Question 1
Speaking about ethical issues, one cannot say that this or that issue is more important or more problematic and should be addressed immediately. All ethical issues become problematic and important at the very moment they appear. However, out of given case studies I would like to speak about people, customer confidence and voicing your values issues not because I find them the most problematic out of all given, but because of the fact that, to my opinion, people face them more frequently than another issue due to everyday work and cooperation with other people and communication with customer and various situation they get in.
Starting with the people issues, it should be said that ethical problems in this area are based on unfairness based on privacy, harassment, discrimination or simply the way people get along. The case study about the committee created to come up with the strategy of employees rewarding clearly demonstrates how belonging to the minority group leads to discrimination. Thus, the minority group representative was simply excluded from the whole working proves by other members, which led to a problematic situation contradicting the principle of fairness that is, first of all, incorporated in business law all over the world, and, secondly, is an inalienable right in the USA. The word trust is on every U.S. banknote, and “the Pledge of Allegiance declares “with liberty and justice for all.” Moreover, the cornerstone of American legal system is the protection of individual rights and justice, which only highlights the importance and extent of the ethical problem (Treviño & Nelson, 2014).
Moving to the issues of customer confidence, it should be said that it is the serious problem that may affect good relationships with the customer and simply spoil customer's loyalty and trust. The case study illustrates unwillingness of the senior manager to accept the problem, further solve it and take responsibility, as well as his unethical behavior towards customers.
Among other components that excellent customer service include, there's the one that relates to the given situation, which is taking personal responsibility and honesty for the products that a company offers. One can hardly even name any other than a failure of responsibility that will affect the reputation of the company so badly. And a “small problem”, like an article about the contaminated milk, will grow into the ethical disaster, which finally will spoil both the reputation and customer relationships. The above-mentioned issues seem to be extremely problematic as customer trust won’t survive without company’s responsibility and respect for others (Treviño & Nelson, 2014).
And the last but not the least issues that I would like to touch upon within the question is voicing the values, which is a seriously problematic ethical issues. It goes about the situation when an employee faces the choice whether to tell about other employee’s wrongdoing or not or the situation when this person tells but no relevant reaction follows. Such situation is described in the given case study, where one of the colleagues use cocaine, however, brings million to a company. What makes the situation even more problematic is the fact that the manager ignores this fact saying that he doesn't care how his employees works until she brings a fortune to the company. The thing is that this wrongdoing will never lead to the success of the company, in the end, as once the best trader may lose control because of the drug use, losing those millions for the company. That's why it extremely important to report about the situation repeatedly to the manager, even to write a memo if needed, or even to bring the issues to the next level or going to the relevant department or specialist like Ethics officer (Treviño & Nelson, 2014).
Question 2
One of the most important things in ethical leadership is moral evaluation in an ethical decision-making process. There're three ethical components or approaches that a leader should take into consideration when making a decision.
When a leader tries to decide what is right and what is wrong, he or she may refer to the consequentialist theories as they focus on the anticipated consequences and results of the decision. For instance, one of the well-known theories utilitarianism states that an ethical decision has to maximize potential benefits to the society and at the same time minimize harms. When doing the evaluation and analysis of ethical dilemma, a leader should identify all the stakeholders involved and identify benefits and harms. However, it is not that easy to get the whole information so as to evaluate all consequences for all stakeholders involved who may be further affected by the decision. Moreover, the difficulty in using this approach is also rooted in the fact that a minority group's rights can get sacrificed for the benefit of the majority (Treviño & Nelson, 2014).
It should be said, that the above-mentioned approach remains popular among leaders, as, consequences of decisions and actions can play a key role. However, the society got rid of the slavery system thanks to another approach, which is deontological.
Thus, according to the deontological approach, certain moral principles are more important than consequences, which means that certain actions can be considered wrong if the consequences are considered to be good. In other words, this approach focuses on doing things write. For instance, if an auditor sticks to a deontological approach, he is likely to reveal the truth about the real financial situation, even though it may put the company out of business and many employees will loose their work. It should be said that some deontological theories can shift focus to the rights, meaning that there might be a conflict of rights of two parties. For instance, a company has the right to strive for profits and it conflicts with the rights of the community to buy safe products and clean water and air, the company will have the duty to protect this right, as the right of one party is always connected with the duties of another (Treviño & Nelson, 2014).
The problem with this approach is to choose what principle, values, duty, right or obligation to follow, as there may be a conflict between the rights or obligation of two sides. The other difficulty of deontological theories appears when they conflict with consequentialist theories. For example, during World War II in Germany everyone has a duty or obligation to tell the Nazis whether Jews were hiding in your house would definitely have a devastating consequences – the death of a Jew, which means that respect for human life is more important than honesty and doing “right” in certain situations (Treviño & Nelson, 2014).
The third theory is about the integrity of the moral actor than about the act or behavior itself. The main purpose here is to be a good person because this exactly what type of person one desires to be.
According to virtue ethics, it is important that the persons strive to become and be a good person who creates conditions on the organization for ethical behavior. This approach doesn't exclude the role of principles, rights or rules, and consequences, they are just consider in the context of the evaluation of the moral actor's integrity and character. Therefore, actor’s character can be defined by an community that holds the person to the highest standards of ethics, or in other words, by a relevant moral community. That's why it is important also to think about communities in which a leader works and operates (Treviño & Nelson, 2014).
This approach is useful for leaders who work in the communities with high moral standards, and he or she has to understand what his or her strongest ethical role can be or what harshest critic may follow and bear in mind what people would think about this leader's behavior (Treviño & Nelson, 2014).
References
Treviño, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2014). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
