III. The learner demonstrates an understanding and appreciation of the ethical implications of leaders.

My artifacts demonstrating this outcome.

1.  Interview Project - LEAD 505 Organizational Leadership & Ethics

2.  Group Project - LEAD 505 Organizational Leadership & Ethics

3.  Final - LEAD 505 Organizational Leadership & Ethics

4.  Bad Leadership - LEAD 510 Leadership in Context

5.  Personal Leadership Development Plan - LEAD 580 Practical Problem Solving for Today's Organizations

My reflection on meeting this outcome.

1.  Having the opportunity to interview Butler Community College's President Dr. Jackie Vietti was a treat for me.  Not only because the interview helped to fulfill a requirement of LEAD 505, but also because I respect her.  She is well spoken, intelligent, funny, and above all, shows concern and cares for all Butler employees.  Prior to my interview with her, I assumed from my small amount of contact with her that she possessed very high ethical standards.  And, she confirmed my assumption during the interview.  From her decision to terminate a productive employee for unethical conduct, to her dedication to the College’s stakeholders, she is truly the essence of an ethical leader.  She told me that she was troubled by the recent unethical behavior of some leaders in the private sector, such as Enron and the finance industry.  She said, "I think that is unacceptable.  I don’t think any organization deserves a leader who takes advantage of that organization, either financially or for personal advancement.”  Not only do her words prove her high ethical standards, but her actions show her commitment to high ethical standards too.  She launched an ethics initiative at Butler.  “We have created the ability for employees to express their views to a third-party person if they see something that they feel is not right,” said Dr. Vietti.  She helped me understand and appreciate that for leaders to be considered ethical, their words must agree with their actions.

2.  During this group project I learned about the non-existent ethical climate at Salomon Brothers.  The leadership at Salomon Brothers knew about misdealings in the trade department but did not take action.  When the situation was discovered in August 1991, Warren E. Buffet, an outside director and shareholder, was appointed interim chairman.  It was by his actions and Salomon’s new leadership, as well as a commitment to ethical conduct, that Salomon Brothers slowly began to rise from the wreckage.  Honesty played the largest role in defining the organizations ethical conduct.  Honesty laid the foundation for the new culture and was continually demonstrated through the words and actions of Buffett and Salomon's new leadership.  This quality was first evident in the way the new leadership handled the illegal trading scandal.   One of the leaders, Deryck Maughan, stated, “Our working philosophy was that we had better just follow the facts wherever they led and get them out” (Paine & Santoro, 1994, p.114).  This type of honesty and cooperation from a corporation accused of wrong doing had never been seen before.  Buffett and Salomon's new leadership demonstrated their commitment to honesty through their cooperation with the investigating agencies.  It was by Buffett’s model for honesty that other managers followed suite.  “Following Buffett’s model, individual managers met with their supervisees.  The communications department began distributing press releases throughout the firm and introduced a daily fact sheet detailing developments in the government investigation and in firm business” (Paine & Santoro, 1994, p.125).  The ethical leadership culture Buffet and Maughan established in Salomon Brothers was to lead by example.  Both believed that for employees to act in an ethical manner, all leaders had to conduct themselves in a positive respectable way as well.  Maughan reinforced their ideology by leading by example and taking responsibility for actions when things went wrong.  It is evident from the success of Salomon Brothers new leadership that their actions incorporated Schein’s five primary mechanisms for embedding an ethical culture within an organization.  Schein’s primary mechanisms include:

