The Essay On Ethical Decision Making And Leadership Is Crucial.

Specific (What do you specifically want to accomplish? Who needs to be included? When do you want to do this? Why have you selected this goal? Are there any limitations/conditions that impact this goal that need consideration?)

Measurable (What is the baseline measurement data for this goal (i.e. how can you show what your current ability is in terms that can be counted? How will you measure progress? How will you know if you have successfully met your goal? What systems or other input is required to measure progress/completion?)

Achievable (How is this goal to be accomplished? Do you have the skills required to achieve the goal? If not, can you obtain them? Where from? What is the motivation for this goal? Is the amount of effort required on par with what the goal will achieve?):

Relevant (How is this goal relevant to your workplace development or performance? What impact will it have on you? What impact will it have on the organization you work for or will work for? Is it aligned with your overall objectives? Is it the right time to be setting this goal? Can you justify your answer?)

Time-bound (What’s the deadline to achieve this goal? Is this realistic? What evidence do I have that it is realistic? What needs to be done in the short, medium and long term to achieve this goal?)

what you have written, and craft a new goal statement based on what the answers to the questions above have revealed

Personality Traits and Ethical Decision Making

The management of the business is the crucial task which require individual to be highly confidence and ethical towards the business. However, ethical decision making becomes the choice of current managers due to differences in their personality, moral values and culture of the business. This has huge impact on the business performance because employees need to work with integration and deliver good quality of services to large number of buyers. In this context, the current essay aims to draw critical analysis of ethical decision making and ethical leadership by referring several academic sources and relevant literature. Furthermore, personality development plan or growth plan has been prepared by getting the insight of questionnaire outcome. In this context, three questionnaire including Big Five personality instrument and emotional intelligence etc. have been used or presented for getting the deep insight about the personality traits of learner. In addition to this, detailed plan has been supported through the timeline and SWOT analysis which provides clear picture of the growth plan. This facilitates to ensure the leadership development and improve the decision making power of an individual.

Ethical decision-making is the process of taking key decisions by considering ethical moral, principles in taking decisions along with evaluating and selecting the best from various alternatives (Ford & Richardson (2013). Ethical decision-making helps the decision-maker to face the ethical dilemma and make choice in the difficult situation. In ethical decisions there is no right no wrong because everything is base on the moral values. Therefore, ethics is a necessary part of the decision-maker because on the basis of its decisions may be strong and effective.

With the help of the ethics, manager can challenge our natural boundations and partialities. Ethics and decision-making both are connected because ethics are important for a manager because with the help of it decision becomes more reliable and related to the conditions. Stressful situations can be observed and resolved with help of the ethics because it provides the basics of the values of society and then reach on the point and take the decisions by removing the ethical dilemmas (Selart & Johansen, 2011).  

On the other hand, Gillespie & Dietz (2009) stated that with the help of the ethics, leaders unethical behavior can be traced and scandals can also be removed from the business because it use the all surroundings and try to solve the consequences of the firm. However, Sonenshein (2007) argued that in modern  era, decision-maker use the less ethics while taking decisions because they use their own values and business internal code of conduct. This is not applicable for the manager to possess own beliefs instead of ethical values because it has major impact on the business success and authenticity of the decisions. It shows that ethical awareness was misunderstood by the manager to take the decisions and do not focus on the moral values of the ethics. Nonetheless, Nyberg (2007) asserted that ethical codes provide the guidelines and universal rules to the decision-maker so that stressful situation can also be handled with the help of the moral principles.

The Role of Skills in Enhancing Ethical Decision Making

Since ethics includes right and wrong aspects for the businesses as well as society which makes the company successful so it becomes important for leaders to be ethical. Therefore, it reveals that ethics is important for the manager while taking decisions because it focuses on the moral values and behaviors so that problems can be sorted out. It facilitates the effective decision-making because it removes the unethical context and dilemmas.

There are several skills including self-confidence, positivity, fruitful communication, admit the mistakes etc. which are required to enhance the ethical decision-making because these are those things which facilitates the effective decisions without any biasness (Johnson, 2017). In this context, ethical leader possess the skill of focusing on the teambuilding because all members of the team are important part of the decisions. Further, all people have equal contribution to the organization so that effective decisions can be taken by the manager.

On the other hand, Bello (2012) argued that decision-maker emphasis on the employees’ imitativeness so that they can provide the better ideas, suggestions and share their experiences regarding the problem. It will be helpful to encourage the self-confidence in the people so that decisions become more strong and authentic in nature.It reflects that for the ethical decision-making a decision-maker have the skills to take the initiative regarding all team members for the better alternatives but teambuilding is also necessary to have the better interactions with people. It may be helpful to have the decisions with ethics in the business so that an effective corporate image can be built.

