Assignment 4

            I do believe that it is possible to be an effective and ethically good leader, but only in certain circumstances. I think that for the most part the leader should aim to keep true to their ethics in order to maintain a good reputation among their people. On the other hand, it is possible that a leader may need to challenge or negatively affect their community in order to help it improve in the long run. Therefore, I do believe that leadership requires one to be flexible with their ethical values. I believe that leaders will often be faced with a difficult situation, which forces them to choose between two different decisions that both contradict their ethical values. In that situation, the leader would hopefully choose the situation that would negatively affect the least amount of people possible. I do not think that leaders should permanently be flexible with their ethical values because it is important that they know that they also have boundaries to how far they can go. For example, to raise taxes on a group of people would be an acceptable choice if it were necessary; but killing a group of people would be going too far. One example of this dilemma was when George Bush decided to send troops into the Middle East. I believe that this decision was made rashly due to the fact that he wanted to seem as though he was protecting his country by ridding of terrorists. In his opinion, he was sending in troops, groups of men that could potentially die, so that eventually terrorism would end. Sure, his intentions were understood but the way he went about the problem was a way that caused problems for the United States in the future. Due to our invasion in the Middle East, we do not have a trusting relationship with them, especially when it comes to oil. Overall, I think the United States’ anger for the family and friends killed in the 9/11 attack were overly eager for revenge. I think Bush rushed the decision to attack the Middle East, before thinking of the consequences. If he had asked himself what ethical values he would be going against, maybe he would have realized that his approach to the situation was a negative for the United States.