Reference no: EM132443427

Leading Financial Literacy in Disenfranchised Communities: An Analysis of My Leadership and Ethical Stance

• A mission statement is the hammer in every leader's toolbox. It is the foundation that leaders use to communicate their aspirations to their followers. Thus, it is imperative that emerging financial professionals acquire and commit to a mission statement as early as possible. My professional and personal mission statement is to provide financial literacy in low-income areas and to teach others how to become financially independent. Financial planning is an enabling resource that assists disenfranchised communities build retirement funds, avoid debt, and acquire assets. To ensure the success of my mission, it is necessary to contemplate how my background, values, ethical stance, and role as a leader influence my mission statement.

Gifts, Passions, and Circumstances

• My unique gifts strategically position me to carry out my mission statement. I have a passion for writing and a natural aptitude for fleshing out ideas and putting them on paper. I was homeschooled most of my life and I spent a lot of time alone growing up. This solitary lifestyle led me to occupy my spare time with reading science fiction and graphic novels. When I was 13 years old I attended a speech by novelist Steven King, who inspired me to write my own fiction and develop my passion for writing. Outside of serving as a creative outlet, writing is an important skill that will contribute to the success of my mission statement. Financial information can often be confusing and intimidating for individuals who do not have the proper training to understand it. Having exceptional writing skills can help breakdown information into manageable parts and disseminate it in a user-friendly manner. For example, if someone were interested in investing in stocks and bonds, I could write them a short, concise, and easy to read manual that will help them get started. My writing skills are an integral part of delivering my service to consumers who are in need of my assistance.

• My professional goals also help build my mission statement. I am majoring in accounting and after finishing my degree I plan to work in a public accounting firm. Public accounting entails much more than crunching numbers and balancing expense reports. An accountant is often one of the most articulate and trusted personnel in a corporation. Much like language translators, accountants translate financial information for businesses, stockholders, or potential investors who serve as the backbone of the American economy. The valuable experience gained through working as an accountant will help develop my understanding of managing and earning money. At its core, financial literacy is really the art of understanding how money works in the realm of personal financing (US Department of Treasury, 2013). Who better to advise individuals on financial matters than a formally trained accountant? Experience is a stepping-stone to acquiring the trust of communities who are looking for guidance in a very sensitive part of their lives. Money problems rip families apart and they need to know that I have all the qualifications to solve their issues. Thus, fulfilling my own professional goals is an important part of my mission statement.

Ethical Stance

• The value I stand for is freedom. The ability to pursue whatever someone perceives to make him or her happy is often taken for granted. In fact, much of the world is still deprived of freedom at its most basic level. That is a shame because it is in the state of freedom where individuals learn, grow, and experience all that life has to offer. I would never want to be limited to what I can become because of outside restrictions. However, I recognize that freedom also makes me 100 percent responsible for my failures. The silver lining is that freedom offers the choice to fail and restart and unlimited amount of times. I believe it is imperative to protect and fight for your freedom in all aspects of life.

• Freedom guides my decision making in a significant way. Typically, when I am making a decision I like to identify the problem and review the facts first. Once I am satisfied with my understanding of the problem, I start to search for alternative solutions. This stage is heavily influenced by my value of freedom. I always make sure that I find at least one alternative solution to my problem, which will essentially retain my freedom to make a choice. I do not believe in destiny. I aspire to build my life out of deliberately made decisions where I had at least one other choice to contemplate. My decision making style forces me to accept responsibility for my mistakes, come to terms with them, and ultimately become a stronger person because of them. My high regard for freedom also influences what ethical stance I subscribe to.

• The ethical system that resonates the most with me is objectivist ethics. Objectivists ethics is grounded in the belief that reality is what can be perceived with the human senses and that rational judgment are the primary means of knowing the world (Peikoff, 1993). With reason at its core, objectivist ethics advocates the idea of rational self-interest, which entails using human reason to find out what the facts are and how to best use them to promote your own self-interest (Peikoff, 1993). Principally, objectivism positions an individual's happiness and interest as the highest value in a person's life. This ethical system might seem like an unlikely fit for my mission statement, but the connections really lies in the nuance of its principles.

• My mission statement is to provide a resource for others to use and gain insight into personal finance. The resource is there to be exploited upon at the whims of the communities I would like to serve. I am really helping others help themselves. Acting as a facilitator, instead of a nanny, is the best way to help others internalize complicated concepts like financial literacy. In addition, providing this resource is in my own self-interest because I do so selfishly and for my own pleasure. I genuinely enjoy the feeling of helping others and using my skills to make a real difference in the world. In addition, I like the opportunity to build social and work-related skills that come when I help others.

• My value of freedom is a centerpiece of Objectivists Ethics. Objectivism establishes a person's right to live free from force, own property, and pursue their rational self-interest (Peikoff, 1993). For example, entrepreneurs start new companies to fulfill their own ambitions or monetary goals. In a perfect Objectivist world, the only force that could impede entrepreneurs is natural economic competition. This scenario reflects the ideal state of freedom where individual responsibility and risk interact to produce maximum human happiness. In effect, objectivist ethics views people as achievement oriented individuals who exist to accomplish great feats with their reason alone. I believe it is this part of the objectivist ideology that intrigues me so much. There is something beautiful about breaking down the limits of the human mind. I expect to apply this ethical system in my professional and personal mission statement.

