Power and Ethics in the American orporation - Essay Example

Power and Ethics Power refers to the capacity or the ability of the managers of any given institution or organization to perform a given task effectively. Ethics refers to the set of moral principles that helps one to distinguish between what is good or bad. Ethics is important in any organization since it governs the decisions made by an individual or a group of organization members. Ethical behavior in any company has many benefits such as attracting customers, retaining employees, as well as attracting investors to the company. Power is very important to the managers or leaders of any organization since it is essential in the directing of its staff. However, the process of acquiring power and using it usually ruins the ethics and values held in the organization (Kelly, 1988 p.3). Discussion Power defines leadership in any company and by definition; leadership refers to the ability of directing a group of employees towards achieving the goals of an organization. Therefore, leadership has formed the basis of classifying managers into five groups or profiles, namely: leader, destructive achiever, builder, mechanic, and innovator (Kelly, 1988 p. 4). The leader refers to the ethical manager who effectively uses his charisma to lead other employees towards achieving organization goals. The builder on the other hand refers to the manager who might be ethical but lacks charisma. Therefore, they are referred to as leaders with limited leadership potential. The destructive achiever is an unethical manager who, even though might have high potential, he or she will not contribute towards the achievement of the long term goals of the organization. The innovator is a very creative manager in his or her field but is not termed as a leader and is sometimes termed untrustworthy. Lastly, the mechanics refers to the persons that are competent in their profession but lack the personal impact towards settling of group issues. Therefore, they are not considered leaders or builders of the organization. From the managers listed above, it is evident that for any organization to be prosperous, it requires leaders who are ethical and have charisma which are essential in the realization of the long-term goals of the organization. Ethics is demanded by the society in any given part of the world. Therefore, it has led to the classification of ethics into two groups: ethics of integrity and ethics of social responsibility. The demand for integrity in the business came into existence following the arrival of new millennium, which led to the increased number of accounting scandals that occurred in different parts of the world. The results were negative for example; many organizations lost their trust in the corporate world. The demand for social responsibility maintains safety to the society as well as the environment it operates (Jeurissen 2007, p. 3). According to ethics, the exercise of power must conform to the cultural standards as well as the legal standards of ethics. For instance, it has been termed unethical for any organization to use power for its own gain by engaging in illegal activities. For example, an HR assistant has the power of representing the services of the company to client companies as a process of obtaining customers. However, if he or she lies to the clients as a way of gaining more clients is an unethical behavior (Society for Human Resource Management, 2006 p.180). Many workers or employees of an organization have been in dilemma following the use of power by the seniors. Many employees have experienced tough challenges in choosing between what is good for the organization in terms of profitability and what is right according to the set ethical standards in the community. The findings of the research conducted among the graduates at Harvard revealed that young managers were being forced to make decisions, some of which were unethical by their seniors. Even though the actions were unethical, the young managers still complied because of fear of losing their jobs. Opportunities that arise in any business organization should be utilized for the mutual gain to both the owners and the employees or workers. The seniors or bosses should consider the impacts of engaging in the unethical behaviors. In some cases, unethical behaviors have led to the tarnishing of the organizations name or reputation. Manipulation is also a form of violating the ethical standards in an organization. By definition, manipulation refers to the act of the managers asking the junior managers and the subordinate staff to engage in certain activities so that they can satisfy their own gains or interests. The managers concealing their own intentions and sometimes providing false information for their own gain is what constitutes manipulation. Even though it can provide gains to the organization, manipulation has been termed as unethical because these gains are usually short lived and the power to control or coordinate the workers in the end is usually lost. According to the research carried out at Harvard University, the common ethical misconducts being practiced include the management passing false information to the employees and customers and in some cases important information is kept away from the employees and the public. Some of the managers go to the extent of violating the privacy of the employees. As a way of retaining employees or attracting new employees, bribes and inappropriate gifts are given out (Society for Human Resource Management, 2006 p. 182). The leaders of any organization are termed as the ethics officers. They usually influence the followers where the followers in this case are the employees. Michael Brown and Linda developed a theory called Social Learning that tries to explain the reasons behind the leaders of an organization influencing their followers. They explained that employees would learn by first observing and then following the behavior of their seniors if the leaders displayed high moral standards. Since the leaders in an organization have the power and authority, the employees perceive them as role models. The senior employees should therefore treat their juniors with respect and honesty as a way of maintaining their reputable image. This can be achievable by first setting high moral standards that they will try to achieve and in the process of trying to achieve them, high moral values will be maintained in the organization. The leaders