Ethical & Moral Leadership

      In order for an organization to establish and maintain an ethical culture that is both encouraging and educating to its new members, as well as reinforcing organizational beliefs to existing members, it is important for that organization to continue to cultivate ethical training. To accomplish this organizational goal of a continuing ethical education, leadership must adhere to certain principles.      During ethics training, leadership should focus upon the unique ethical problems that are typically present within the organization.   Regardless of the organization, it will have its own diverse mixture of groups that face challenges, which are unique to that specific organization. In this way, making members of the organization aware of potential ethical pitfalls, which others have encountered along with problems that could potentially present itself allows the members to mentally rehearse these situations beforehand and be better prep...

      In order to lead from an ethical platform one of the issues which we as leaders must navigate when making decisions for our organization is the expectation of reciprocation. Or, the feeling that we are obligated to repay in-kind to help we have received from others. This can become a very slippery slope because obviously not all "favors" are equal and the expectation of returning the favor regardless of weight can become substantial.       One way that we as leaders can resist the dynamic of reciprocity is to decline the initial favor. I personally believe that this is the most effective and efficient way to avoid the possibility of the quid pro quo cycle. By rejecting the initial offer as the decision makers we avoid the uncomfortable feeling and position we would be put in to pay an equal or greater price than the one we received initially.       However, this does bring about an entirely different scena...