Ethical Leadership

A good example of leadership within my community is my parents. Together, they own an architecture firm in which they must lead about thirty employees. They use many techniques to keep their employees on track with the many individual houses that they have to work on while also creating an environment that is inspiring and fun to work in. Along with keeping their employees focused, they also need to make sure that their clients are on board with their drawings for their houses. To accomplish this task, my parents must show confidence in their plans and ideas so that their clients are comfortable with my parents leading them in the construction of their new home. However, my parents must also be very good listeners because they must know and understand what their clients are looking for in the project. If my parents did not listen to what their clients were asking, they would not be accomplishing their jobs. They must find a balance between letting their inexperienced clients give feedback to their drawings while also selling their ideas with confidence, but not arrogance. In any work environment, a boss is faced with many dilemmas. For instance, sometimes their employees do not manage their time and projects well. So, for a period of time, I hear my parents talk about their annoyance with this given employee until they finally act on it. Often times, my parents have to resort to yelling or saying that maybe this job is not right for you. However, this is an ethical dilemma for them because they don’t want to yell, and they don’t want to have to let someone go. They try to find any other solution to solving this problem before they come to this because they do not think that it is right. Furthermore, they face decisions daily that sometimes they have to compromise or make a choice that benefits one group of people more than another. In their leadership position, they try to make the best decisions that will satisfy the most amount of people, but constantly they must ask themselves if what they are doing is ethically right.

Issy Wilson