Ethical Leader Paper

· As you think about the hard decisions you have had to make this past year, what comes to mind as one of the toughest? Why was it so difficult? How did you decide what to do?

The toughest decisions have been learning when to speak up. I tend to be the person that likes to keep the peace always. But as a manager and leader, that is not something that you can always do. You need to have hard conversations. I had an HR situation come up that I tried to just allow to solve itself and that did not happen. This created a situation where I needed to bring upper management and HR into the situation and sit with people to talk out the details and tell them that they were wrong in each of their ways. These decisions are difficult because you want to be able to handle everything on your own and not tell people how they are doing things wrong in the workplace, but sometimes humbling yourself to bring others in and forcing the conversations is the best thing that you can do.

· When making decisions, do you have personal criteria you follow? Do you mind sharing with us what those are?

Yes, in a way, I try to think through every possible outcome. It sounds so cliché to say, think of all the pros and cons when you make your decision, but it can be that simple. If it truly is a hard decision, you can make your list to say what good will come of it and what is bad. I also try to think of what is best for the workplace. Our branch of the bank is not the same as the other branch in Mt. Juliet, so I would not make the same decision at that office as I probably would at ours, you have to factor in your surroundings and everyone who will be potentially affected by your decision.

· Have there been decisions you made this past year that have stayed with you as not the best decisions in hindsight? If so, what could you have done differently when deciding to get a better result?

· The Jones College of Business provides us with criteria for making ethical decisions. I believe Dr. Clark share those criteria with you, but we can share the criteria again. They include:

· EMPATHY – The proposed action or decision reflects an understanding of how the action will impact others.

· TRUTH and INTEGRITY – The decision-maker is honest, fair, and truthful when making the decision. The decision or action respects others, builds trust, and shows professionalism.

· HELPS more than it HARMS – The decision or action helps others more than it harms others. The decision addresses the real problem or issue.

· INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS – The decision or action adequately protects the rights of others.

· COMPLIANCE – The decision or action complies with company policies, codes of ethics, societal norms, and/or laws.

· STAKEHOLDERS’ VALUE – The decision/action considers the overall value of the action/decision on stakeholders. Stakeholders include employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders and owners, community, and other impacted individuals or entities.

Can you think of a decision you have made this past year that involved considering many of these criteria? Can you tell us about that decision-making process?

Through the HR issue that resulted, I had to use almost, if not all of these criteria. As a manager, you need to show empathy to both sides of the situation, consideration with empathy allows for you to break down from the employee’s point of view how a decision can affect them directly.

Leaders need to keep truth and integrity at the top of their list when in the workplace, if you are not being truthful and holding true to your integrity and the integrity of the company, you will lose respect from your peers and even your employees. With going into an issue that involves HR, you have to be 100% honest about everything that happened and what resulted in order to stay on the neutral ground you should hold. Even if you think one side is completely in the wrong, you need to just state the facts of everything that happened and allow the upper management to work from there.

Helps more than it harms I believe is encompassed in when I say consider the pros and cons. Is the result and outflow from that decision going to help the situation or harm it more? In my situation, that was a huge consideration, and honestly, I would say at first, I didn’t take it into enough consideration. I should have analyzed that in part of the situation and addressed it right away to avoid having to bring the rest of upper management into it.

Lastly, compliance is huge, especially in the banking world. We tend to have a higher level of compliance due to the customer information we hold. When making decisions, you need to consider this heavily and make sure that if you or your employee were to do something, you are not breaking company policy. With the decision of how to handle my HR case, I needed to consider that when the email was sent to me about the situation, was it a company policy to involve HR and upper management, and did it directly affect customers.

Has Covid-19 changed how you make decisions or communicate decisions? How so?

I honestly would say no, our industry has pretty much gone back to normal policies and procedures which has made decisions to stay almost the same as before.

What advice do you have for me in learning how to make ethical decisions?

The best advice anyone gave me was to watch the managers and leaders that surround you. Consider what you like about their management/leadership style. Consider what you do not like. There were managers that I had that were amazing; I learned a lot of my talents from them and how to lead from them. There were managers that I had that were not good, they didn’t lead, they didn’t help people wholeheartedly, and many other things. I use them constantly as an example of what I do not want to be as a leader and how I want to represent my team.

Do you have any advice for us in learning how or practicing making ethical decisions that will make it more likely we will do so in our work lives?

Kind of like I said above, I would consider what you want to be and what you want to represent as a leader in your life. Use those people as examples of how you want to represent the teams you lead.

Go into every situation and want to be a leader. You don’t have to be a manager to lead a team and be an example that makes a difference.

We have explored in class the importance of examining how a decision will impact various stakeholders in addition to the financial impact on a company? How have you learned to balance those interests?

I am still learning this, but I would say that you need to know the expectations set forth by your company for stakeholders and the compliance rules that are to be followed. From here you can know what best practices to use when deciding in certain situations.

What are other questions you want to ask? List at least three.

1. What is the biggest challenge facing leaders today?

The biggest challenge I think leaders are facing is the people coming into the workforce today. People are less inclined to take instruction and constructive criticism. Social skills and communication is not at the same level they used to be and it makes it harder for leaders to build a successful team like this.

2. What are you doing to continue to grow and develop as a leader?

I want to continue to further my education with leadership courses and learn from others. There is always someone that is ahead of me and doing something different than I am; I want to continually find new ways of approaching situations and making decisions. I would argue that one way is never 100% better than another.

3. Who is your favorite leader and why?

My favorite leader is General George Patton, he led armies into multiple wars and never stopped when people thought he couldn’t complete a task. He was the first general to command a fleet of tanks. No one had used tanks tactically and he managed to take cities back with them. He is most famously known for being told to retreat, he didn’t have enough manpower to go into the city and take it back; but he replied, “I took it with two fleets, do you want me to give it back?” He led people in a rough and blunt way but moved so many mountains through it all.