An Ethical Dilemma in Leadership

            An ethical dilemma can be described as a situation that a person may be in and all the options available pose a question about ethics. Personally, I have been though many ethical dilemmas though some may still choose to contend with my case. I was once in a situation where a thief was about to be killed by the mob after stealing money and injuring a lady from my neighborhood. I was required that to carry out my professional duties and prevent the convict from being killed.  At the same time, the mob expected me to allow them to deal with the thief. That was a simple problem to deal with but another problem emerged. An angry person from the mob attacked me since I was protecting the convict but just in time, a colleague of mine came and due to his temper, he bit the man who had attacked me almost to death. The media was right there in the scene as I learnt later and therefore, there was full evidence of what had happened.

Work ethics demanded that I take the convict to jail and report the colleague who had used assaulted the person who had attacked me. The situation may be simple but it was an ethical dilemma to me because even though my colleague was defending me, he had committed an offence. At the same time, reporting him would have caused me more harm than good because it would have affected my relationship with other colleagues. Nevertheless, I have learnt that as long as I know what should be done as a professional, I should do exactly that without having an after thought. Secondly, I have decided that accountability is very important and I will do all in my power to ensure that others and I are accountable to their actions (Ciulla 2004).

Ethical Conduct and Leadership

            Effective leadership may mean different things to different people depending with the definition of the same. According to Ciulla (2004), as much as a leader should be visionary, have the power to transform and be committed, the issue of ethics cannot be underestimated while discussing effective leadership. The author states that “ethics lies at the heart of the leadership studies” (Ciulla, 2004 p.18).  The main reason why many leadership theories like the servant and the transforming leadership are not discussed together with ethical theories is due to the fact that they are not well developed in relation to the moral implications of leadership.

In the view of the fact that effective leadership ought to influence positive outcome out of every situation, ethical conduct is therefore a requisite element of effective leadership because it helps leaders win community trust without which they cannot be effective leaders. In that a case, one cannot fail to recognize the issue of a leader like Adolph Hitler.  No one can negate the fact that he was experienced in his area of operation because he initially served as a soldier. He was also a visionary leader since he was able to sell his vision to his followers that German would rise again after the First World War.  In terms of commitment, he was so committed that he never rested before completing his mission. Nevertheless, though having accomplished much, Hitler fails to qualify to be an effective leader due to the fact that he never practiced ethical leadership. He never used his power to positively influence those who did not buy his vision and instead, he eliminated all those people who were against him. He therefore failed to be an effective leader because he did not bring the best out of the situation that was surrounding him.

Well-being

            There are many factors that contribute to the effectiveness of a leader, physical and spiritual well-being included. A person must be physically healthy to a certain extent to be an effective leader. This is not only due to the fact that it enables people to perform their duties effectively, but also due to the fact that being healthy is an important characteristic of personal discipline. Moreover, since leaders are supposed to influence their followers positively, they ought to be a perfect example. A healthy person is also confident and the importance of the same in leadership does not require further emphasis.

Spiritual health is also equally important. However, at this point, it is important to mention that there is a difference between spiritual health and being religious. Being spiritually healthy in this situation means that a person believes in a higher power, whichever it is. Spiritual beliefs are very important in leadership since they influence someone to work towards ideal. Moreover, there are some core values and believes that are very important in spirituality and all can be very important assets in leadership. Spirituality helps people to examine themselves, realize that they are not perfect and wok towards perfection which is a very important aspect of leadership.

It is therefore worth noting that physical well-being spiritual health included is very important to every leader regardless of gender (Northouse, 2009). In addition, it is hard to separate the two since physical well-being promotes spiritual well-being and similarly, spiritual well-being promotes and influences physical well-being. The combination of the two makes a leader who is not only in a position to carry his duties effectively but also a person who is in a position to influence the well-being of others as well as working towards ideal (Loehr & Schwartz, 2001).

