SLC 300 (601) Fall 2024 Leading with an Ethical Perspective

Vicky Valet’s article delves into the lives of influential leaders who have significantly impacted their organizations and industries. The article underscores the crucial role of a leader’s reputation and its direct correlation to achieving business success in today’s workforce.

The author stresses that being genuine, transparent, and making ethical decisions are essential characteristics that help to establish trust among stakeholders. This idea is especially relevant in today’s business world, where consumers and employees increasingly value honesty in leadership. The CEOs highlighted in the article demonstrate some of these qualities, proving that effective leadership is not just about making profits; it also involves creating a positive work environment and taking responsibility.

Furthermore, Valet talks about how social media and public opinion can affect a CEO’s reputation. Leaders must manage how the public sees them in today’s fast-paced world. Leaders who can do this well improve their reputation and that of their organization. This is especially important because businesses are under more public scrutiny now, so leaders must connect with their audience genuinely.

Valet’s article is a reminder of how leadership is changing in the 21st century. It emphasizes the importance of moral leadership in creating sustainable businesses. The article encourages current and future leaders to think about their practices and values. As we see changes in workforce dynamics and consumer expectations, the qualities highlighted by the author should be a key focus of any leadership development strategy.

References

Valet, V. (2019). The World’s Most Reputable CEOs 2019. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/

Tom Huddleston Jr. thoroughly examines the infamous Fyre Festival. The luxury music festival was a disaster for attendees and investors due to poor management and deceptive practices. The article explores the festival’s failure, highlighting key issues related to leadership and accountability.

The Fyre Festival disaster showed that its organizers, especially Billy McFarland, needed better leadership. McFarland, who was only 25, was too ambitious and inexperienced. He made big promises without having the proper setup to keep them. This raises questions about what makes a good leader, like planning ahead and taking responsibility for their actions. The article points out that McFarland’s confident sales pitch got a lot of money invested, but he needed help to make a workable plan happen. This shows a big gap between having a vision and being able to make it work.

Huddleston Jr. effectively shows how the festival’s marketing, which heavily relied on social media influencers and a glamorous image, was a cover-up that hid the underlying chaos. The lack of clear communication worsened the issues, leaving investors and attendees unaware of the festival’s readiness. This situation warns about the importance of honesty and realistic communication in leadership roles.

The article emphasizes how irresponsible leadership affected McFarland, investors who lost millions, and festival-goers who faced unsafe and unsatisfactory conditions. It shows how poor leadership decisions can impact different stakeholders and stresses the need for leaders to act with accountability and foresight.

Huddleston Jr.’s article explores the Fyre Festival’s story and serves as both an exciting narrative and a critical review of leadership failures. It makes us think about the qualities needed for successful leadership in high-stakes situations and leaders’ ethical responsibilities towards their stakeholders. The Fyre Festival is a powerful reminder that effective leadership requires more than just vision; it demands a commitment to integrity, transparency, and accountability.

References

Huddleston Jr., T. (2019, August 18). Fyre Festival: How a 25-year-old scammed investors out of $26 million. CNBC.

Philly Fighting COVID (PFC) leadership faces backlash after reports that CEO Andrei Doroshin took COVID-19 vaccine doses home while people seeking vaccinations were turned away. This situation raises concerns about ethical leadership and public health management responsibilities.

Doroshin’s actions, as reported by Marin, Feldman, and Yu (2021), show a troubling disregard for the mission of PFC, which is a dedicated nonprofit organization that helps people get COVID-19 vaccinations. Even though the community needed them, taking vaccine doses away from the site suggests that personal interests were more important than public health needs. This issue is incredibly upsetting because many people were actively looking for vaccinations when they felt anxious and worried.

The reaction of Doroshin’s friends, who reportedly shared a Snapchat photo of him giving a vaccine outside of an official setting, raises questions about whether this was the right thing to do. This occurrence shows that they might not fully understand how important it is to give out vaccines correctly, especially during a public health crisis.

Andrei Doroshin’s leadership in this situation shows what can happen when personal interests are more important than the organization’s mission. Proper leadership is crucial for building trust and keeping communities safe, especially during crises. In the future, leaders in health organizations must be watchful and dedicated to their responsibilities to build trust and maintain the honesty of public health efforts.

References

Marin, M., Feldman, N., & Yu, A. (2021, January 26). Philly Fighting COVID CEO admits taking vaccine doses home despite patient demand.

Author Jeanine Santucci examines the actions of U.S. senators who sold off large amounts of their stock holdings just before the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This report highlights the ethical concerns surrounding insider trading, especially in the context of public service and leadership.

The article questions the honesty and responsibility of elected officials. Good leaders should be open and act ethically, especially during crises. The senators’ actions could be breaking public trust and not focusing on the well-being of the people they represent. This situation shows a problem, although leaders are portrayed to be good examples, incidents like these can make people doubt the reasons behind political decisions.