Moreover, Walumbwa & et al., (2011) mentioned that ethical decision-maker must have the capability to build trustworthy relationship with employees by making them realize about their importance at workplace. Otherwise, employees in case of rude leaders with the ethical approaches feel like nervous and try to remain outside from the decision-making process. So whatever will be decided by the manager they will accept that and perform the task according to that decision. However, Piccolo & et al., (2010) argued that a decision-maker have the capability to involve in the task performance to all the members who follow him. Because ethical leadership has direct impact on the performance of the employees and it will supports the people to put extra efforts so that productivity can be increased and ethical behavior can be maintained. Therefore, it indicates that an ethical decision-maker should have the skills of trust so that employees can be engaged in all activities but he can focus on the performance of the task to increase the engagement of the all team members in the organizations.

Personality Development Plan

Personality traits always affect the ethical decision-making because it directly relates to the mental ability of an individual.  Through these personality characteristics, ethical decision-making shows that the manager is capable or not to face the ethical dilemmas or they require the further new training programs (Kiliç, Pelit & Altunöz, 2011). In this regard, Khalid et al., (2011) stated that age, gender and experiences are the personal factors of the individual that have impact on the ethical decision-making because as per the knowledge and maturity level manager can take the decisions. Further, those decisions may be effective or not because they choose the alternatives as per the ethical dilemmas. However, Trevino and Jacobs (2007) mentioned that proportional variations of the decisions are affected by the complexity of the individual characteristics. However, different personalities have different traits which affect the decisions in positive or negative manner. Similarly, Forte (2004) argued that mature manager is more capable to have the positive ethical decisions as compared to the young managers because experience increases over the times and people become more intelligent and supportive regarding decisions. Similarly, Khalid et al., (2012) suggested that age is an important factor for the ethical decision-making because younger mangers have less ethical decision-making tolerance and they remains more engaged in those activities which are profitable for the business.  It indicates that personality traits always relates to the ethical decision-making because decisions depends on the experience and maturity level which reflects the positivity and negativity in decisions. In this way, young managers are more capable to take the ethical decisions in the business for the effectiveness.

The development plan of the individual is based on the self-assessment and knowing more about him to get the exact ideas regarding the specific personality trait. In this context, three questionnaire have been filled up and the outcome of the same are critical evaluated as follows-

Big five personality (BFP)

BFP is applied for personality survey through which an individual can assess his or her own personality characteristics so as to find the scope of improvement. It consists of five factors including openness to experience, neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness. Every factor contains certain qualities which define what type of personality one is having. In this regard, learner’s percentile for first factor open-mindedness was 77 which indicates that he is open to the new experience but the moderate level of conscientiousness do not provide clear description regarding the organisation or disorganization. However, the score gained in the extraversion are higher which reflects that individual is friendly, loving and talkative. However, the agreeableness has relatively low score as 35 percentile that shows that individual find it convenient to express the irritation with others (refer figure 1). Moreover, the negative emotionality has higher score through which is reflecting the nervousness and anxious attitude of learner. However, Volkow and et. al. (2014) negative emotionality influences the managerial decision to a great extent because they tend to be nervous while taking some crucial decision. This reduces their confidence level and accordingly outcome of decision might be wrong or misleading. This reveals that some aspects have relatively good or appropriate score whereas somewhere the development of personality is needed for the development of leader. Therefore, by taking the advantages of tests the development plan can be made through which learner can make necessary improvements.

Machiavellian Personality Scale (MPS)

This test is also known as MACH-IV test wherein individual is asked to fill the questionnaire consisting 20 questions. By answering those different questions the final outcome is derived in the form of graph and numbers. On the basis of the outcome of MACH-IV test is 61 and the general outcome such as 60 or more denotes high Machs whereas those with a low score are considered as low machs (refer figure 2). At this juncture, it has been analyzed that high machs tend to focus on their own gain or personal benefit for which they can even manipulate people. However, Miller, Smart & Rechner (2015) asserted that outcome derived from might not be highly reliable as it reflects a very different personality trait of an individual. However, the clear presentation of information which covers emotional and real aspects brought those significant outcomes. Owing to this, it has been found that MPS test declared that leaner focuses more on self-benefit. Nonetheless, self-benefit cannot work everywhere as it causes loss to the individual. Owing to this, one needs to be rationale and taken decision for the well being of the organization as the whole by considering the importance of employees too.

Emotional intelligent test

The emotional intelligence test reflects that current emotions control ability of individual to work with some or manage a team. At this juncture, outcome of emotional intelligent test is 54 which is under 35-55 (refer figure 3). This seems that emotional intelligence of learner is ok as he or she has ability to work maintains good relationship with colleagues. However, there is scope of improving the working relationship because colleagues or others may find it difficult to work with learner because emotional intelligence is ok. Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee (2013) stated that emotional intelligence allow a person to take rationale decision by being practical towards a particular situations. This influences the learning ability to a great extent and support individual to be more realistic and take the effective decisions at workplace. At this juncture, Rosete & Ciarrochi (2005) provided that emotionally intelligent people know how to be calm in the difficult situation and deal with the crisis for determining the success of the business. Owing to this, scope of improvement is discovered to be more intelligent in term of emotions.