• I developed this ethical stance during the Great Recession of 2008. At the time, I was a freshman in community college where I struggled to budget for books, gas, and other living expenses. Finding a job without any marketable skills was nearly impossible and the few interviews I did attend all ended in cold rejections. The closer I found myself to financial uncertainty, the more I felt helpless and unable to mend my battered morale. It was at this time that I discovered Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, and felt captivated by its characters' unrelenting determination to pursue their own aspirations. Mirroring my own precarious situation, Atlas Shrugged features a parallel world mired in a deep depression and soaring unemployment. Nonetheless, it is the protagonists' (Dagny Taggart) sharp awareness of her superior intellectual abilities that overcame these barriers at the end of the novel. I felt a small fire burn in my stomach after reading Atlas Shrugged, and instantly attempted to model myself to these characters as best I could. I did not secure a job until my sophomore year, but I do credit my discovery of objectivist ethics for helping me stay confident in my own abilities when circumstances challenged me to doubt them in a significant way.

Ethical Challenges

• Ethical challenges in my future career as an accountant are surely inevitable. Recent accounting scandals like Enron and WorldCom have made the intentional manipulation of financial information a realistic ethical obstacle in my future. The pressure to meet the expectations of investors in the stock market has pushed seemingly ethical business leaders to ask their accountants to leave out figures that might cast their business in a bad light. Omissions in accounting are a nuanced subject with a myriad of different interpretations. Generally Accepted Accounting Principals, or GAAP, states that information is material when "omitting it or misstating it could influence decisions that users make" (Kieso, Weygandt, & Warfield, 2012, p. 49). Following this guideline is difficult because it requires the professional and ethical judgment of the accountant in question. For example, suppose a manager asked an accountant to hide a small illegal bribe from their quarterly income statement. The accountant's dilemma is clear, the amount of the bribe might be quantitatively immaterial, but qualitatively significant to investors who perceive bribery as a sign of desperation. I will be committed to presenting financial presentation with honesty and integrity in my future career as an accountant.

• Another ethical challenge is succumbing to the power of greed. Accountants are compensated well for their expertise and are often promoted to the higher echelons of the corporate structure (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012). If I ever begin to monitor my bank account more than my noble goals and values than I will be acting unethically. In fact, one of the five principles of ethical leadership is serving others (Northouse, 2013, p. 431). If I am to actualize my goal of providing financial literacy, I should contemplate how to best allocate my future resources. Greedily working to earn a better living is not the best use of my resources. I must strive to act as a messenger of my vision within my organization instead of greedily consuming resources gratuitously.

• My method of handling future ethical dilemmas is two-fold. First, I will stay true to my value of freedom. If I were in a situation where I was asked to manipulate financial information, I would evaluate whether doing so will provide an equal amount of liberty for all parties involved. In this manner I am showing respect for users of financial reports, as well as for the company that employs me. Deception is a natural restriction to someone's access to vital knowledge, so in that particularly case I would refuse. In addition, I would employ the use of ethical models like the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule states that one should "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (as cited in Northouse, 2013, p. 434). Thus, if I lived in a low-income neighborhood without any resources to help me manage my money better, I would be very grateful if a generous stranger was willing to help me acquire that knowledge. Using these strategies I would not let any ethical indiscretions impede my noble goal.

Leadership Style

• My understanding of leadership theory is that it is a tool that has a direct impact on the bottom line of corporations. Understanding the different methods of organizing people to achieve a goal is an invaluable commodity in today's competitive business world. A strong leader can inspire personnel to perform above and beyond their expected performance if left to their own devices. Companies spend millions of dollars to reward their executive teams for using their leadership skills to increase profit margins, decrease variable costs, or open new revenue streams in developing economies. It is key achievements like these that constitute the difference between success and bankruptcy for a business. In short, I believe leadership theory is much more than abstract theories; it happens everyday and harbors real world implications in the business world.

• Establishing the relevancy of leadership theory is an important stepping-stone to distinguishing my personal leadership style. After taking several leadership assessments I found that my leadership style is Middle-of-the Road Management. Middle-of-the-Road Management is based on the style approach to leadership, which "focuses exclusively on what leaders do and how they act" (Northouse, 2013, p. 75). A leaders' specific behavior is then charted in the Leadership Grid, which measures a leaders' behavior through their concerns for production and concerns for people (2013, p. 81). A leader with the Middle-of-the-Road style is moderately concerned with both achieving goals and satisfying the social needs of their followers (2012, p. 79). I agree with this description of my leadership style because I do compromise in the name of progress in a group setting. For example, in a recent group project I delegated the task of creating Excel spreadsheets to one of my teammates who was dissatisfied with the "busy work" she had been assigned. I empathized with her frustration and understood that keeping my group members happy would increase their productivity in the long run. I certainly could have completed the spreadsheet at a much quicker pace, but I compromised in this respect to complete the overall project on time.

• My new awareness of my Middle-of-the-Road Management style is particularly helpful in carrying out my mission statement. At its core, financial literacy is a community service that requires a compassionate leader who genuinely cares about the financial welfare of its beneficiaries. At the same time running a complex organization of this nature calls for a leader who is able to instill financial discipline through education and individual responsibility. No one magically wakes up and becomes a financially literate person. It takes the nurturing patience and result driven behavior of the Middle-of- the-Road Management style. I am hopeful that I can further develop my leadership style and service my community to the best of my abilities.

Conclusion

• Analyzing the influences of my background, values, ethical stance, and role as a leader is imperative toward delivering financial literacy to impoverished communities. The importance of this reflection stems from the fact that it heightens my understanding of the skills and knowledge that I will need to attain for my personal and professional development. I am hopeful I will continue to remain critical of the impact of my leadership choices in my future followers.