The timing of the stock sales, which closely coincided with the pandemic’s beginning, suggests a troubling awareness of upcoming market changes. This proactive behavior raises ethical questions about the responsibilities of those in power to prioritize the public’s best interests. Genuine leadership requires making well-informed decisions and openly communicating about how those decisions will impact the public.

Santucci’s article reminds us how important it is for leaders to act ethically, especially during crises. It calls for a closer examination of lawmakers’ actions and highlights the need for changes that encourage accountability. The behavior of these senators shows the urgent need for leaders to be honest and open to keep public trust and maintain effective governance during tough times.

References
Santucci, J. (2020). Senators sold off their stocks ahead of coronavirus economic crash. USA TODAY.

For my 8th DEJ post, I chose to reference the reading Ethical Role of Managers from Sage Reference. This reading provided me with further knowledge regarding the important of managers in companies and how their leadership shapes a team. Not only does their leadership shape a team but it also represents the company. This leadership is ideally built on strong ethical values. With strong ethical values as the backbone of good managerial leadership, a team will perform, well stay motivated, and individuals will be fulfilled. The article puts an emphasis on each decision a manager makes as it is representative of so much more than just the task that is being completed at the time. It impacts the viewpoint team members have of the manager and the company and if the manager is moral manager. This is highlighted by ethicist Linda Trevino in the article. She says ethical management “is a combination of being a moral person and being a moral manager” and that this relies heavily on integrity and honesty in leadership. This is something I have seen hold true in my experiences with various different managers. I have had managers who lead with strong ethics and morals and those who did not. It was clear at the time and is even clearer now that with strong ethics as the foundation of leadership the team I was on was stronger, I valued my work more, and was more dedicated to the job while trusting my manager. Without strong leadership ethics, there is a lack of trust leading to oftentimes turmoil in team work and collaboration which leads to inefficient work styles and a lack of drive from the team. This reading helped me to better undrstand why ethics are so important in leadership and I am excited to continue learnign more about this topic and experiencing it in my daily life.

Reference:

Waddock, Sandra. “Ethical Role of the Manager.” Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society. Ed. . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE,

2007. 786-91. SAGE Reference Online. Web. 30 Jan. 2012

Untitled (ncsu.edu)

For my 7th DEJ Post, I chose to reference our reading about CEO’s placing value in company ethics and shifting their focus to social responsibility. This is a topic that is often discussed in many of my classes as a fashion and textile management major. Many apparel companies have experienced a shift in leadership and leaders are now taking a stance of driving motivation with the emphasis of corporate ethics and social responsibility. This gives employees and the company as a whole a genuine purpose and drive to make an impact through the work they are doing. This then trickles down to the customers of those Companys and everyone the company interacts with. It is a great thing to see companies and leaders have this shifted mindset as it will overall improve our world and society. This goes back to many of our ethical frameworks, especially virtue ethics. I think that many leaders have realized that there is more value in considering the ethical values they embody and lead by and focusing on the overall good of people. It has been clear that many companies have taken this on and are continuing to grow and improve in their corporate ethics and social responsibility. I am excited to see the strides that companies continue to make and the values and ethical qualities that grow in the leaders as well. This is also something I will be considering in the coming years as I embark on my professional career and want to work for a company who values these things and motivates their employees with the good of people and leads with strong virtue ethics.

Resource:

Top CEOs Place High Value On Corporate Ethics And Social Responsibility To Drive Business (forbes.com)

For my DEJ Post #8, I decided to analyze the reading “Moral Person and Moral Manager: How Executives Develop A Reputation For Ethical Leadership”, by Linda Klebe Trevino, Laura Pincus Hartman, and Michael Brown as the authors. This is from our readings list in Module #4.

text-to-self: This article resonates with my own experiences of observing leadership in the places that I have worked in my lifetime so far. The concept of being both a moral person and a moral manager made me reflect about the first managers I ever had as it was a small local gardening store and landscaping company called New Bern Farm and Garden. My managers failed to set clear examples for the team, especially for my coworker and good friend Mike who is one of the most hard working people I know. My managers took advantage of his advantageous work driven heart and managerial skills that Mike had and instead of making him a manager which he more than deserved continued to use him until the eventual collapse of the business.

text-to-text: This article’s focus on ethical leadership and the emphasis on both character traits and management practices reminds me of the discussions from another reading we had this week and the article I did my DEJ post #7 on “Ethical Role of the Manager”. Both texts look into how ethics are a central principle in leadership but this article goes a little deeper than the role of the manager article by showing how a leader’s reputation is hinged on not only personal morality but also on having good consistent ethical actions.

text-to-world: The points raised in the article about the importance of managers being explicit about ethical values are extremely important in today’s world of corporate transparency where we live in a age of public knowledge and technology. Companies like Patagonia have gained global recognition for their ethical based leadership in which the top executives of Patagonia model great moral behavior and set the bar for employees and other managers alike. But not only Patagonia but other companies such as Apple have set great examples of what companies new bar is in terms of ethics, for example Apple’s 2030 carbon neutral footprint promise.

