Reading the article “Moral Person and Moral Manager: How Executives Develop a Reputation for Ethical Leadership” by Trevino, Hartman and Brown, I noticed that many of the characteristics of leaders that my team has been discussing can be seen through balancing both managing and personal values. Being a moral person focuses on showing honesty, fairness, sincerity, and integrity through everyday actions. Being a moral manger focuses on promoting ethics through setting standards, rewarding ethical conduct, and holding others accountable (Trevino et al. 128).

I can compare and connect this article to what we have been discussing with our Hot Topic Headline of the week about AI and the environment. I think that when it comes to such a prominent issue in the world today, individual values are strongly associated with how we portray certain environmental impacts. The article talks about how much resource depletion is occurring through developing new AI models and working to improve older models. The difference between just having moral people working with these technological software innovations and having moral managers is that the managers are able establish consequences and guidelines for proper and misuse of creating new artificial intelligence models.

In my personal life I also use these methods because while oftentimes I act with my own morals, in a classroom setting I have to follow certain protocols that my professors set up for me regarding ethical AI use, respecting others opinions, and actively participating in class.

Trevino, Linda Klebe, Laura Pincus Hartman, and Michael Brown. “Moral Person, Moral Manager: How Executives Develop a Reputation for Ethical Leadership.” California Management Review, vol. 42, no. 4, Summer 2000, pp. 128–142

After reading the article “The Role of Values in Leadership: How Leaders’ Values Shape Value Creation”, I noticed the similarities between this article and one that I had to read for my Critical and Creative Decision Making Models class this week. This article argues that leaders’ values act as lenses that help them to interpret challenges in creative and critical decision making. The article “Measuring What Matters Assessing Creativity, Critical Thinking, and the Design Process” talks about how testing does not measure the ability to be a leader and that it is more important to see the design process and thinking that got the person to the answer or choice they selected. I can connect these articles because they both reflect on the process and values that go into making someone a leader as opposed to just evaluating a test score or decision.

I can also connect this article to my personal life because as a marketing student I spend a lot of time working with many different types of people. For example in my brand promotion class, my team is tasked with creating a brand positioning map and creative brief that will lead us into our final presentation. This will allow us to put our different values and strategies together to show our professor the way we got to our final production.

Lichtenstein, Scott. The Role of Values in Leadership: How Leaders’ Values Shape Value Creation. Integral Leadership Review, 2012

Shively, Kate, Krista M. Stith, and Lisa DaVia Rubenstein. “Measuring What Matters: Assessing Creativity, Critical Thinking, and the Design Process.” Gifted Child Today, vol. 42, no. 1, 2019, pp. 37–47

The article “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making” discusses using the six ethical lens called rights, justice, utilitarian, common goods, virtue, and care. These approaches set the ethical framework on making decisions that impact your life while using empathy for those around you. One thing I have learned as a marketing major is that you have to use these approaches when creating campaigns to use persuasion as opposed to manipulation. This brings me to an in class discussion on whether or not marketing unhealthy foods to children on their television channels is unethical. This exercise in class raised many questions and I came to the conclusion that while it can be “wrong” at the end of the day it is up to parents on whether or not they want to let their young children consume unhealthy fats and sugars. This can be applied in so many real life situations for marketers because you want to get people to purchase what you are selling but don’t want to cross lines.

In another leadership class, I read an article called “Teaching for Critical Thinking: Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats” which I found to be similar to this reading. This stuck out to me because there are six different “hats” that you would wear for different types of thinking. For example, you would wear a black hat when you are using cautious thinking which I think pairs best with the utilitarian approach because it values doing the least harm possible. All of these approaches and hats can work together to bring leaders to conclusions that provide positive outcomes while using creative and critical ways of thinking to solve problems.

Velasquez, Manuel, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer. “Thinking Ethically.” Issues in Ethics, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University, 1 Jan. 2010

After reading the article “Thinking Ethically”, I realized that I can resonate with the ethical questions that arise when making difficult decisions. At my job working at my family’s funeral home over the summer I oftentimes had to make the decision on whether or not to spend more time talking and comforting people grieving while also ensuring I completed all of the tasks I was given to make sure things run smoothly behind the scenes. I feel like I oftentimes used the Virtue Approach because it values compassion, integrity, fairness, and other characteristics that I apply to the work place.