1. Attention - "Schein (1985) describes attention as what the leader focuses his employees to concentrate on…” (Sims, 2000, p. 67).  Maughan set out for his employees to concentrate on compliance.
2. Reactions to Crisis - “A crisis situation, Schein asserts, allows followers to see what is valued by the leader because its emotionality brings these values to the surface” (Sims, 2000, p. 68).  With a swift reaction to the crisis, Buffet set the tone for a new corporate culture and it was rewarded with Salomon being allowed to return to the Treasury securities market.
3. Role Modeling - “A leader communicates strong messages to his or her employees about their values through his or her own actions, and Schein labels this role modeling” (Sims, 2000, p. 70).  When Buffett stepped in to take control of the situation and Salomon Brothers, he brought with him his image.
4. Allocation of Rewards - “The behavior exhibited by people the leader decides to reward with pay increases or promotions signals to others what is necessary to succeed in an organization – Schein’s allocation of rewards mechanism” (Sims, 2000, p. 71).  Buffett linked pay to performance but it was not looked upon favorably.  Many managers left Salomon Brothers due to the new compensation system, which was eventually cancelled.
5. Criteria for Selection and Dismissal - “Schein’s last mechanism by which a leader shapes a corporate culture, criteria for selection and dismissal, describes how a leader’s decision about whom to recruit or dismiss signals his or her values to all of the organization’s employees” (Sims, 2000, p. 72).  Buffett made sure that anyone who was connected with the scandal at Salomon Brothers was fired.

Buffett’s efforts were aimed at changing Salomon’s culture, and in the end he was successful at changing that culture to one that supported ethical behavior.  Empowerment from subordinate leaders down to the individual employees was evident and led to a positive ethical environment.  Buffett and Maughan really cared about the work they were doing and the people they were working with.  By committing themselves to an ethical standard everything else seemed to fall into place.

3.  The final test for LEAD 505 Organizational Leadership & Ethics shows my understanding and appreciation of the ethical implications of leaders.  Within this document includes what I believe to be the most important ethical issue facing leaders in today's organizations.  Money.  I believe that money is one of the main reasons that leaders act unethically.  Whether it is earning more money, embezzling money, hiding money, etc.  I know there are other ethical issues out there but money was what it boiled down to in the Salomon Brothers case that we studied in this class and money was what caused a productive employee to be fired at Butler.  “We behave immorally simply because we are moved to do something other than what morality requires, not because we lack access to morality’s requirements” (Ciulla, 2004, p. 130).  Temptations get in the way of our ethical values, and money is one of those temptations.

4.  I learned from this book that we tend to study good leaders, but we should not ignore studying bad leaders too.  I also learned that we should study the followers of bad leaders, so that we can learn how to attack bad leadership and turn it into good.  The author, Barbara Kellerman, notes that bad leadership is part of everyday life and must be better understood.  There are two categories of bad leaders, ineffective and unethical.  Unethical leadership fails to know the difference between right and wrong.  Kellerman wrote:

• Ethical leaders put their followers’ needs before their own.  Unethical leaders do not.
• Ethical leaders exemplify private virtues such as courage and temperance.  Unethical leaders do not.
• Ethical leaders exercise leadership in the interest of the common good.  Unethical leaders do not. (Kellerman, 2004, pp. 34-35)

5.  Within this paper I show my understanding and appreciation of the ethical implications of leaders and how they can impact an organization.  When asked, "What are my beliefs about how people ought to conduct the affairs of our organization?", I answered, "I believe people within the organization should conduct our affairs in an ethical manner.  Then, I believe they should communicate the information truthfully to all employees so we are well informed about decisions and changes that effect us, our work, our stakeholders, and our students."  Obviously, this leads to a better run organization, and if a leader conducts the affairs of an organization unethically, it could potentially lead to a poorly run organization.

My future learning goals related to this outcome.

To assist me is maintaining my ethical standards, I plan to continually read and learn about ethical, as well as unethical leaders.  I have decided to do this because the book Bad Leadership was one of my favorite projects and papers that I have completed for this program.  I believe that learning about ethical, as well as unethical leaders, can give me more perspective on the subject.  By simply studying ethics, we can learn to be more cognitive of the temptations.

Ciulla, Joanne B. (2004). Ethics, the Heart of Leadership (2^nd ed.). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Kellerman, Barbara (2004). Bad Leadership: What It is, How It Happens, Why It Matters. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Paine, Lynn S. and Santoro, Michael A.  (1994).  Case 1 – Forging the New Salomon.  Harvard Business School case 395-046.

Sims, Ronald R. May. (2000). Changing an Organization’s Culture Under New

Leadership. Journal of Business Ethics 25: 65-78. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.