Personal Ethics Action Plan - Essay Example

? PERSONAL ETHICS ACTION PLAN (PEAP) Personal Ethics Action Plan (PEAP What I’ve Learned About Ethics, Character, Leadership, and Service Title: Name: Semester: Section One: Cover Sheet is On First Page Section Two: Professional Mission Statement and Life Balance Goals (0.25 page) Mission Statement: I strive to be the best that I can be every day, in every way. Life Balance Goals: 1. Be organized. 2. Keep my finances in order (i.e., don’t spend more than I earn). 3. Help others when I can and try to maintain homeostasis throughout. Section Three: My Definition of Ethics, Leadership, Service, & Character (And Why They Are Appropriate (0.25 page) Ethics are moral virtues and making sure one does things correctly the first time. Leadership is taking ownership and responsibility for tasks. Service is caring and helping. Character is what builds when all these three work in cohesion. Section Four: The Most Pressing Ethical Issues for Organizations (Employee Rights & Discrimination) (3 pages) The most pressing ethical issues for organizations today are probably employee rights and discrimination, which will be examined here. Obviously, in today’s job market there are a lot of employee rights being violated and discrimination which is being conducted indiscriminately and, unfortunately, frequently throughout the average workplace. He who wakes up early will surely find his “bread,” or daily living, according to Holy Scriptures. However, it is the government relying on what Gustavo Gutierrez (1999) termed the “preferential option for the poor” to take shape is what is most frustrating. The government doesn’t seem to know what to do about unemployment, and frankly neither do politicians of either major party. It is very frustrating. The amount of good, middle-class paying jobs have significantly been reduced, and quite a number of jobs which are boosting employment statistics include many unskilled or low-skill jobs such as jobs at McDonald’s (the fast food chain), and other such forms of employment. This was just some background to demonstrate what is happening in our economy. Basically the rich are getting richer—remember the tax cuts for the top 3 or 4 percent of the wealthiest people in the U.S. who own a majority of the nation’s wealth? And obviously, the poor are getting poorer. One in seven Americans is living below the poverty line. Now, for someone to have to live below the federal poverty line, basically you have to make a certain lesser amount than what would generally be considered middle-class. Many college students have had to go back to live with their parents—in some cases, even after they have gone to grad school and maybe have gotten married…with children. Thirty million Americans are currently on some form of government TANF aid like food stamps. When the food runs out, what will people do? They might riot. Cities could become desolate, Chicago could become Detroit…it is all a domino effect just waiting to happen. The cities would become breeding grounds for violence. Basically, the fact that the average American worker has little or no say in his or her paycheck, or interest in his or her work, is severely limiting the potential of what this nation could truly do—if the Administration puts people to work, for example, in a Great Depression era-style public works program like the WPA, employing people from all walks of life. Something must be done now, as in—immediately! People need jobs and the fact that there are gaps on some peoples’ resumes are now grounds for discriminating against hiring people. Peoples’ work histories do not fit neatly into bubbles. Many people go through periods in their lives where they were perhaps living at home with their parents, and were perhaps going to school and were not employed—even if it’s just for one summer. The solution is, there are no easy solutions to employee rights and discrimination but we as a country must come together and solve these problems or they will continue to worsen. Basically, what has to happen is that someone needs to stand up in our country and make an effort to make a difference in the lives of so many people whose lives are hurting because they cannot find a full-time job, can’t find a job that pays well, and as a result cannot either be covered with health insurance through their job or through purchasing health insurance. Currently, the Affordable Care Act (or ACA) does help some people with greater need first (i.e., people with certain diagnosed illnesses), but it will not cover a majority of Americans until 2014. Some people will be more sick or maybe even dead by the time the new health insurance kicks in. Also, the Affordable Care Act takes away health insurance from the poor and gives it to the middle-class applicants—something that was not noticed until the budget for the ACA was going under some scrutiny recently. The bottom line is, we cannot continue living this way in our country—many people paycheck to paycheck, if there are paychecks to be had—and living always fearing an accident because the medical bills would put one into bankruptcy. The real truth is, there are no easy answers but we must start to figure out the answers to some of these hard questions. We have better garbage removal systems than we have a system of health care in this country, so what does that say about how we value our health? We care more about garbage than we care about taking care of ourselves—and that is just the garbage. There are so many more things we are capable of as a nation—but we’ve got to prioritize and make some things happen. Section Five: Solution for Ethics Case Study (4 pages) The solution for the case study has three different parts: the bank’s ethics; the ethics of Ben, the senior loan officer; and the ethics of Shelby, the junior loan officer. First of all, the bank, which is the second largest of Wyoming, actually wanted to change its lending policies to make sure they were more ethical. Typically, the operating heads of banks try to be more ethical only when there is some sort of crackdown. Thus, the savings and loan “boon” of the 1980’s was thus trying to be ameliorated somewhat by the fact that these banks’ heads of operations at least attempted to appear as though they were making ethical changes. However, as one shall see in this case study, that is not necessarily what kind of change that was effected within this particular branch in which the case study occurs. Since there was an increasing emphasis on ethics within this particular bank chain, this demonstrated two potential issues: 1) why a bank would have to focus on ethics; and 2) why the policies were not implemented more effectively (i.e., if this were a systemic problem, was it not addressed correctly in the first place?). Now, if a bank has to focus on ethics, that tells a person a lot about a bank in general not to mention a chain of banks. This fact alone demonstrates that there is a problem with the way decisions are made ethically in the bank, leading one