For my DEJ Post #7 I decided to do a my reaction of reflection on the reading listed in our readings for Module #4, “Ethical Role of the Manager” authored by Sandra Waddock.

text-to-self: Reading about the ethical challenges faced by managers in their obligation to their duties to shareholders as well as their responsibility to employees, customers, and stake holders reminds me of times when I have been in very difficult situations at work and I am so thankful to not be my manager. Such as one time when I was working at Cyprus Hall a restaurant in my hometown of New Bern North Carolina. When a patron got to drunk in the upstairs seating of the restaurant and was running to get to the bathroom to vomit but only made it down three steps before emptying his guts all over a table that had just been served their food right below the staircase. Truly one of the worst days I had worked.

text-to-text: This article connects with what I have been reading Kohlberg’s moral development. It discusses how managers move from preconventional to conventional, highlighting the importance of moving beyond basic self interest and ignore social norms, but rather focus on ethical based leadership principles.

text-to-world: The concepts in this article are clearly visible all around the world in global business scandals, like the unethical practices of some companies such as Enron and Volkswagen. Our ethical frameworks of rights, justice, and utilitarianism are crucial for analyzing corporate behavior and seeing the ethics at play in managerial decision making across the globe.

This article explores how ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) have become more important than ever in today’s business world, especially after high-profile scandals like Enron and Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme shook the global economy. Companies like the Ethisphere Institute, which ranks the world’s most ethical companies, have helped push ethics to the forefront of corporate discussions. Leaders from Aflac, Voya Financial, and the Ethisphere Institute share their views on the state of corporate ethics, offering valuable insights on how ethics and CSR are intertwined and essential for long-term success.

One interesting point is the emphasis on ethics as a mindset rather than an option. Dan Amos, CEO of Aflac, explains that in today’s skeptical environment, companies that prioritize ethics can gain the trust and loyalty of consumers. This idea—that doing the right thing is not only the ethical choice but also good for business—comes up repeatedly in the conversation.

The connection between ethics and corporate social responsibility is also highlighted. According to Rodney Martin, CEO of Voya Financial, CSR is a reflection of a company’s culture and values, encompassing everything from environmental sustainability to diversity and transparency. It’s not just about doing business; it’s about building trust with all stakeholders—employees, customers, and communities alike.

Another standout idea is how important it is to build an ethical culture within a company. This starts at the top, with leadership setting the tone for the rest of the organization. Amos, Martin, and Timothy Erblich of the Ethisphere Institute all agree that leaders need to walk the talk when it comes to ethics, demonstrating integrity in their actions every day. They also stress the importance of open communication, ensuring that employees feel safe speaking up about unethical behavior without fear of retaliation.

When it comes to measuring ethics, the article emphasizes that it’s not easy, but it’s essential. Companies like Aflac and Voya rely on surveys and peer-to-peer benchmarking to measure how their ethics and CSR programs are perceived. Engaging with employees, customers, and shareholders regularly helps ensure that companies are on the right track and maintaining the trust of their stakeholders.

In short, the article shows that ethics and CSR are no longer optional add-ons for businesses—they are fundamental to long-term success. Companies that excel in these areas, like Aflac and Voya, have figured out that a strong ethical culture, combined with a commitment to social responsibility, is key to building trust and thriving in today’s competitive environment. https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertreiss/2017/09/11/top-ceos-place-high-value-on-corporate-ethics-and-social-responsibility-to-drive-business/#371dcde24473

This article highlights ten infamous cases of unethical business practices that caused significant financial, social, and environmental damage. Each example showcases not only the disastrous outcomes of corporate greed and fraud but also the lasting impact on stakeholders, from employees and investors to entire economies.

One particularly interesting point is how widespread accounting fraud was at the core of many of these scandals, such as Enron, HealthSouth, and Tyco International. These companies engaged in deceptive practices to inflate earnings, hide losses, and mislead shareholders, illustrating the devastating effects of unethical leadership. The Enron scandal, for instance, not only bankrupted a major corporation but also led to the downfall of one of the world’s largest auditing firms, Arthur Andersen, and spurred regulatory changes like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This speaks to how corporate malfeasance can reverberate far beyond a single company.

Another striking point is how these examples illustrate the role of personal greed. Tyco’s Dennis Kozlowski and Bernard Madoff epitomize leaders who put their personal gain ahead of ethical leadership, with Kozlowski’s extravagant spending and Madoff’s Ponzi scheme as extreme examples. These cases serve as reminders of the vulnerability of corporate governance when oversight is weak or compromised.

Lastly, the case of Total SA highlights the ethical issues that extend beyond financial fraud. The accusations of using slave labor in Myanmar and the environmental disaster caused by the Erika oil spill show the environmental and human rights abuses that can occur when companies operate without regard for social responsibility. This points to the need for ethical considerations in all aspects of corporate operations, not just financial integrity.

The article emphasizes how corporate ethics and accountability, or lack thereof, can shape the future of industries and affect countless lives. These examples are sobering reminders of the need for vigilant regulation, ethical leadership, and strong governance to prevent history from repeating itself. https://www.kmtrust.com/10-unethical-famous-examples/