LEADERSHIP BRIEFING PAPER
Leadership Briefing Paper
After spending your entire working life in one giant corporation that went down overnight; investing most of your retirement in stock options that plummet to zero; you are suddenly jobless and your retirement money is gone. Yet, perhaps even more threatening; our skilled and managerial jobs are steadily going abroad, due to poor corporate ethics. The crisis of poor ethics has jeopardized public trust, caused an erosion of organizational cultures, created human suffering, caused unemployment, and profit losses. Poor ethics
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Corporate executives like Kenneth Lay and Martha Stewart were taken before the court for poor ethical practices. Leaders of pharmaceutical companies have been found knowing about distribution of unsafe products. Leaders at Coke Cola were found guilty of racial discrimination and leaders of cruise ships fined for dumping waste in the ocean. News reports exposed Wall Street analysts who created phony reports, made profits, and pushing worthless stocks, left citizens questioning if they should invest their money. Leaders of the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, were cited for practices of employee abuses and gender discrimination. Questions emerged in the news whether leaders of the tobacco industry had prior knowledge of a link between the use of tobacco and lung cancer. Thomas, Schermerhorn, and Dienhart (2004) found that the 12 months after the crisis of Enron in 2001, 13 of the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S. history were filed; each had been involved in unethical business practices. The television show, 60 Minutes, ran features on scholastic diploma mills and schools that reported placement of graduates, which turned out to be false …show more content…
To apply this system of moral values effectively, one must understand the structural levels at which ethical dilemmas occur, who is involved in the dilemmas, and how a particular decision will affect them. In addition, one must consider how to formulate possible courses of action. Failing in any of these three areas may lead to an ineffective decision, resulting in more pain than cure.” Ken Blanchard states, “Many leaders don’t operate ethically because they don’t understand leadership; these executives may have MBA’s from Ivey League schools or have attended leadership training; they may routinely read the best-selling management books, however, they don’t understand what it means to be a leader.” They don’t model a way of ethical behaviors. Their organizational initiatives are often self-serving; however, the emerging workforce isn’t motivated by selfish managers. This selfish behavior often turns into unethical conduct.
Unethical dealings in the workplace are always wrong. It is crucial to promote ethical behavior. Everyone must understand that once caught, unethical behavior is not just a problem for those directly involved, it is everyone’s problem. More importantly, ethical behavior is everyone’s challenge. That is the bottom
It's difficult not to be cynical about how “big business” treats the subject of ethics in today's world. In many corporations, where the only important value is the bottom line, most executives merely give lip service to living and operating their corporations ethically.
Enron was the model for rapid growth in the 1990’s but part of the culture and ethics of Enron was disturbing. Falsified documents, cutthroat competitiveness among employees and accounting schemes that hid the truth of the company’s indebtedness were just a few examples of the lack of business ethics within the organization. Perhaps a more virtuous management team could have saved Enron from collapse.
This semester along with participating in LTC over the summer I’ve learned leadership is more than being in charge. It’s about, “utilizing and developing skills to influence a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.” The goal is attained by mutual cooperation and cohesive behavior. A leader infuses a sense of positivity and directs others to reach the specified goal. An individual who stands not only for his cause but takes responsibility and motivates others also. There is a clear difference between being a boss and a leader. A leader is a motivator for others and inspires individuals to aim high and attain that aim. However a boss only supervises over his subordinates. Power naturally comes to a leader but that power is not a tool of leader. Rather if one tries to control the circumstances with power it turns out to be authoritarian or even suppressive in its expression.
Many organizations have been destroyed or heavily damaged financially and took a hit in terms of reputation, for example, Enron. The word Ethics is derived from a Greek word called Ethos, meaning “The character or values particular to a specific person, people, culture or movement” (The American Heritage Dictionary, 2007, p. 295). Ethics has always played and will continue to play a huge role within the corporate world. Ethics is one of the important topics that are debated at lengths without reaching a conclusion, since there isn’t a right or wrong answer. It’s basically depends on how each individual perceives a particular situation. Over the past few years we have seen very poor unethical business practices by companies like Enron, which has affected many stakeholders. Poor unethical practices affect the society in many ways; employees lose their job, investors lose their money, and the country’s economy gets affected. This leads to people start losing confidence in the economy and the organizations that are being run by the so-called “educated” top executives that had one goal in their minds, personal gain. When Enron entered the scene in the mid-1980s, it was little more than a stodgy energy distribution system. Ten years later, it was a multi-billion dollar corporation, considered the poster child of the “new economy” for its willingness to use technology and the Internet in managing energy. Fifteen years later, the company is filing for bankruptcy on the heels of a massive financial collapse, likely the largest in corporate America’s history. As this paper is being written, the scope of Enron collapse is still being researched, poked and prodded. It will take years to determine what, exactly; the impact of the demise of this energy giant will be both on the industry and the
For this paper Washington Mutual has been selected to show how the ethical decision making process can be achieve. When it comes to business ethics in the workplace Washington Mutual has designed what can be considered a well balanced workplace with behaviors that are aligned with their moral values and business ethics. Business ethics are sometimes depicted as resolving conflicts where one option can appear to be the correct choice. There are many different ethical dilemmas that are faced by managers and leaders everyday that are highly complex and have no clear choice or guidelines to assist in making the choices for resolution. There are times when an employee has to decide whether or not to cheat, lie, steal, or break their contract. These ethical decisions are real-life situations where they are forced to make on a daily basis. This is why it is ultimately important that all employee know the six steps to ethical decision making that the company uses.