to ask—as naturally it follows—if this would be a system-wide problem. If this were a systemic problem, and not just a problem with one bank—it must lead one to ask how the organization is run, who works there, what policies are, and a whole host of other nuts and bolts that go into running a business, as banks are businesses. It so follows that a bank must be run by management, which is where our attentions will be further focused in this upcoming section. This particular branch’s senior loan officer is named Ben. When Ben is told there should be an increasing emphasis on ethics within this particular bank chain, Ben points out that there should be no difference between legality and ethicalness, to paraphrase. He is basically saying that if whatever he does is legal, that it is therefore also ethical. However, following the law down to its last jot and tittle does not an ethical person make (necessarily). What is legally permissible is not necessarily ethical. For example, if a family lived in an apartment building and there was little heat in winter, but was just above the legal limit, it is still not necessarily ethical to not provide the family with more heating than what is legally permissible. This is due to the fact that ethike, the Greek word for ethics, is basically considered to be ‘moral virtue,’ in the many respects of the word. As a good senior loan officer who is at a bank chain which is trying to be more ethical, Ben should have realized that Mr. Whitton should not have been made to pay for transportation to his ranch to examine collateral, since it would have created a conflict of interests as well as a liability for the bank. The bank itself should pay. He also should not be asking Shelby to pressure customers to donate prizes for the bank’s usual prize drawing for the annual fundraiser picnic—which was definitely unethical. Although Shelby admitted that ‘being ethical’ can actually cost more money—as she sees that both Mr. Whitton and other peoples’ personal donations to the bank fundraiser picnic’s prize drawing would be helpful for the bank in a fiscal sense. However, Shelby definitely sees where these are ethical issues in terms of being ill-advised choices to make, even though Ben is her supervisor. Admittedly, Shelby needed the job badly, having $20,000 of debt from school to pay off. One could argue that, for all practical purposes, saving herself from losing the job was more important than taking care of ethical peccadilloes that could be easily solved by accepting money for various reasons deemed necessary (the funds for getting to the ranch, the drawing prizes donated, etc.). However, at this point, what Shelby must do is take stock to see if she is trying to save herself—or whether she wants to preserve her ethical standards. In a case like this, she might have strong leanings to want to do what her boss said without thinking. However, Shelby does have a mind of her own and she needs to realize that her decisions are what she has to live with for the rest of her life. The ethical actions for her to take would be to politely but indirectly tell her boss, Ben, that she will not accept the money from Mr. Whitton nor ask for donations for the annual picnic’s drawing—even if those are the ways things have always been done. She must state that, according to ethical policy, she cannot do what he has asked. She must give Ben the ultimatum to either withdraw his original requests and have the bank pay for transportation money and the drawing prize, or Shelby will report Ben to higher authority within the bank. Even though he has been with the bank for ten years, wrong is still wrong. Advice to Shelby might be to spare Ben public embarrassment by taking him aside and saying, “You know what? I can’t do what you asked, but here is what I suggest.” At that point, Shelby would show Ben a way how being ethical could actually help the bank save money instead of spend money. If she could show that being ethical actually makes money sense as well as good business sense, then Ben might be more likely persuaded at the loan officer level. Besides, Shelby is going to risk her job if she becomes a “tattletale.” Those are the particular ethics of the bank, Ben, and Shelby—which all have varying degrees of moral virtue, some more than others—which all effect the way the bank chain is run. Section Six: Summary: A Discussion of Ways This Course Has Impacted My Thinking Regarding Ethics, Character, Leadership, and Service (1.5 pages) This course has taught me many things, but especially about ethics, character, leadership, and service. Hopefully these elements will be able to guide me in the future in terms of how I plan to focus my professional goals, how I view ethics especially, and how my perspective on life in general has grown and flourished with the addition of this class in my weekly schedule. As an individual who is ethical, I strive to attain moral virtue and to encourage others to also attain their own moral virtue in whatever way they see fit—whether it be through doing charity work and/or profession of some religious beliefs or spiritual practices which do good and not harm to self and/or others. As an individual who has character, I hope that I can effectively show people that reputation is made in a day, but character lasts a lifetime. As an individual who seeks to be part of leadership, I hope that I can effectively be an example to others, even if I may not be a wonderful facilitator. As an individual in service to others, I realize the importance (now especially) of being able to reflect upon past experiences, even if it is only day by day going through my list of things to do. I then annotate what I have accomplished or have not accomplished in terms of service, and then make notes accordingly. In service to others, I have realized the value of being highly reflective, alert, and sensitive to the plight of others around me. For example, I was very moved when I saw examples of extreme service in action—such as when people for a conference joined in the tornado relief efforts for a town called “Phil Campbell, Missouri.” All of a sudden, men named Phil Campbell from around the world had a common goal. They were originally supposed to have a Phil Campbell conference, but that was canceled due to the storm damage. Amazingly, however, several people named Phil Campbell descended upon the town of Phil Campbell to help with repair work. T-shirts started being made saying “I’m with Phil,” and pretty soon the town was on the nightly NBC national news because of the story—which was truly inspiring on their Making a Difference segment. This course has taught me several elements regarding the issues of ethics, character, leadership, and service. BIBLIOGRAPHY Gutierrez, Gustavo. (1999). “The Task and Content of Liberation Theology,” translated by Judith Condor. Edited by Christopher Rowland. The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. The Holy Bible (King James/Authorized Version, as well as the New King James Version). Read More