Leadership – Discussion of Ethics

You can’t discuss leadership without touching on ethics.  Day 2 of leadership training at Mizzou included a discussion of ethics and the challenges an elected official can face that relate to ethics.  Here are a few highlights.

First, ethics is simply the act of making judgments about right and wrong.  As people make those judgments, they’ll use some basis for their decision.  That basis may be to do what’s best for the greatest number.  It may be to follow the highest principle.  Or it might be as simple as deciding you’ll do what you’d want others to do to you.  There is no right or wrong answer on what basis you may use and that basis may change based on the circumstances.

So what happens once you set your ethical base?  Well, you’re then ready to take on an ethical challenge.  If you’re lucky, it will be a right/wrong decision.  Does the conduct violate codes of conduct?  Does it violate personal principles and values?  Is it against the law?  These are easy ethical decisions to make.  They are clear (or bright line) and easy to determine right from wrong.

You can usually use a few simple questions to answer the right/wrong decision:

The legal test – is this something that could put you in jail?

The stench test – does this just smell bad?

The headline test – would you like to read this in the newspaper?

The ‘Mom’ test – Would you want your mom to know?

But what happens when you have a right vs. right situation?  Those might include situations that involve truth vs. loyalty, individual vs. community, justice vs. mercy.  Those ethical situations lead to very tough choices and usually occur when two (or more) competing values are in conflict.  They’ll usually result in a ‘bad’ outcome for one or more parties and quite often have no really ‘good’ choices.   

Regardless of the position you’re in, it’s just a matter of time before you’ll be facing a situation that involves an ethical dilemma.  How you handle that situation will tell a lot about you as a person and your understanding of deciding right from wrong.  But you must do what you feel is right. 

To finish, remember the words of Harry Truman - “Do your duty and history will do you justice.”  Good luck.