Final

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As young professionals, when we begin our journey, we start to think about what it means to lead oneself. What constitutes the kind of leaders we want to be? How must we approach difficult decision-making situations according to our inner beliefs? These were some questions that occupied most of my internal reflection throughout the semester exploring leadership and ethics. Through class discussions, personal experiences, case study articles, and all, I learned that ethical leadership involves not only doing the right thing but also creating trust and accountability in a shared commitment to values.

Among the most important lessons learned is that ethical leadership starts with self-awareness. Setting up core values sets a compass to guide a person’s decisions, especially under difficult situations. Personally, integrity turns out to be non-negotiable. As I discovered, leading with integrity also means bringing your actions into harmony with your values when it is inconvenient or uncomfortable. Among the class exercises, we reflected on what would happen if values collided with workplace pressures. The takeaway: ethical leaders who actually mean what they say and can back it up, end up building credibility and earning trust.

 A personal experience that underlined this lesson happened during a group project at my most recent summer internship. One of my teammates suggested that since our deadline was approaching fast, we would have to cut corners in some areas to get finished. As tempting as that sounded at the time, I knew that it would compromise the quality of our work. It was not easy to have that really upfront discussion about possible ways we could work differently, when most people wanted to cut corners. We managed to come up with a creative solution that allowed us to keep our hard work looking excellent and still meet our timeline. I suggested that we would have to stay extra time even though we were not getting paid for it, and we all agreed on that. That reaffirmed the importance of holding your ground against ethical principles, even under stressful situations.

 One important thing I learned about was empathy and its role in ethical leadership. We think ethics are very simple, black and white, but most real dilemmas today do not fall into this definition. Empathetic leaders are able to consider perspectives and needs of other people, therefore making them more capable of conflict resolution and the establishment of inclusiveness. Examples include case studies of workplace discrimination; how do empathetic leaders address such issues by active listening and advocating for fair practices? Learning this inspired me towards a people-leadership approach, given that ethics nearly always leads to complex decisions coming from different sides’ points of view.

 I learned, too, that ethical leadership is not just the leaders’ actions but how there should be an establishment of an ethical environment. Leaders create contexts for their organizations, and very small actions send rippling effects. We discussed how transparent communication and consistency in accountability create an atmosphere for ethical behavior to exist. I hope to be a leader in the financial setting. A client hands his life savings to me; therefore, there is no way to avoid ethical standards.

 For young professionals, creating ethical leadership seems to be a tall order, especially at the beginning of the career ladder. But this semester has taught me that ethical leadership is not a destination but a practice. It means making intentional choices, seeking continued evolution, and being open to learning from mistakes. Living one’s values, empathy, and accountability should suffice to lead others by example and inspire others to do so.