Leadership and what it entails
Ethics on leadership involves authority on self and others to help the organization uphold values that are important to the set up. Society’s need for common good and peaceful interaction and interrelationships are based on honesty, service to others and moral courage. After all, ethics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the intent, means, and consequences of moral behaviors.
Moral issues such as; equality, safety, properties, respect, human relationships; to name a few, are social consciences to be considered when it comes to our day-to-day interaction with all creatures here on earth. Even though our behaviors and personality has common relation with our culture from where we have established our early environment, as a person, being human, we have distinctive characteristics that are more unique that has more and higher significance with those of other creatures in the planet. Simply because; we possess the moral sense and we have a conscience to distinguish our actions and decisions based on our judgments between right and wrong.
When we are aware of the limits of our actions to deliberate our thoughts to actualization, we then are conscious of all the consequences of them. And, this is the turning point of ones ability to choose what decision to make based on the ethics that society have imposed. We are also all influenced from three formations in our growing years; that is, by association, through books we read, and in our own self concepts. As we grow with reason, we can know what we can act and cannot, based upon our consciousness of the cultural issues of morality which determine our peer’s trust and respect on us.
Ethics as we all know is just as important as values. Some act on their ethical judgments based on self-defined morals as influenced in their growing years’ environment, and from association with our peers, authority, and self-convictions as well as the values we hold. As a leader, it is important to determine our own moral principles and decide ethical conducts in the light of the meaning that it attaches with our own lives; from our own cultures, education, and purposes in life.
Ethics embrace values and morality as an important factor and full partner in the quest for an outstanding performance, not only in leadership but in a person’s daily actuation. Ethics in work and leadership is important more than anything. The work rules, the codes of conducts in the workplace is the determining factors what the organization strive and live for. Reputation and Success are synonymous without question. Everything that is happening inside the operation of the organization reflects the ethical ideals of the ownerships the members hold within their beliefs and values. And then what is transported to the outside world of their circle that determines reciprocity of public trust and loyalty.
We are not born with values, but we become what we are as influenced from our own cultures and societies where we grow and when become aware of them as children. We adopt what is being promoted to us; and from it, thus our own values are born. The more we understand our values deep within us, the clearer we can be with what we want to do with our lives, how we want to live our lives. We have a good picture of our self identity and we become more confident with our actions and actuation in our day to day existence. When we developed good character traits from the values we hold, we then possess qualities of great leadership.
Leadership requires competence; to be caring, having value-based convictions, and must be committed to certain ideals and goals that achieve the group’s vision and mission. As ethics in leaderships are required; leaders will have to have the instinct of higher ideals, possess values, and strive to be just, to serve all for the common good. Commitment to the basic values such as honesty, responsibility, charity, excellence, and persistence are necessary for building trust. And trust must be attained because it is the bedrock of the organizational survival and its growth over the long term.
People will forgive the leader who fails to manage by objectives or in its inefficiency in the use of time, and sometimes when a leader fails to achieve the smoothest human relations; but, they cannot forgive and it is difficult for anyone in society to forgive the leader who are immoral and unprincipled. This is the reason why leaderships must not only be a visionary, but also know the importance and exercise good judgments of actions and decisions based on the principles of right and wrong. And mostly, embrace the ethics of values and morality as full partners in the quest for its performance. To test their actions and decisions for the good of all that they serve and the society is by asking; is it the truth, is it fair to all concerned, will it build goodwill and better relationships, and will It be beneficial to all concerned. Then and only then, can higher ethical climate is obtained. And when it is, profits of the company operations will be better, as it reflects trust to the stakeholders and shareholders; cultivate loyalty to the staffs, employees, and customers.
Why did political attempts to change America's moral climate fail?
ReplyDeleteWith the late-20th-century collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union and its East European satellites, democratization and free-market economics are sweeping many nations.
American democracy and the capitalist model have been the source of inspiration for much of this widespread change. James Q. Wilson, professor of public policy at Southern California’s Pepperdine University, writes: “Today we wonder whether the whole world might become democratic. Acting on the belief that it can, our government has bent its energies toward encouraging the birth or growth of democracy in places around the globe from Haiti to Russia, from Kosovo to the People’s Republic of China” (“Democracy for All?” Commentary, March 2000).
Along with democracy, however, America also exports its culture. And that culture is in a state of moral decline, as a number of observers have pointed out.
Robert H. Bork, former acting U.S. Attorney General and John M. Olin Scholar in Legal Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, in his 1996 book, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, writes: “American culture is complex and resilient. But it is also not to be denied that there are aspects of almost every branch of our culture that are worse than ever before and that the rot is spreading.”
James Davison Hunter, professor of sociology and religious studies at the University of Virginia and director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, points out that although “American culture has always been in flux,” since about the middle of the 20th century there has been growing confusion over such basic issues as the meaning of family, “family values,” how to raise children, the meaning of life, and the rules for living an honorable life. “Where a consensus remains in our moral culture,” he states, “it does so only in terms of the shallowest of platitudes.”
Hunter contends that “the changes that have occurred are not just cultural. They have been accompanied by profound changes in the social environment in which children grow up. The increases in family instability, the absence of the father from children’s lives, the number of hours children are left alone and unsupervised by adults, and the role of television and other electronic media of popular culture have all been well documented” (The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil, 2000).
Tony Bouza, former head of police departments in Minneapolis and New York’s Bronx, questions whether the current values of American culture are any different than those that typified the Roman Empire before its fall.
He declares: “If we [Americans] can see the decline of [America’s] families and cities and remain smugly confident of our inviolability, if we can witness the corruption of high figures and be blind to their connection to our prospects, if we can watch the loss of faith and remain secure in our confidence of salvation, and if we can sense the general moral decline yet think we will survive, then we can assert that we remain happy, dancing, singing, drinking passengers on the Titanic” (The Decline and Fall of the American Empire, 1996).
But what about all the nations that seek the American way? Does America’s exported democracy carry with it a culture that threatens to destroy the moral fiber of those nations that embrace it? Or can that same democracy offer the solution to the problem?
FUNDAMENTAL FACTS
Increasingly in the last few decades, individuals and groups in the United States began calling for what came to be referred to as “civil society.” Not least among them were Christian fundamentalist and evangelical communities, who felt they should attempt to stem the tide of America’s disturbing moral decay.
Americas financial sustainability begins with Made in America
ReplyDeleteAmericans must wake up and take action to protect our liberty and way of life.
America must rejuvenate itself and become the huge industrial power it once was.
It starts by re-inventing the wheel and building manufacturing facilities in the United States that employ Americans who produce quality goods at a competitive price with space age technology and modernization.
Organized workforce and benefits has to be revamped to meet today’s economic conditions.
Government and its bureaucracy must be reduced and streamlined. Rules and regulations must be revamped to be conducive to business growth and development.
YJ Draiman for Mayor of LA