In my Frameworks for Decision-making: Ethical Perspectives course, we are reading Craig E. Johnson’s Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership: Casting Light or Shadow.” The chapter I am currently reading focuses on “stepping out of the shadows” as a leader. Johnson (2018) calls ethical failures “shadow casters.” There are six shadow casters identified: insecurity, battleground, mentality, functional atheism, fear, denying death, and evil (Johnson, 2018). A quote that truly stood out for me in this chapter was: “A great deal of destructive leadership behavior is driven by self-centeredness, which manifests itself through pride and greed” (p. 39). As a leader striving to operationalize my leadership philosophy of, compassionate communication is the soul of a collaboratively, competent community culture, it is important for me to assess to what degree my behavior is driven by self-centeredness.
After completing this chapter, I realized that while I am a firm believer of assessing myself, I’ve never assessed the ethicality of my decision-making. Johnson (2018) provides an assessment for moral disengagement at the end of the chapter. “Moral disengagement helps account for the fact that individuals can have a clear sense of right and wrong yet engage in immoral activities” (p. 48). As a task for initial analysis, I completed the assessment. Two questions Johnson (2018) encourages leaders to ponder post-assessment are:
- What do your results reveal about your tendency to excuse your unethical behavior?
- What steps can you take to avoid this form of faulty reasoning?
While I am encouraged by my score, I wonder what steps can I truly take to lower my score. Initial thoughts include actualizing my desire to be compassionate by putting additional emphasis on my team’s feeling regarding my decisions. This will need to be an intentional effort that I constantly bring to the forefront. With my Myers-Briggs personality type of ESTJ, I need to be mindful to show others that I recognize the impact of my decisions on their life. The two questions on the assessment focusing on feelings had higher scores, meaning I was more agreeable to statement. I am excited to challenge myself to continue adjusting my leadership in becoming more authentic, transparent, ethical,and compassionate as a leader.
Reference
Johnson, C. E. (2018). Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow. (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.