Leadership Ethical Analysis
Introduction
Analysis of leadership and leadership styles of different leaders have been a common phenomenon, but in current arena, ethical leadership has gained the spotlight of professionals and researchers. Good leadership style is the one that encourages ethical behavior. Ethics are important in practicing good values at the workplace and for serving the society with maximum utility and benefits.
Businesses are run with the aim of benefiting the organization that comes at the expense of the health of society often. The aim of the leader is to maximize the benefit of organizations and without having ethical characteristics, leaders maintain the balance between maximizing the societal utility and business benefits. Therefore, it is essential that the ethics of leaders are determined.
The aim of this paper is to conduct an ethical analysis of a leader based on ethical theories. For the attainment of this purpose, Pony Ma has been selected as a leader. The paper has been segmented into three segments. The first division presents the overview of a leader’s story; the second section conducts an ethical analysis of a leader, and the third section is based on the conclusion. The conclusion section comments on the ethical performance of a leader and summarizes key findings of the analysis.
Overview of a leader’s story
The paper attempts to examine the leadership style of Ma Muateng also known as Pony Ma. Ma Muateng is a Chinese internet tycoon or entrepreneur born in 1971 in Guangdong, China. Pony Ma is one amongst the core founders, chairman of the board of directors, executive director, and chief executive officer at Tencent since its opening. Tencent is one of the biggest internet organizations in China. In 2014, statistics revealed him as the 65th richest billionaire in the world and the second richest person in China. He as a teenager shifted to Shenzhen, at Shenzhen University studied software engineering, and completed his graduate in 1993 (Crunch Base, 2016).
After the completion of his graduation, he gained experience from different organizations. Finally, Pony Ma along with his four friends founded Tencent in 1998. From the money they opened, the firm came from stock market earnings. In the beginning, they found immense difficulties and pony ma had to perform several roles at a time such as ranging from janitor to web designer. Currently, Pony Ma is responsible for the overall management and direction of the group (Crunch Base, 2016). Initially, Tencent offered internet paging and e-mail services to its customers; later the leader introduces the internet messaging service (OUCQ), gave more benefits to QQ users, and launched games to its services in 2004. In 2015, the leaders achieved the award of the innovative chief executive of the year (Success Story, 2016).
Ethical analysis of a leader
Ethics are important in the business world these are the practices that encourage good behaviors. Ethical values include the respect of diversity, fairness, equality, and honesty, pony ma leadership style reflect all these characteristics. Such as pony ma is a visionary leader; he poses a behavior that allows innovators to break the status quo. He is recognized for engaging diverse networks and new experience that enable the company to come up with new products and services. Only the respect of diversity and providing an equal and fair chance to people can deliver organization with bright results (The Innovators DNA, n.d).
For determining the ethics of Pony Ma, the first ethical theory that has been used is consequentialism theory. The theory debates that morality is all about the production of the right sort of consequences. The theory says that the decision that what is good or bad is dependent upon the consequences that an action brings in the result (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2016).
In consequentialism theory, all intentional actions are considered; unintentional actions are considered neither ethical nor unethical. The theory only considers the outcomes that come from deliberate actions. The theory says that people do actions to have something good for himself or herself or someone else. However, the behavior is ethical (right) is dependent on the consequences if they deliver the better outcome and outweigh the action’s negative consequences. Only, if the action gives more benefit than harm, then it will be rationally justifiable (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2016).
According to some people, pony ma is a burglar, as he is a good manager of product, but cunning strategist because he uses his skills in manipulating the media for attracting customers. However, all the actions that were conducted by pony ma are intentional and justifiable because all its actions came with positive consequences for the society. He contributed in enhancing socializing and entertainment in the society. Most of his competitors consider him as a copycat, but this is not true as the leader is not aggressive he wait that how pioneers develop the new products then build on by improving the product that serves people with enhanced benefits (Bischoff, 2014).
