CMRJ308

reply to this 150 words 

Ethical theories are not relevant for ethical leadership. Reviewing all of the theories of ethics within “Are ethical theories relevant for ethical leadership? Leadership & Organization Development Journal” I found that while I enjoyed thinking about the different theories of ethics that they were kind of restrictive (Dion, 2012). A long time ago I when studying ethics I came to a similar conclusion, I thought I could consider myself utilitarian but then I started to realise it was unfair to some. Then I thought maybe I could be a relativist but that seemed too selfish. So the conclusion again that i came too was that these theories are not good models to follow strictly. For me and I suspect there might be different feelings about this, Class feel free to debate, is that good morality will ebb and flow through different ethical theories for different situations. As far as being an ethical leader goes, it depends on the reason for why you are a leader. If you are a leader of crooks your ethics will be different from a leader of police officers. So for someone to be a leader of a group what is important is having their specific code of ethics laid out clearly. Once you know your left and right limits can you determine your leadership style best for your mission and subordinates. To which again I say there is no best one, only that a leader should use a style that best accentuates themselves and know all the styles to focus improving the ones they are weak at because at the end of the day a leader leads people and not all people respond the same to the same styles. 
In the case of “a police officer witnessing the unethical behavior of another officer how should they act?” My best answer is; It depends. From the previous lesson, deontologically I suppose the correct answer would be to prosecute this person the fullest and see them hang metaphorically speaking. Maybe that is the correct answer, and for some extreme cases I might be inclined to agree. However in a situation like this if it were me I would have to assess the variables and determine the severity of the situation based on as many variables I can think of. If I see someone accept a free coffee from the same place repeatedly and that officer then patrols that position more often I might tell that officer that he is accepting gifts in return for favors if he didn’t know already. Thinking about this, this might be more serious a scenario than I had intended but only if this unethical behavior persists after this point would I escalate the repercussion as there really was no harm done. Conversely if an officer came across another officer beating an unarmed suspect well beyond subduing despite typically thinking the appearance of a unified authority among peers i would hope that officer would literally dive in to intervene. Officers have an obligation to set the standard but like most people I think officer discretion can be used to set a situation correct before it turns into severe consequences. 
Dion, M. (2012). Are ethical theories relevant for ethical leadership? Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 33(1), 4–24. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437731211193098