Ethics

Reflect on the three key lessons you take away from the course. Reflect on your perceived value of this course.

            Ethics, it has its values in our personal lives, our work, and in society. Many people have told me in the past that they find it interesting and extremely useful that I am taking an ethics class. They find it useful because most people, at some point in their lives have come across a leader who is severely lacking common ethics or a leader with low or no morals at all. How can we get rid of these types of leaders if they receive no training, nor are they aware of their behavior and what they are doing wrong?

            This ethics class has given me an insight on what I find valuable in ethics and I know that I can take many lessons away from this course which I will put into practice as I climb the ladder within my organization. One lesson which I will take from this course, is that I will make sure that I create my own “golden rule”. For Tesch (n.d), his golden rule was that we shall “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. This is a great rule for one to go by but I believe that eventually I will have my own golden rule to create, this will give me clear guidelines which I will not break under no circumstances. I believe that everyone has a line which they will not cross, a way for me to commit to this goal is by clearly creating a line which I cannot and will not cross in the business world, or in my personal life. Perhaps having a golden rule is the essence of ethics, we all have to have boundaries which we know that we cannot cross to have strong ethics and good morals.

            Another lesson which I will take with me from this class goes outside of the business realm, the ethics lesson which I will take with me deals with world hunger. Because we live in such a bountiful country with so much to offer, we tend to forget about the rest of the world. The sad truth is that “relative to the rich in our society we may be financially strapped. But relative to most of the world, we are awash with money” (La Folette, 2007, pg. 237). Over the course of this class, I have realized that I need to start sharing my good fortune rather than continue to spend without thinking of those families that are starving in some of the third world countries in this world. World hunger is a large ethical dilemma and I believe that even though it is not my fault that these families are in these positions, it is still an ethical dilemma for me to consider helping out.

            The last lesson which I will talk about that has affected me from this class is that I have realized that I will be held to a higher standard than most. Due to the fact that once I have competed the MSLD program here in a few months, I will have the knowledge, the abilities, age, education, and time which an outstanding leader is supposed to have. Based on all of these different factors, I know that my moral expectations are much higher than the typical person. Although I understand that for most morality is not terribly demanding, after the training that I have gone through, I can no longer live by those standards. I have to be aware of my surroundings and what my obligations are if I am to live a fulfilled life. Moral obligations are important to people that will be successful in business and in life, it is up to me to maintain a high standard of ethics. Through my training this semester, I know that I have learned some key lessons in the world of ethics. It is up to me alone to assure that I stay true to myself and what I have learned over the last nine weeks.    

References:

Tesch, P. C. (n.d.). Making ethical decisions: The six pillars of character. Retrieved from Josephson Institute website: http://josephsoninstitute.org/MED/MED-2sixpillars.html

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