Balance

Having a balance in work and life responsibilities affects the effectiveness in leadership and the personal leadership style.  According to Loehr & Schwartz (2001), performance does not only result from cognitive capacity but incorporates physical as well as emotional capacities. Further studies indicate that there is a condition known as ideal performance state characterized by the ability of a person to combine the talents and abilities in order to maintain high performance. The main reason that makes leaders not to be effective is the fact that they are always expected to continue performing while they are given little or no time for training and recreational. Similar to an athlete, a leader ought to balance his work and responsibilities in order to perform effectively.

Physical capacity which is the ability to do work is generally affected when someone fails to balance the responsibilities. For instance, a leader who has a family and employees may find out that he has too many responsibilities which deny him time to recover.  Studies of Loehr & Schwartz (2001) record that a performance pyramid illustrates perfectly how various factors affect performance. Physical capacity is the foundation as it not only helps to build endurance but also promotes mental and emotional recovery. Emotional capacity helps to create an internal environment that influences an ideal performance state while mental capacity helps to combine the physical and emotional energy in order to perform a particular task.  Lastly, the spiritual capacity is usually at the top of the pyramid and helps in providing powerful source of motivation as well as determination and endurance. A lot of people who fail to balance their responsibilities usually affect each of the above discussed capacities. However, after learning how to balance everything, most leaders confess of better performance and a change in every aspect of their lives.

Decision Making and Interoperability

Interoperability is very important in decision making since it is the ability to separate different entities to work together and to coordinate effectively.  More importantly, although it is essential in every area, it is very essential while discussing decision making in public safety. In order to make critical decisions, some mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure that every party who needs information will have it at the right time. However, as studies of Walsh (2005) illustrate, this only means that information should be available to the right people and not to everyone in the team.

Information management is very essential since the process ensures that communications and data flow effectively in an acceptable manner, a process that ensures that crisis decision making team is well informed. There are a number of technologies that can be used to ensure effective information management which are inclusive but not limited to Areal Locations of Hazardous Atmospheres, Computer Aided Management of Emergency Operations and other systems like computer aided dispatch (Walsh 2005).  It is therefore the duty of every organization to make use of such technologies in order to enhance proper transfer of information.

There are a number of supporting technologies that also aught to be used  which are inclusive of information management systems, data and voice communication systems and systems to display data. Other technologies which are frequently used include radio, cell phone and pager. In addition to making sure that the information system is effective, an organization should ensure that it is committed to reviewing and refining the systems. Nevertheless, it is more important to make sure that the personnel in an organization are trained to be in a position to carry out the necessary procedures of ensuring that information is transmitted efficiently and effectively.

Teaching Decision Making

Decision making is a very important process that every leader in an organization engages in daily. The success and the failure of each and every organization heavily depends on the decisions that are made daily by managers and therefore the process is a very sensitive issue to be taken lightly. Managers have to make decisions on the type of business to be involved with, means and ways of investing, new business locations and ways to cut expenses, to mention just a few.  Decision making is one of the issues that managers are taught in a management class but some people have maintained that the process cannot be taught in class. As much as anyone may have enough reasons to think that decision making cannot be taught in class, I totally disagree with the statement.

It is true that some decisions require someone to act so quickly that there may actually be no time to apply the rationale taught in class. However, even in such instances, the importance of knowledge about the same cannot be overlooked.  For instance, although the rationale approach described in the studies of Daft (2009) which emphasizes on the need to systematically analyze the problem is not achievable in the real world, the method helps managers to think about decisions in a more clear and rational way. For example, most authors cite the US Marines who are well known for their ability to handle complicated problems not only quickly, but also decisively.  Further studies illustrate that the training of the marines incorporates mental routines aimed at helping them to analyze the situation and take the necessary action. It is therefore clear that decision making can be successfully taught in a management class because even if the rationale approach may fail to work, bounded rationale approach can be used instead.

References

Ciulla, J. B. ( 2004). Ethics, the heart of leadership. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Daft, R. L. ( 2009). Organization Theory and Design. Stamford: Cengage Learning.

Loehr, J. & Schwartz, T. (2001). The making of a corporate athlete. Havard Business Review , 79(1), 120–129.

Northouse, P. G. (2009). Leadership: Theory and Practice. London: SAGE.

Walsh, D. W. ( 2005). National incident management system: principles and practice. Sudbury: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

 

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