What often is overlooked is that the demands on today’s leaders have become incredibly complex broad in scope. Contemporary society is less responsive to the appeal of great man leaders and is less willing to play a docile follower role,...
The term “ethical business” is seen, by many people, as an oxymoron. This is because a business’s main objective is to make as much money as possible. Making the most money possible, however, can often lead to unethical actions. Companies like Enron, WorldCom, and Satyam have been the posterchildren for how corporations’ greed lead to unethical practices. In recent times however, companies have been accused of being unethical based on, not how they manage their finances, but on how they treat the society that they operate in. People have started to realize that the damage companies have been doing to the world around them is more impactful and far worse than any financial fraud that these companies might be engaging in. Events like the BP oil
I discovered how sticking to one’s morals should be the topmost priority for everyone involved in business, whether personal or professional. Regardless of what the consequences may be, the intensity of the problem, and the complexities it may bring, sacrificing one’s integrity should never be an option, as integrity goes hand-in-hand with the morals of an individual (Duggan & Woodhouse, 2011). They further go on to say that having individuals take part in building a code of ethics that supports employee integrity, they will act ethically. Also, I believe that companies should place more emphasis on the moral behavior of their employees, and clear-cut policies should be set regarding such ethical situations. Furthermore, I realized how serving justice while making decisions really helps in the long run, and that opting to go for the ideal rather than they deserved is not always the best option, and could hurt a company in more than one
Leaders are the individuals who help to create options and opportunities. They help in identifying the choices and solve the problems. They build commitment and coalitions. Leaders do this by inspiring others and working along with them to construct the shared vision of the possibilities and commitments of a better group, organization or community. They engage the followers in such a way that most of the followers become leaders in their own right. The variety of demands of an increasingly complex world very often require that leadership be shared by most of the members of an organization, in appropriate ways for different situations. A leader is the on...
Every individual has certain values and ethics that he/she stands by. Values give us a sense of what is important while ethics gives us a sense of what is right and wrong. Together, these qualities help guide us through our everyday life: what actions to take and what decision to make. Sticking to ethical standards allows you to stay clear of trouble; therefore, strengthening people’s trust in you. In return, this leads to gaining people’s respect and cooperation, which may result in leadership responsibilities. Therefore, we believe that personal values and ethics will affect a person’s career success. However, there are times where individuals will make unethical choices--some situations might question your resolve. This can be caused by
Ethics are the driving force behind good business. Every ethical choice made by a professional can and will have a much different outcome than any unethical choice. Bad ethics can ruin many aspects of a business and as (Gaye-Anderson, 2007) states how quite easily the lives and professional reputation of the employees can even be severally damaged (para. 3). Everything from morale to motivation can be severely affected by poor ethical choices. Customers will take their business elsewhere. Employees will abandon ship. Other, competing businesses reap the benefits of the bad moral choices. Ultimately, the entire business can be brought down by one poor ethical choice.
The Enron Corporation was an American energy company that provided natural gas, electricity, and communications to its customers both wholesale and retail globally and in the northwestern United States (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Top executives, prestigious law firms, trusted accounting firms, the largest banks in the finance industry, the board of directors, and other high powered people, all played a part in the biggest most popular scandal that shook the faith of the American people in big business and the stock market with the demise of one of the top Fortune 500 companies that made billions of dollars through illegal and unethical gains (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Many shareholders, employees, and investors lost their entire life savings, investments,
Ethics is the responsibility of each individual person, but starts with the CEO and the Board of Directors, setting the right tone at the top and moves down through the organization, including setting the tone in the middle. A company’s culture and ethic standards start at the top, not from the bottom. Employees will almost always behave in the manner that they think management expects them, and it is foolish for management to pretend otherwise (Scudder). One of the CEO’s most important jobs is to create, foster, and communicate the culture of the organization. Wrongdoings or improper behavior rarely occurs in a void, leaders typically know when someone is compromising the company
Business nowadays encounter with a lot of moral challenges in today’s global economy. Everyone is thriving to be more successful than their competitors, to make their next profits, to keep their job, to earn a big bonus, or to compete effectively. There exists temptation to bend lines, omit information, and do whatever it takes to get ahead of their competition. Many business employees and executives succumb. Sadly, the theme becomes...
Many people associate leadership with a specific job title or form of power within an organization. However, through personal experience, I have concluded that leadership can come in many forms and position as well as from multiple sources of roles and job titles both with and without power. Based on the definition of leadership, anyone can be considered a leader as long as they have the ability to influence people to achieve a particular result or goal which benefits the organization or group as a whole. Individuals with a secure sense of self and understanding, acceptance of diversity within an organization tend to be the strongest leaders that not only make others want to follow, but they also encourage other leaders to gravitate to their