A634.9.4.RB - A Reflection of Our Learning

The changing and modeling of ethics is a challenge that leaders will face every day. The implications and ramifications that ethics play needs to be focused on in order to become a better leader. I think that one of the biggest key lessons for me was that the golden rule isn’t the same for everyone. The golden rule should apply to everyone but it won’t be looked at the same by everyone. The rule changes with each situation and person.

A slippery slope ethical argument is the next key that I took away a lot of good insight from. With ethics, the slippery slope doesn’t need to go that far just because we think the situation can run out of hand, it doesn’t mean it will. I think this is important when trying to think about what other people will do or why someone acted a specific way. Another key point to go along with this slippery slope is punishment. I think that there is a lot of good arguments in punishment. There needs to be more open debate punishment. As leaders, we need to think about punishment that effects our lives. This would vary from punishment for our kids and our employees. Does the punishment fit the crime?

I think this course has given new light to a lot of subjects on ethics in my every day. I don’t think I have drastically changed any of my ethics but I think that the lessons learned will have a greater impact on my ethical behavior and actions. I think that a lot of these lessons will sink in when a situation comes up that I can apply them to. I have changed some of my thinking towards other people’s actions and why they do some things.

A634.8.3.RB - Gun Control: What is the Answer?

I don’t think that there is a good answer to the old question of, “Do citizens has a right to bear arms?” The question has too many implications and too many slippery slope answers. I think there was good proposition in Chapter 12, LaFollette (2007).

“A Third Way” is about having the owner be more responsible for their guns (LaFollette 2007). I think that there is too little responsibility for guns. The people who own guns should have to go through training classes and must provide proof of a storage container. There are too many children that have access to guns that can really hurt or kill themselves and others. I have heard too many times on the news that a child was playing with a fire arm and it went off. There is no reason or excuse for that, only lack of respect for the weapon. I don’t agree with LaFollette’s opinion that the owner of the gun is responsible for the actions of the gun. There are too many situations where this rule can go wrong. If someone child steals their gun and goes killing in the school, that parent is financially responsible for all those kids? Kids will get into anything when they try hard enough, if the gun is locked up tight with no access it won’t be of any use if there is an emergency that requires a gun.

As an avid gun owner, I find it too easy to swap and trade guns with other people. There needs to be a requirement for someone owning a gun. Maybe it could be on your licenses, that you have the proper training and education about guns to own one. I have gotten a gun from a coworker without any documentation. There isn’t any verification that my coworker could have requested to know that I knew how to handle a gun.

In the UK there is a ban on hand guns, decades ago it was banned and it is only recently that it has seen real fruit. It is working but it took a long time. “The real problem, of course, is that no one knows just how many guns are out there on the streets”. There is a problem with knowing who has a gun. I think this is the base argument for letting people have a gun but educate people if they want to own. I don’t think we placed enough emphasis on education of gun handling. People don’t know what a gun can actually do to a human body. It’s all movies and prop blood, people need to see the damage a 9mm or 20mm bullet can do.

David Barnett @davidmbarnett. (2017, December 17). Firearms Act: Twenty years on, has it made a difference? Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/firearms-act-twenty-years-on-has-it-made-a-difference-dunblane-port-arthur-a8110911.html.

A634.7.4.RB - Egoism: Psychological and Moral

Egoism

I think that everyone has an ego that directs them to self-satisfaction or interest.  Some people like to see others succeed; parents like to see their kids grow to be better than them. Egoism has different aspects that are complicated. Some parts of the ego are so subconscious that we couldn’t put a finger on the exact reason we do something. Some of our subconscious could have been because of an instance in our childhood.

I think that people are always after self-interest instead of only after self-interest (LaFollette, 2007). People must have a reason to do something, choosing dinner is always a debate in my house. What should we have for dinner? We choose what we have for dinner based on the self-interest of what sounds good or what will taste good. I don’t think we are only after self-interest because with dinner we keep in mind what the rest of the family will eat.

