Effective leaders must successfully deal with conflict and make hard decisions. Some decisions that a leader must make could be considered unethical, but some of those actions are fully necessary. Therefore, I do not believe can be completely ethically good, although I feel as if leaders may need to be flexible with their ethical values when in a position of power. All leaders will have decisions to make, but effective leaders are willing to make the tough decisions even if they must deal with criticism.
In my opinion, the leader must do what is best for the greater good. The fewer people negatively affected by the necessary “evil” action, the better decision it is. It is more effective to sacrifice the happiness of the few to fully satisfy the many. Anything that causes the least harm or displeasure, as “evil” as it may be, is a successful action by the leader.
The director of the summer camp I attend in Wisconsin faced a difficult decision a few years ago. In the summer of 2011, seventeen counselors in camp would go down to the Swim point each night and smoke marijuana. Towards the end of the session, a few of the counselors decided to turn the group in, as they began to realize that their behavior was completely inappropriate. The director then had to decide what to do with the seventeen counselors, many of them some of the best in camp. Although many believed that the men would be banned from camp, the director decided to send them home and have them take a year off before coming back. Many parents and others around camp wanted the men fired forever, but the director made a gutsy move to allow the counselors to return, knowing it would be hard to replace that many staff. Although I thought that they should have been banned, they came back as different people and remained great counselors although they probably did not deserve to return. Looking back, it was definitely the right call and it taught all of them a lesson without having to replace 25% of the counselors at camp.
Michael Becker
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