On the basis of assessment of the personality, it has been found that learner needs to work on emotional intelligence and agreeableness. In this context, below mentioned plans will be implemented for the development-

Goal 1: To increase emotional intelligence and control temper within period of 2 months

Goal 2: To improve decision making power and be more organized within period of 6 months

Table 1: Development plan for goal 1

The above-mentioned plan has been prepared on the basis of weekly activities to work on increasing the emotional intelligence of the individual. For this purpose, objectives have been set to increase the emotional intelligence by focusing on not to be nervous and taking the decisions frequently. In this context, the internal analysis is necessary to be carried out which would help in providing meaningful insight. At this juncture, questionnaire reveals that learner needs to work on emotional intelligence as he or she becomes nervous and find it easy to express irritation. For this purpose, total 8 weeks will be needed so that accordingly related activities can be scheduled. For example, SWOT analysis has been carried out in one week along with setting targets. At this juncture, it was found that learner is confident enough and possesses good communication skills but nervousness lead to poor reputation in the team. However, the opportunities related to motivation sessions and leading a team can be captured with the appropriate development. In this context, the learner will also use the novel reading practices through which flow of positive through can be maintained to reduce the nervousness and become the strong leader of the group. Meanwhile, group practices will also be organized and at the end outcome will be measured.  

Table 2: SWOT analysis

Table 3: Plan for goal 2

The second goal related to improvement in the decision making procedure and controlling the temper can be achieved by carrying out self-analysis and working on the weak areas. For this purpose, team activities such as group discussion, collective decision making and leadership related will be played so that the calmness of learner will be assessed that whether he or she can work in the group or not. For this purpose, reflection of two different situations will be provided wherein in one case will be to work as leader and another one is to work as group members. This would be helpful to get the significant feedback from group members or subordinates. This facilitates to work on the weak areas and taken the successful decisions quickly. At last new strategies will be implemented and learner will focus on decision making procedure that how her or his decisions were affected during the group activities when the situation was in anger and the one in the normal. Therefore, overall development can be ensured by working on those specific factors or weak areas. Therefore, group activities and novel reading as well as self analysis are the effective tool to accomplish the pre-defined goals in an effectual manner.

Conclusion

The essay concludes that ethical leadership support employees to be rationale and secure the image of the business in the marketplace. This is because supportive culture is prepared wherein expectations of stakeholders are considered and objectives of the business are accomplished in the successful. It can also be concluded that personality assessment is crucial through which individual can discover the scope of improvement and accordingly suitable plan for the improvement can be implemented. This would be helpful to manage the time and resources for implementation of plan. It is because personality test assessment provides the detailed information related to score and rationale behind the same. This influences learners to schedule their learning activities on the basis of specific requirement or available resources. Moreover, personality assessment test facilitate to make the leaders ethical because it provide clear picture regarding the improvement needed and what is already good there in one’s personality.  This proves to be effective in arranging necessary resources and allowing people to be rationale while taking the critical decisions related to the businesses.

References

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Ford, R. C., & Richardson, W. D. (2013). Ethical decision making: A review of the empirical literature. In Citation classics from the Journal of Business Ethics (pp. 19-44). Springer, Dordrecht.

Forte A. (2004). Business ethics: a study of the moral reasoning of selected business managers and the influence of organizational ethical climate, Journal of Business Ethics, 51(2), 167-173.

Gillespie, N. & G. Dietz: 2009, ‘Trust Repair After an Organization-Level Failure’, Academy of Management Review 34(1), 127–145.

Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. E., & McKee, A. (2013). Primal leadership: Unleashing the power of emotional intelligence. Harvard Business Press.

Johnson, C. E. (2017). Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow. Sage Publications

Khalid K., Syed Agil S.A. & Khalid K. (2011). The relationship between gender, age and academic exposure on the perception on business ethics and capitalism: A study of graduate students in malaysian universities, International Journal of Education Administration and Policy Studies, 2(3), 85- 93.

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Volkow, N. D., Wang, G. J., Telang, F., Fowler, J. S., Alexoff, D., Logan, J., ... & Tomasi, D. (2014). Decreased dopamine brain reactivity in marijuana abusers is associated with negative emotionality and addiction severity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(30), E3149-E3156.

Walumbwa, F. O., Mayer, D. M., Wang, P., Wang, H., Workman, K., & Christensen, A. L. (2011). Linking ethical leadership to employee performance: The roles of leader–member exchange, self-efficacy, and organizational identification. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115(2), 204-213.