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An Ethical Dilemma: As told from the Perspective of a 12 year old
Katie Strait
E11045496
An Ethical Dilemma: As told from the Perspective of a 12 year old
Ethical leadership is a funny thing to figure. In some cases, ethical leadership is explicit and straightforward. It is crystal clear what a person should do in that particular situation. Other times Ethical leadership appears muddled and murky, lost behind society’s expectations and norms, pressures to perform within a corporation, pressures from superior authorities or from fellow coworkers. Perhaps Ethical leadership is maybe even obscured behind that individual’s egoistic goals and viewpoints they themselves view as absolute necessities to their own well-being. Perhaps the values no longer exist in the well-being of the company, but rather rest in the wellbeing of the individuals that make up the company. Things such as trust, loyalty, and integrity simply no longer exist within a company. Perhaps ethical leadership programs and codes of ethics are established and incorporated only as a means of show. A simple way to get the media off corporations’ backs. As I was thinking about the topic of this essay and how ethical leadership has been prevalent my own life I realized that all of these situations are ethically judged upon an internal scale regardless of any authority a person might hold. Even you now are grading me based on an internal ethical base that you feel I either do or do not grasp in comparison with the other essays in this competition. Regardless of anything I might do or not do I am judged on how well I grasp the concept of ethical leadership based on what you think about what I say. If someone else were to be scoring this competition they would most likely have different opinions than you on whether or not an essay is considered to be held in high or low esteem. Moreover, there is not a single solitary standard that people use to judge ethics that is the same for every single person. One person might say a decision is ethically sound while another would say that the same decision is ethically unacceptable. Ethics is something that is not static. It changes as society changes. It changes as the norms and expectations change. It changes in regard to the particular person who is making that particular decision within a corporation at that particular time. In summary ethics is dynamic and brings into play numerous values, norms, morals that dramatically affect that person’s decision within the corporation.
My story starts out on the soccer field. For the majority of my life I’ve slept, ate and breathed soccer. It was my goal to play in college and as such I spent a large amount of my time show casing myself to college coaches and getting better. This story happened around the time I was about 12 or 13. As a 12 year old I really had no idea that what I was facing was even considered to be an ethical dilemma I didn’t even know what the word ethics meant. But looking back, I realize how much this situation affected me as an individual and my ethical decision making even at 12 years old. It was a situation that would forever change how I was viewed not only as an individual and as a player by my peers, but also in the eyes of my coaches and mentors who had helped me become the player that I was at that time.
Honestly, I really don’t remember the score or who we played or even anything that really happened in that game. I have no memories of anything that anyone did that was spectacular or anything special that happened other than we won. And apparently it had been a big deal because the only thing I remember was that we had won against a team that we all really hated. That’s the only thing I remember. At the end of the game, I remember the coaches brought us together and told us how good we had all played. And then I remember someone suggesting that we do the chant. Now, this wasn’t the first time we had done the chant. We had done it to several other teams before and I remember feeling very uncomfortable each time that we did it but I had just played along so as not to make a ripple in the pond. Each time we did the chant I felt an extreme amount of bone crushing pressure by the rest of my peers to just go along, to not make any sort of scene. At that age, the most important thing is fitting in and doing whatever it takes for people to view you as cool or at least it had been for me. But each time that I continued to degrade other teams and rub their face into losing a game I felt extremely guilty about my participation afterwards. The chant not only downplayed and degraded other teams but it sometimes specifically picked out specific races and details of other players depending on the game and the players that were available to make fun of. Not only did this coincide with my own personal moral beliefs about how I should treat other individuals, but it also raised the ethical dilemma of was this ok for me to just go along with all the rest of the kids even though I felt bad about it and it really made me extremely uncomfortable? Was I ok with just going with the flow? Or was I willing to have the courage to step up and be a leader and do something about the issue? I don’t know about anyone else’s experiences but when you are 12 years old what your peers think about you is really a big deal. It was scary to even think about standing up to the rest of the team when obviously nobody else had any problems with rubbing the other teams’ face into losing just a little bit. Anyways, that day I tried to buy time and make lame excuses like I needed a drink or I needed to get something in my bag. I remember bending down to indiscreetly tie my shoe hoping that they would just get tired of waiting and do it without me. But they didn’t. Finally I ran out of excuses after claiming to have a headache and of having to take of my shin guards and cleats because my feet hurt. Still waiting, they told me to hurry up and that I wasn’t getting out of it. With my voice shaking and my hands clinched into balls at my side, I shrugged my soccer bag onto my shoulders and said “I’m not going to do this anymore” and started walking toward the parking lot. Before I could get more than one or two steps away the coach grabbed me and pulled me into the circle. “Oh yes you are, you’re a part of this team aren’t you?” I remember him saying. Once he let go I broke through the circle. Refusing to take part in something I didn’t feel good about I did the only thing I knew to do. I ran. Tears streaming down my face, I ran over to my parents who had seen everything that had happened. Needless to say my dad walked over to the coach afterward and told him if he ever tried to make me do something that I was uncomfortable doing again that would be the last day I ever played for him. After that the chant was no longer incorporated into any of our victory celebrations again. Later several other girls admitted to me that they had been uncomfortable with it too but had been too scared to say anything about it.
That day, I learned one of the most important lessons of my life. Looking back, I see how it ties into ethics and ethical leadership. Even though I was scared stiff I did what I felt was right and stood up for what I believed in even though at the time I didn’t really even know what ethics and morals were. As a result, my actions had dramatic consequences that impacted my team. Ethical leadership doesn’t just start with CEO’s managers and high up officials. It only takes one person to start a revolution and in the case of establishing ethical leadership authority has no effect on the impact that any single individual (no matter how low or high up in the corporation) can have on the rest of the business and for that matter on the rest of the world. The influence any person has in a corporation is substantial and can be used as a detriment or as a benefit to that corporation if only given the chance. So the only question is simply will you have the courage to stand up and do what you know is ethically right as an individual? Or will you crumble and coincide with what is expected of you by your superiors and coworkers? The choice cannot be made for you, it is solely up to you.