According to the utilitarianism theory of ethics, all acts that maximize the utility for the greater number of people are ethical. If an act does not maximize good consequences it is not ethical; otherwise, it is. There are three utilitarianism versions that include preferential utilitarianism, hedonistic utilitarianism, and ideal utilitarianism. The preferential utilitarianism version of the theory says that if product maximizes the happiness and results in fulfilling the desires of people, then the act is ethical. Pony Ma through its internet services satisfied the communication and an entertainment need of people that defines that pony ma is an ethical leader. The theory says that if the product is successful in delivering as much as they desire, then it is an ethical act. The innovations of pony ma satisfied the desired of people immensely; therefore, it can be said that he is an ethical leader because he thought about making money through satisfying the unmet needs of society (Nabor, 2003).
Personal values of people serve as the foundation of professional values. Professional values are the reflection of practices, ethics, standards, and norms within the business environment. Hence, it can be said that personal and professional values have a strong association between them. Personal values have a strong impact on professional decisions of leaders as they help in coordination with professional goals. Pony Ma through coordination, maintaining integrity, equal participation, and respecting diversity enhanced the profitability of the organization. This clearly communicates that the leader through deploying personal values gained professional goal of profitability (Mohapatra, 2008; Turner, 2016).
Pony Ma is an ethical believer and leader that can be determined from his actions. For example, Pony Ma donated $2 billion in health and environment and education. His personal ethical values forced him to support to medical, educational, and environmental causes and gift the most of the largest amount of the Chinese history in charity. The leader Pony Ma said, “In increasingly feel that there is a more efficient, longer-term, and organized way to give back the society”. This view of the leader depicts the idea behind the utilitarianism theory that says that the act is ethical only when it maximizes the utility (Mohapatra, 2008; Turner, 2016).
Conclusion
The plan of the paper has been to conduct an ethical analysis of a leader based on ethical theories. The two ethical theories that have been deployed throughout the paper include consequentialism theory and preferential version of utilitarianism theory. When the leader was determined based on these two theories, it was visible that all the actions of pony ma are ethical. He is an ethical leader because through its all actions he tried to serve the society with maximum utility. His actions did not harm anyone but satisfied the happiness and social need of people.
Personal values are the foundation of professional values and encourage people to implement these value in professional life as well and help in gaining professional goals. Pony Ma through satisfying the needs of people and maximizing their happiness gained its professional goals of enhanced profitability. The leaders maximized the utility of the society through making charity. He believes that he must organize the way to give back the society. The overall analysis communicates that Pony Ma is an ethical leader because he always thought the ways through which he can maximize the business profitability and satisfy the maximum unmet needs of people.
References
Bischoff, P. (2014). A portrait of China’s biggest tech CEOs: visionaries, copycats, and playboys. Techinasia. Retrieved June 4, 2016, from <https://www.techinasia.com/portrait-chinas-biggest-tech-ceos-visionaries-copycats-playboys>
Crunch Base. (2016). Pony Ma. Retrieved June 4, 2016, from <https://www.crunchbase.com/person/pony-ma#/entity>
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2016). Consequentialism. Retrieved June 4, 2016, from <http://www.iep.utm.edu/conseque/#SH1b>
Mohapatra, P. K. (2008). Ethics and society. Concept Publishing Company.
Nabor, M. I. P. (2003). Ethics. Quezon City: Goodwill Trading Co., Inc.
Success Story. (2016). Ma Huateng Success Story. Retrieved June 4, 2016, from <http://successstory.com/people/ma-huateng>
The Innovators DNA. (n.d). Asia’s Most Innovative. Today.com. Retrieved June 4, 2016, from <http://innovatorsdna.com/news/asias-most-innovative/>
Turner, T. (2016). Chinese Billionaire Donates $2Bil to Education, Health and Environment. Good News Network LLC. Retrieved June 4, 2016, from <http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/chinese-billionaire-donates-2b-education-environmental-medical-charities/>