Workplace ego

Egoism will always get in the way of ethical decisions in the work place. The workplace is a do what is right for the company instead of what is right for each employee. If egoism wasn’t an ethical workplace issue then employees would be 100% efficient, work for the pleasure of a hard day’s work and we wouldn’t have to issue monetary gains.  Leaders in the workplace need to take great care not to push the ethical egoism to the detriment of the company.

An example of ethical egoism in the work place is a problem I run into constantly. In my facility, we have cells that have an overabundance of work and other cells that are steady. We must borrow employees from one cell to put in the overabundance cell to complete the workload.  When we borrow employees, we must be selective not to move too many employees to make the other cell lack manpower to keep up with the work. The ops managers don’t like to let us borrow employees to help any other cell because that means they will get backed up. Their self-interest to look good trumps their want to serve the company’s needs.

There are rewards for looking better than other leaders, even if it’s only the praise from the boss. Gains and rewards aren’t always money, some leaders like to be noticed rather than money. I think there should be team rewards as a whole and everyone should suffer as a team. If someone fails, then they need help from another leader. If only one person gets a reward, there is too much “only self-interest” LaFollette, H. (2007).

LaFollette, H. (2007). The practice of ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing

A634.6.3.RB - What are Virtues?

Of the 13 different virtues I think that I relate to Silence, resolution and tranquility the most.

Silence has always been what we have been taught growing up, “if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all”. I have always been a quiet person, I never thought people really wanted to hear my opinion. Silence avoids confrontation with others, it is the other reason I am normally quiet. There is no reason to start an argument for no reason, just because I have a different opinion. People are weird about the silence between someone and feel they need to fill the void. The fill the void with chatter about things they don’t understand or gossip they don’t know if it is true or not. I think silence is better than spilling lies and trying to sound intelligent about things that I don’t understand.

Resolution is an important virtue to me because of my supervisor roll. I think that one of my most disappointing things to an employee is telling your boss that you need something and then nothing ever happens. It takes a lot of confidence and courage to tell your boss that you want something, especially when no one else has needed it before. I want to have resolution to my employee needs, it’s a trust that can easily be broken. Resolution is also about doing what you say, say what you mean and mean what you say. If I say I am going to do something, I want to mean it. My employees need to know that they can count on me to get it done and not just say it.

Tranquility is the last virtue I picked because I lack it the most.  I always find myself stressed out over nothing. Brooding or grumpy because of a small situation that I made bigger than what it needs to be. I think that I take stress that I don't need to and bottle it up. I need to have better tranquility. I can normally get over things once I have really thought about them and reasoned through my emotions, but I need tranquility in the moment. This virtue is more important to me than most of the others because of my kids. I need to have tranquility with my children.

Franklin, B. (n.d.). Benjamin Franklin . Ben's 13 Virtues. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/pop_virtues_list.html.

A634.5.4.RB Is Marketing Evil

Marketing is a growing industry that is a slippery slope of ethics. If a company wants to sell a product when the market is flooded with similar items, that company may decide to cut corners with quality or reduce the pay wages of its employees. Company’s need to have an ethical balance when it comes to marketing a product.

I don’t think that it can be viewed as ethical to sell someone something they don’t need. If a product is not required to sustain life, then we don’t need it. Marketing is all about getting consumers to buy a product that isn’t needed. Companies need to have a balance when marketing.  A desirable product is one that has quality. I think that there are a lot of products that are made to be expensive but cheaply made. The quality of an item needs to be from how it’s made to how it’s sold. There is a need for products to be cheap and only used a few times, like harbor freight tools.

Companies that have shown a good ethical practice to marketing is Amazon. The customer reviews for Amazon have a great function for customers. The honest customer reviews are a great way to show the quality of a product. There is a new trend that Amazon has to combat for false reviews that are called “deceptive opinions, spam opinions, or spam reviews”(Cardoso,2018). These reviews are false to the actual quality of the product. Amazon has done a great job to combat the growing trend in false reviews with verified purchases on reviews. I think that reading the review from a verified purchase can reduce the number of false reviews. A quality review shows the actual integrity of the product.  It shows that a product will withstand close scrutiny. This is in direct contrast with Yelp, they have a total projected 16% of false reviews for restaurants (Cardoso,2018).

