Reference no: EM133297396

Case Study: It is a policy of not approving students with more than six absences in a semester that professor decides to approve one who had a large number of absences, even though he passed two other students with a similar number of absences in the semester. If the teacher does not pass that student, he knows he will not graduate and if he does not graduate, he will not enter the master's course in the fall. The director of a mental health institution alters the number of clients his institution served the previous year. The institution obtains State funds based on the number of clients it serves per year. The director knows that if he reported the real number of clients, the agency would get much less money for next year. A reduction in funding would mean firing staff, which would cause the agency to help even fewer clients. A supervisor allows her staff to take an hour for lunch even though company policy only allows minutes. The supervisor's philosophy is that as long as employees do their job, it doesn't affect anything that they take an hour instead of minutes. The older brother raised in a family who believes that honesty is always the best way to act, tells his younger sister that he looks great in his new dress, although he actually thinks it looks terrible.

The above examples deal with people in leadership positions. A leader is someone whom people seek and are willing to follow; he is a person capable of making others reach a goal, who is in a position from which he can guide and influence the conduct and personal and professional life of others, and he is someone of integrity. So, based on this definition, any of us can be, and has been, leader at one time or another. A teacher is a leader in his classroom; a principal is the leader of a dependency; a supervisor is in his department; and an older brother is, or should be, for his younger siblings. What the leaders of the above examples have in common is that they conform the rules to their convenience. Adjusting the rules means going against the policies, rules or rules, whether they are set by the leader (as in the case of the teacher whose policy is not to approve students with many faults) or an organization (such as the lunch break minutes policy). There are two views on this concept of "shaping the rules": one is that it is unethical and the other is that it is foolish. Those who believe that it is necessary to adjust the rules will say that all of them are made to be broken. Proponents of conforming rules say it is a moral fault that leaders do not do so in situations

Where breaking the rules, going against the rules, is right and ethical. For example in the first situation, the student missed many days in the semester because he had cancer and his treatments often affected him so much that he could not attend classes. In this case, proponents of bending the rules think that if the teacher said, "I must abide by my rules," it would be a moral fault against doing the right thing. Sometimes, they say, a leader has to shape the rules for the greater good. However, critics of leaders who shape the rules say that a norm is a norm (it is there for a reason and must be adhered to at all times). If a leader does not like the rule, he must do what is necessary to change it so that he does not have to mold it. Thus, as to the above example, these critics could say that, in their policy, the teacher must stipulate permits for students who miss classes due to a prolonged illness If it does not, then it would not be ethical for it to break its policy, no matter the reason for it. Shaping rules affects trust with others. Critics place leaders on a higher standard than other employees. As leaders are, or should be, role models, anything they do is usually accepted and copied by others. So, if a leader breaks a rule, what he says to others is that it's okay to bend the rules and break the rules.

Question 1: What do you think?

Question 2: Is there a code of ethics in your work?