Thursday, August 1, 2013

Reflecting Upon Ethical Leadership, Both the Concept and the Course

A lot has come at me in these past two weeks. I came to this course expecting to meet other leaders from around the world and discuss with them the idea of ethical leadership. For the most part, the class was what I anticipated. I expected having to read about leadership and ethics as well as writing about leading. I had thought there would be a little more discussion; I felt there was not as much opportunity in the first week as the second. I also expected more evaluation of specific leadership dilemmas.

Ethical leadership is a topic on which I have thought prior to now, but not extensively. I understood that leading ethically is difficult, but now I have gained the knowledge of its particular difficulties. Some of these include the ideas of necessary evil, dirty hands, and the Seven Cs.

I knew about necessary evils, but I now know exactly how they are difficult to assess and how they lend themselves to ethical leading. Before now, I disliked this concept, thinking it to be a bad way to look at solutions to issues. I have changed my views on this slightly.

I was very interested by the idea of dirty hands, which is what altered my belief on necessary evil. I now think that using dirty hands can be an effective way to go about performing necessary evil. It is certainly more ethical than simply doing wrong and hiding or not explaining it.

I find the Seven Cs to be an interesting way to look at leadership. Each one addresses a key part of leading and I look forward to attempting to act them out ethically in the future.


Overall, I have gained a much greater understanding of how ethics relate to leadership and the challenges faced in trying to merge the two. I intend to return home and apply these ideas to my own leadership challenges. Leadership is extremely important to me, and I really want to become better at it. I feel this course has helped me on my way.

~Nick Sardella

No comments:

Post a Comment