Ethical, Moral, and Legal Leadership Research Paper

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The conceptual frameworks of the ethical constructs of ethics, moral and legal standards can be defined as such: ethics refers to the set of codes that describe what is right and wrong. Morality refers to the degree to which one abides by the ethical standards or code. Legality refers to that which is permissible by the laws established by society. An ethical, moral or legal dilemma may have repercussions in all three of these realms—but not necessarily. For the purposes of this paper, I will examine a moral dilemma that I faced in my work environment and analyze the moral, ethical and legal implications utilized in this situation.

In my work environment I learned that a co-worker was sexually harassing another co-worker, a moral violation of an ethical standard held at the workplace and a legal violation of civil rights laws. My role as a moral agent was to approach the co-worker who was on the receiving end of this harassment, offer her my support in the sense that I would offer my testimony of what I saw happen if she wished to address the issue by going to our manager—so that it was not just a case of “he said, she said.” She thanked me for my assistance and she did rely on my help in addressing the issue when she went to the manager and told what had happened. The manager came to me to see if I could corroborate the story and I did faithfully tell what I had witnessed.

My leadership style in this situation was that of servant leadership. I put myself at the service of the co-worker who I had seen being harassed. This co-worker needed assistance in that moment and I offered mine so that together we could make the workplace environment better and less toxic. The goal of offering my services to her was to help her to address the issue of sexual harassment that had just occurred, even though I could have easily not gotten involved. For my own part, I felt that by ignoring the situation and minding my own business would be to violate an ethical principle, a moral principle and even a legal principle, since sexual harassment is a violation of civil rights and for me to knowingly let it go on would be akin to promoting it in the workplace, which is not something I want to do. As Sanders (2006) notes, good leaders are likeable in the workplace and if I had done nothing to help rectify the situation or had simply ignored the wrong that had occurred I would not only have been an unlikeable leader at that moment but really a bad leader, as defined by Schyns and Schilling (2013), who stated that bad leaders are those who do not engage with others and remain detached from their own issues and are inattentive to their needs.

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As a servant leader, I find that I can be highly attentive to the needs of others by offering my services to them to help them overcome whatever issues they are facing—and together, in this manner, we can positively impact the workplace environment.

My leadership styles identified by my self-assessment (servant leadership) acted as a facilitation during this dilemma because it allowed me to put the needs of my co-worker before my own. I could have just gone on to lunch and acted like I had not seen what I had seen, but that would have been selfish of me. A servant leader does not ignore the needs of others but rather recognizes them and recognizes the need to help those in need (Northouse, 2016).

Mentally surveying my work environment I can identify a timely issue that requires me to perform the leadership role of moral agent in order to improve a situation, which in this case would be a colleague being treated unfairly. I was able to step up and give my support to my colleague who was being harassed. However, there are many other instances in which servant leadership can….....

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