Such assumptions create ethical dilemmas wherein leaders of the organization would have to choose between prioritizing their company’s profit or their company’s social and environmental responsibilities.
3. Evaluate at least two potential solutions to the dilemma.
One particular solution to this ethical dilemma is to ignore the environmental and social responsibilities and focus on making profits. After all, businesses were created to make profit as what the American economist and philosopher, Milton Friedman, said in one of his essays (Friedman, 1970, p.211). For Friedman, social responsibility is not the primary concern of business managers, but to increase the profits of the organization (Friedman, 1970, p.214). Friedman believes that as long as business leaders and their organizations stay within the rules of the game, which refers to the minimum legal requirements, businesses can freely engage in open competition (Friedman, 1970, p.214). This belief, however, does not reflect the contemporary theories of modern management. In contrast, another solution would be to make social and environmental concerns as a major consideration in making business decisions. Most business leaders today are working on achieving the ‘triple bottom line;’ an ethical concept wherein organizational success is measured not only in the financial aspect, but also in the social and environmental performance of the organization (Norman & MacDonald, 2004, p.215). The triple bottom line is considerably a sound management practice, which is also interrelated with the company’s financial success. As observed, many consumers today are becoming increasingly aware of a brand’s ethical standards wherein they tend to buy products that are produced ethically (Kimeldorf, Meyer, Prasad, & Robinson, 2006, p.26). Also known as ethical consumerism, a growing number of consumers are willing to spend an extra amount of cash in order to make sure that what they are buying comes from reputable corporations (Kimeldorf, Meyer, Prasad, & Robinson, 2006, p.26).
4. Recommend which solution from part C3 you would implement.
a. Discuss the ethical lens reflected by the recommended solution.
In my opinion, it is desirable to for a business organization to achieve not only financial success, but also environmental and social success. I believe that the rights of an organization should not conflict with the rights of individuals. As observed by Ralph Nader, corporations are only ‘legal fictions;’ and though they help provide work to a number of individuals, they should also be held responsible for their actions . This ethical perspective is compatible with my core values of autonomy and rationality. I cannot compromise the rights of individuals who might be directly affected by the adverse impact of a business organization’s operation for the sake of earning profits for the stockholders. There has to be a way wherein the company operations will provide mutually beneficial results. In case there is no other way wherein the business can operate without harming the environment or society, then such business would have to stop, especially when lives are at stake such as in the case of multinational companies that operates sweatshops in developing countries.
5. Reflect on the ethics of your decision.
In making business decisions, I believe it is necessary for a leader to consider the moral and ethical soundness of his decisions. The major criteria for my decision making when faced with an ethical dilemma is to uphold the inherent rights of individuals. Leadership and ethics are two different concepts with different meanings that do not necessarily have to be interrelated with each other. A leader, for instance, is defined as someone who can persuade others to do things in relation to a particular goal while ethics is defined as behaviors that are morally acceptable or, in a more rigid definition, are “code of values and moral principles that guides individual or group behavior with respect to what is right or wrong” (Mihelič, Lipičnik, & Tekavčič, 2010, p.32). Evidently, leaders do not have to be ethical in order to be effective in leading. Examples of such were great leaders in history, such as Adolf Hitler and Napoleon Bonaparte, whose leadership skills are exemplary and yet their ethical motivations are questionable. On the contrary, there are also individuals with strong ethical principles and yet do not possess leadership skills. However, when these two concepts of leadership and ethics are combined, they form a unique leadership approach known as ethical leadership. Ethical leadership, as the name suggests, can be construed as a leadership that is based on following sound ethical principles (Mihelič, Lipičnik, & Tekavčič, 2010, p.32). Dr. Stephen Covey, a renowned business professor and author, refer to this sound ethical principles as the ‘moral compass,’ which, according to him reflects natural laws and universal principles that are “proven, enduring guidelines for human conduct” (Covey, 2009, p.1). Ethical leadership is not a new concept. However, in the face of social and environmental concerns as well as recent corporate scandals, ethical leadership has become increasingly important.
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