Unit 7 Final Assignment Paper and Powerpoint

Consequently, the athletic competition should be guided by the spirit of sportsmanship, fair play, and professionalism at every level. Sports competition should be about having a level playing field, spirit de corps, safe and productive training techniques, team values, and hard work (Mannie, 2018). Athletes should achieve a competitive edge and greatness over the others through God-given talents, physical and mental toughness, and perseverance in the most optimal and honorable way possible. Unfortunately, the contemporary sports competition has been more about the athlete who has used the best prohibited, dangerous chemicals to boost their performance. The use of performance enhancing drugs elicits a lot of ethical issues in sports competition at all levels. Thus, it is the responsibility of the sports management and administration, based on an ethical leadership, to inform the athletes about the dangers of PEDs’ usage. These prohibited drugs have left the legacies of some of the most prolific and highly talented athletes of this generation tainted with an asterisk suggesting their guilt for PEDs usage.

Ethical leaders will want to inform the athletes that about from destroying their career, legacy, and health, PEDs also destroys the lives of countless young people who, driven by the ‘‘winner bias’’ effect, would want to achieve greatness and all that comes with it at all cost. Perhaps, the best example of a leadership failure in curbing PEDs usage was during the Sochi Olympics in 2014 when Russia was alleged to have run a systematic doping program. The whistle-blower, Grigory Rodchenkov, who was the director of Russia’s anti-doping lab, confessed how the country developed and ran elaborate protocols and schemes to create PEDs and a plot to switch the implicated athlete’ urine samples to evade detection. The Russia’s case demonstrates just how states can sponsor far-reaching doping tactics to help their athletes win. The whistle-blower, who said that he also masterminded and participated in the program after being forced by high-profile and powerful people in the Russian government, apologized for the act, stating that the illegal and unethical actions denied hardworking and clean athletes from having a level playing field (Mannie, 2018).

Ethical sports leaders value integrity, honor, and fair competition. The type of leadership normally both resides within the leader because of their deeply-held beliefs and disseminates outward from them concerning their behavior and thoughts. Sports leaders demonstrate ethical leadership through normatively appropriate conduct via personal actions and interpersonal relations. They also demonstrate it through their promotion of such normatively-appropriate conducts to their followers through decision-making, reinforcement, and communication (Ibrahim, 2017). Athletes, coaches, physicians, team administrative staffs, governments, etc. should cooperate and marshal all their resources towards ensuring that the ethical issue of PEDs usage is completely remedied. Coaches, administrators, organizers, leaders, etc. are responsible for always being vigilant in ensuring the prompt detection of those who conspire to cheat the system.

Reference Ibrahim, L. Y. (2017, June). Leadership & Ethical Leadership In Sports Organizations: A Review. Leadership Project. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317869668_LEADERSHIP_ETHICAL_LEADERSHIP_IN_SPORTS_ORGANIZATIONS_A_REVIEW Mannie, K. (2018, June 12). PEDs in Sports: The Ongoing Fight. Retrieved October 24, 2020, from COACH & AD: https://coachad.com/articles/peds-in-sports-the-ongoing-fight/