As a leader, I think that my ethical aspect to marketing would be a trial period. People need to try a new product out for a time to see if they are going to use the product. A lot of new product have a free month long trial period that I think it a great way to test the quality and see if a product will work for them.

Cardoso, E. F., Silva, R. M., & Almeida, T. A. (2018). Towards automatic filtering of fake reviews. Neurocomputing, 309, 106-116. doi:10.1016/j.neucom.2018.04.074

A634.4.3.RB - Is Affirmative Action Ethical

The practice of affirmative action is “giving special consideration to minorities and women in hiring and school placement”( LaFollette,2007). There are several arguments for and against affirmation. After some review, I think that affirmation is situational and needs to be handled ethically through diversity.

               The ethical practice of affirmation needs to be carefully considered by management or a council. A person can’t be selected for any position or education because of a tax break or a minimum requirement by the board. Affirmation needs to be the sole choice of the manager or council selecting for the position, not an out entity that doesn’t care for the person or position. The situation needs to be assessed without bias towards fulfilling a prior requirement. 

There is a large argument for the diversity in the workplace that brings new ideas. A workplace needs to have a large diversity while trying to come up with new ideas and planning. It may seem like a hindrance, if not managed correctly, but there is a lot of good outcomes for a diverse deep-thinking group. With affirmation through diversity, a team can exhaust all ideas and examine an idea from all angles. Affirmation selection needs to be considered in the right situation. If someone is selected for diversity it may be disassociated with affirmation. “From the implied premise that there is an injustice or an inequality that needs to be remedied, such as sexism, racism, homophobia or disablism: diversity obscures the issue of inequality which is at the heart of the matter (Thornton, 2001, p. 94)” (Burns,20008).

If affirmation selection is used to place a person that doesn’t merit the position or can’t fit the demand. that person has only been set up to fail their team and themselves, it is also unethical. Affirmation needs to be applied correctly towards diversity.  The selection without regards to the situation is an unethical practice. The selection process with diversity in mind is an ethical form of affirmation.

Burns, P., & Schapper, J. (2008). The ethical case for affirmative action: JBE JBE. Journal of Business Ethics, 83(3), 369-379. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/10.1007/s10551-007-9625-8

LaFollette, H. (2007). The practice of ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

A634.3.4.RB - The Harder They Fall

There are always the risks and rewards for people who want to achieve the best in life. The rewards are always great but the sacrifices can outweigh the rewards. It is only at the end of the road that we can look back on all our decision and know if we made the correct one.

rise to success doesn’t happen overnight. The consequences of our decision are not always black and white. In society we see that without risk, there is no rewards. The question is what are we willing to risk? “Walking away from a marriage that no longer seemed right, abandoning her two-year-old daughter in the process” is a huge risk (Kramer,2003). The rewards for some are the only goal. Who is really reaping the rewards and who is taking the downfall? I can’t personally say that there is any job that I would abandon my kids for. I also can’t say that there is a calling for more power in my life. In this situation, I think that the children would have the ultimate downfall. They will always know that they weren’t good enough for their mother and that a job was more important than time with them. That would be so devastating to a child. 

The action of seeking and taking power needs to have a self-reflective response. Self-reflection “can reduce the tendency to overestimate one’s abilities” (Knapp,2017). Self-reflection can also limit the amount of risk a person will take. The right amount of reflection is required to make sure that the end goal is worth obtaining at the risk of everything else or if there are acceptable points to stop along the way.

The ethical pursuits of ever higher power don’t reap many rewards. It takes a ruthless person to bend and break rules and to sacrifice. Through self-reflection a leader needs to look at the road they are on and make sure that the sacrifices are worth living with.  

Reference: 

Knapp, S., Gottlieb, M. C., & Handelsman, M. M. (2017). Enhancing professionalism through self-reflection. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 48(3), 167-174. doi:10.1037/pro0000135

Kramer, R. M. (2003). THE HARDER THEY FALL. (cover story). Harvard Business Review, 81(10), 58–66. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=10986098&site=ehost-live