While reading “Strong Ethics provide guidance”, I found that it states how important ethical leadership is. It mentions that ethical leadership is the “port” for a ship at sea. It is a safety net that people can rely on to ensure proper leadership is taking place. Without ethical guidelines, it can be rocky and the community can be unstable. Our leaders need to be there to remind us of what is good and right in times of uncertainty. 

I like how this article mentions that everyone is an ethical leader with the power to speak up. I think that can be hard to remember in tough times. In personal experience, I have dealt with leaders who lead unethically. It took me many lessons to learn that there was something I could do to defeat that. By standing up for my morals and ethical standards, I was able to solve these problems. 

Unethical leadership is something history has seen a lot of, and we will probably continue to see. I’ve researched the leadership of many businesses and have seen the negative effects of not properly leading. This often results in loss of money and customers. Recently, when researching these companies, I was reading about the Wells Fargo scandal. This is where employees signed people up for accounts without their permission because they felt pressure from their bosses to meet quotas. This is a good example of how unethical leadership leads others to do the wrong thing. If Wells Fargo led with compassion and motivation, employees may not have felt the need to lie, which would in turn cost the business their reputation and money.  As the article says, workplace cultures should empower the human spirit. 

Guest Column: “Strong ethics provide guidance,” Triangle Business Journal, Feb 17, 2017.