of the organization should promote high moral standards by spreading ethics messages to the employees. This is achievable by first communicating to the employees frequently on subjects such as corporate standards, values and the benefits of upholding good moral behavior. The followers can be rewarded when they display good moral behavior and those who do not follow the set standards of ethics can be punished. This is an appropriate way of managers outlining the differences between the acceptable and unacceptable actions in an organization. Unethical leaders refer to leaders who lack morals and cannot influence their followers in any positive way (Johnson, 2009 p. 266). Even though most of the time leaders are classified as either ethical or unethical, there also exist leaders who are ethically neutral. An ethically neutral leader does not usually send ethical messages that are strong enough to convince his or her followers. Most of leaders of an organization who are ethically neutral are self-centered. An ethical business has the following characteristics that make it successful. High levels of leadership as an ethical attribute is where the leaders of the business have high morals which are displayed during the decision making process. The business should also have values that are clearly stated in the mission of the organization. A business that adheres to the government rules and regulations is considered ethical in terms of integrity. The managers of the business who portray respect to the employees make the business or the organization successful. Therefore, my company having the qualities listed above, it was considered by corporate Martians to introduce the high ethical attributes displayed on Mars. Being the CEO of global mining, I was faced with the challenge of selecting seven people out of my competent 320 employees. As mentioned earlier, ethical leaders or managers contribute towards the success of any company. Therefore in order to maintain my workers trust, I had to follow the following eight steps towards making a sound ethical decision on who, out of the 320 employees should be selected (Treviño & Nelson 2011:p52). The first step is to gather the facts. At this point, I will review the records of each employee where I will analyze the performance and moral behavior of every employee for the period that he or she has been in the company. The second step is to define the ethical issues. In this case, I look at the various ethical issues that have occurred in the company, which could be any form of irresponsible behavior. The next step is to identify the parties involved in this case, I will identify out of the 320 employees were affected or involved. Then I will look at the consequences of the ethical issue for example if any employee was punished from his or her involvement in the ethical issue. I will also consider my character as well as integrity in terms of whether I posses any form of bias among the employees. Since every action usually has some reaction, I will have to consider the outcome of my decision for example if I might fail to select certain employees who feel they are fit for the chance. I will finally check my gut where I will use all the information gathered and rightfully select seven out of the 320 people to enter the rocket ship. Baron Acton who was born in 1834 and died in 1902 came up with the quote that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts completely. From our discussion, we came up with the fact that when someone has power, he or she will be able to control others. Control in this case refers to where a leader in an organization asks his or her junior employees to perform certain tasks in his or her favor (ÉTATS-UNIS 2006 p. 1). As someone is given any form of power, he or she usually tends to be arrogant to those below him or her in the job position. The greatest fear of someone who has power is to lose it. Therefore, these individuals with power will strive to retain their power and even in some cases, they will struggle to have more power. In the process of trying to get more power, an individual usually ignores his followers in terms of respect and he or she is likely to mistreat them. Taking the example of Hitler, he killed many innocent people in Germany. Therefore, excessive power to an individual will make them unaware of the results of their actions and in some cases; it will turn these individuals into dictators. As mentioned earlier, any individual working in a given organization will experience some form of dilemma following the orders or instructions by their seniors to perform a given task even though it is unethical. It was sometime last year where we were holding job interviews in the process of replacing an employee who had just retired. We shortlisted two candidates for the job and from reviewing the academic qualifications and work experience, we established the best applicant for the job. Therefore, we forwarded the name of the selected candidate to the manager. Our manager instead confirming the applicant that we had selected, he introduced to us someone different who was not even shortlisted. He placed him on the job against our will because of the reason that he had authority and power. It was later realizable that the candidate he had appointed was his cousin. This unethical behavior killed our morale but since we never wanted to lose our jobs, we had to live with it. Conclusion It is deductible that for any business to be successful, it should uphold high levels of ethical conduct. The employees working in any organization should be aware of the importance of upholding ethical conduct and the leaders of the organization should use their powers wisely to avoid causing any form of harm to other employees. Reference List Kelly, C. M 1988, the destructive achiever: power and ethics in the American corporation. Reading, Mass, Addison-Wesley Pub. Co. Jeurissen, R., & Rijst, M. W. V. D 2007, Ethics in business. Assen, the Netherlands, Van Gorcum. Society for Human Resource Management (ÉTATS-UNIS) 2006, The essentials of power, influence, and persuasion. Boston, Mass, Harvard Business School Press in partnership with the Society for Human Resource Management. Johnson, C 2009, Creating an ethical organizational climate, in Ethical challenges of leadership. London, Sage, Casting light or shadow, Treviño, L & Nelson, K. A 2011, Managing business ethics: straight talk about how to do it right. New York, John Wiley. Read More