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Leadership Ethics

Sorry Sorry, You did a great job. The rewrite is for another job.In many ways Scott Summers (better known as Cyclops) -- the fictional leader of the team of mutant superheroes The X-Men -- is an example of a quintessential leader. He was initially deputized as team leader as a teenager and led the team well into his 20's. During that time he dealt with a variety of rotating team members and super-villains that tested the limits of his strategic prowess as a leader, and presented a number of ethical challenges germane to leadership in general. A closer analysis of the career of Summers provides poignant illustrations about many of the six principle ethical challenges that leaders face.

Virtually all leaders have to contend with ethical issues related to information management, and Summers was no different in this respect. When the team was in Scotland battling the shape-changer Proteus, it suffered an early defeat that was so pronounced that several of the team's key members were on the verge of going into shock. Summers grasped this fact and was aware that he had a sparse few moment to act before half his team would be unable to continue against Proteus (Claremont, 2000, p. 122). He faced an ethical decision as to whether or not he should inform the team of how close they were to a mental breakdown, or merely physically engage them -- by attacking them -- and rousing their anger so that they would fight and mentally move beyond the loss to Proteus. He chose the latter course and succeeded in warding off the impending shock, but at the expense of a seemingly unprovoked attack on his closest friends -- who did not know why he did so until after he had done it due to his information management choice.

Consistency is a prime area in which leaders face ethical choices, for the simple fact that effective leadership requires mutability in dealing with people and circumstances (Johnson, 2011, p. 247). When another X-Man, Wolverine, deliberately destroyed some of the team's equipment to aid another X-Man with a psychological problem, Summers was harsh in dealing with the former. He made him spend the rest of the day repairing the equipment even though Wolverine had previously made other plans. When Summers initially attempted the same harsh verbiage and treatment of the X-Man Storm due to a lapse in her leadership while he was away, he had to revise his approach. He apologized to her and admitted that he was harsh in his reproof due to his concern for another, unrelated concern. As team leader, Summers had to decide how to discipline each of his team, which naturally produces ethical dilemmas.

A leader's prime responsibility is to his group, group members have a responsibility to the group as well as to themselves as individuals. Most leaders do not have the latter luxury. For instance, when the X-Men had mistakenly believed that Phoenix died, they all mourned her -- except for Scott, her boyfriend (Claremont, 2000, p. 311). The others all believed him harsh and insensitive for failing to lament her death. However, the X-Men were also stranded in Alaska in a pre-historic land in which there survival depended on their every move. Summers' ethical dilemma was to either give in to his personal feelings or bury them and effectively lead the team; he chose the latter.

All of the ethical dilemmas that Summers faced were related to his status as team leader. There was another situation in which Phoenix had to fight for her life against the Shi'ar Empire -- as her boyfriend, Summers would join her. He could have chosen to abuse his power by requiring the others to join the fight as well which was another ethical dilemma; instead he let them decide on their own and they all chose to join the pair.

The first normative theory identified in Chapter 8 of Johnson's manuscript is transformational leadership. The boons of this type of leadership are that it is excellent for enacting organization wide change. Moreover, it seeks to inspire people by bringing out some of the best mores in human nature, such as, "equality, liberty, justice and freedom" (Johnson, 2011, p. 255). There is a profound relationship between leaders and followers, as leaders truly believe in their cause and personally do the best to assist that cause -- such personal effort and other motivational qualities serve to inspire others. The potential detriments of this form of leadership include the fact that it is less necessary in situations in which organization wide change is not desired. Additionally, it is easy for leaders to inspire others and lead them for "immoral" (Johnson, 2011, p. 256) purposes -- one can argue that a mass murderer such as Adolph Hitler was a transformational leader.

There is some correlation between transformational leadership and servant leadership, as both prioritize the needs of followers before that of the leader. The latter theory, however, prioritizes this aspect of leadership more than the former does. Benefits of this theory include pleasing followers, and leaders engaging in an assortment of behaviors to help them become attuned with the desires of the followers such practicing active listening and sincerely attempting to procure the benefits of others before those for themselves. The only potential drawback of servant leadership is that by being so involved and hands on with the daily activities of both subordinates and customers of an organization, these type of leaders may overlook the overall focus and direction of their organization. There is the possibility that these leaders can focus too much on the micro level and not enough on the macro level of an organization.