This article reminds me of a book I had to read called How Good People Make Tough Choices by Rushworth Kidder. This book outlines the “right vs. right” decision making process in which there is no wrong way to go in a dilemma just a better choice for you that aligns with personal values. When making an important decision, I think looking at all outcomes and taking the time to evaluate each step leads to more ethically driven frameworks.

Lastly, I think that this article is very much connected to current events in the world such as the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I think ethics really come into play when there is such a division surrounding a devastating tragedy. It goes to show that not everyone has morals nor do they think ethically when making a choice to hurt another person. I think that better decision making processes could help avoid people making rational decisions to do something so horrible.

Velasquez, Manuel, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer. “Thinking Ethically.” Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University.

In todays world, teamwork is a central concept that is applied in various different fields such as universities and businesses. Bruce Tuckman’s model of group development provides valuable insights for evolving teams through five important stages for team growth. These stages include forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Bonebright, 2010). This simplistic model helps groups to introduce ideas, work through conflicting ideas, come to a consensus, implement ideas, and then reflect on the process. Working through these steps helps to make the teamwork process run smoothly and hear each team member’s point of view.

As a college student, I have unknowingly used this model before but now that I have read more about the process, I will be able to better use each step for my own enrichment as well as to show my peers in other courses that have maybe never heard of Tuckman’s model. Finding effective teamwork strategies can be a challenge, especially in online courses. Making sure that everyone participates and respects each other is a key part of producing efficient work and walking away with new knowledge. In one of my other classes, my team and I were asked to do an assignment where we were given seven different candidates and we had to rank them on how “worthy” they were for getting a heart transplant. Having read this article previous to doing that assignment would have helped my team with cohesion since we had very differing opinions. I think that using each step is important to avoid conflicting ideas that could weaken your team and lead to disagreements. Although everyone may never fully agree, being able to respectfully come to common ground is crucial to effective team decision making.

Bonebright, D. A. (2010). 40 years of storming: A historical review of Tuckman’s model of small group development. Human Resource Development International, 13(1), 111–120

When reading the article “How to link personal values with team values”, I was able to gain a deeper understanding about how organizations can connect employees’ personal values with team values in order to create a strong, high performing work environment. The article discusses several big companies and how they instill team values into employees for maximum productivity. For example, Nordstrom uses many strategic tactics with employees in order to meet their one true goal which is to satisfy customers. Employees apply their individual values to their work which allows many different perspectives to be incorporated into one space where colleagues are able to learn new tips from each other (Jaffe & Scott, p. 4).

The article puts a strong emphasis on taking your individual beliefs and sharing them with your team in order to create a group of central values that everyone believes are a key part of teamwork. Having diverse ideas can help to reach a larger audience and see things that you may not have noticed working solo. This article has helped me to gain more insight on how I can apply my own values with those of my team so that we can collaborate to share innovative ideas with our whole class. The article discusses the core values, Integrity, competence, teamwork, communication, autonomy, creativity, and personal growth which I believe are all components that make a strong team with ethical practices. My team, the Yellow Company, strongly values integrity and communication as we analyze complex scenarios and make important decisions together.

Jaffe, D. T., & Scott, C. D. (1998, March). How to link personal values with team values. Training & Development, 52(3), 24–30

The article “Why Ethical People Make Unethical Choices” by Ron Carucci explains how good people can be influenced to make poor choices in negative and unethical workplace settings. I have had both positive experiences with coworkers and been in toxic work environments that cause chaos and resentment between employees and employers.

One of the main reasons for these instances of misconduct is lack of responsibility from leaders in a position of power. When you are a leader you must set a positive example for your peers or they will follow negative patterns. In the text there is an example of a “white lie” that seemed like no big deal to tell at the time, but lead to repercussions associated with dishonesty. The example explains that telling the entire truth could prevent the company from getting the wanted outcome so full transparency was not provided. This unethical choice from a leader could cause followers to think that it is fine to bend rules and act in a way that hides important pieces of information from consumers. It is extremely important for everyone involved to recognize these negative behaviors in order to promote sustainability.

The main takeaway I gathered from this article is that in order to be a good leader you must make the right choice even if it doesn’t seem like the best choice. In order to grow you must take responsibility for your actions and lead with integrity. When making any decision, especially one in a workplace, I will make sure to think back about the key reasons that good people are tempted to make poor choices.

Carucci, R. (2016, December 16). Why ethical people make unethical choices. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/12/why-ethical-people-make-unethical-choices