Leadership and Ethics

Recently there has been a disastrous flood in the south of Thailand claiming lives of many and leaving thousands of people homeless.  Thousand of local people suffered from the lack of food, flooding-related disease and the lost of their loved ones.  Both private and government sectors reached out to help the victims.  However, the government did not seem to work hard and efficient enough to help the victimized in real time manners.  They were harshly criticized especially when people compared them to the Thai most popular news channel's real time and effective relief aid.  The spokesperson of the Thai Government boldly attacked that TV channels that "Let me start by saying that the news channel or media who is now in the flood-affected area is doing so just to promote their channel not for the sake of the victim and the nation as a whole. This also makes us the Government look like we did nothing." ("Government spokesperson slahes," 2011)


I was dumbstruck.  I could not believe what I read was coming from the representative of the government, the leader of the nation.  It seemed to me that they took priority in 'saving face' over the easing the pain and hardship of the fellowmen.  This speaks for some ethics and moral issues of the government.  Instead of adopting the effective approach that the TV channel used to help the victims or thanking them for helping the government as a helping hand, they felt they were being discredited and overshadowed. 


But wait...what is ethics? According to Carroll and Buchholtz (2006), ethics can be regarded as a set of moral principles or values.  It is the discipline that deals with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.  The words 'good' and 'bad' are quite vague. It depends on an individual's interpretation or an organization's interpretation.  However according to the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 250 Section 279, those who hold political positions, civil service officials, or government officer must abide by the established Code of Ethics of the Civil Service.  One of them which can be applied to this case is that those who hold political positions and government officers should "adhere to the national interest than personal interest and have no conflicts of interest" Apparently, this spokesperson was more concerned about the reputation of the government than the hardship people in the south were enduring.


Such behavior shows the lack of leadership and ethics.  No need to talk about enabling leadership, credible leadership, transactional leadership or transformational leadership.  If being positive, he clearly lacks the efficient communication skill.  It might not be the message he tried to convey to the public.  Yet such arrogant behavior and attitude conveyed by his words was repulsive and insensitive.  I cannot see leadership in this person who represents the government.


Leadership is action, not position.  I have found one relevant quote speaking the volume of this issue.

"No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it." 

              --Andrew Carnegie

Undeniably, what I can draw from this news piece is how important communication skill is.  I do not think it is necessary or a must for a leader to be a great public speaker.  As long as he articulates his thoughts, ideas and vision well, is committed to what he says or promises, and is authentic to himself, that is what matters.  Any word that is not thoroughly and thoughtfully expressed can have an adverse effect on the speaker especially if he/she is in a leadership position in time of crisis, when harmony and reassurance are needed. 

This poses a challenge for me when I go back to Thailand to work at the Department of Promotion of Ethics.  My prospect supervisor has already touched upon an issue they have been having.  They have been trying to make sure all officers both at local and national government levels are effectively communicated about codes of ethics specified in the constitution of the kingdom of Thailand.  Moreover, they are trying to come up with a way to reinforce, keep track and assess those codes of ethics among all officers.  To be honest, I do not quite have an idea yet how to do it.  i hope attending three workshops at OPM before I leave would serve as a platform for me and give me substantial information and knowledge on this field.


Last but not least, I will end this post with an excerpt in the article, Ethics and Moral Leadership: Quality Linkages by Maguad and Krone.  It is relevant to this topic and can be applied to my future job.

To sustain the quality initiative in the organisation, top management must demonstrate commitment by displaying con- sistently high ethical standards and by cultivating a high level of trust and respect from members, based not just on stated values but on their willingness to make personal sacrifices for the sake of upholding these values (Lussier & Achua, 2001).

References

Carroll, A.B., & Buchholtz, A.K. (2006). Business and society: Ethics and stakeholder management (6th ed.). Mason, Ohio: South-Western.

Government spokesperson slahes at channel 3 . (2011, April 13). Retrieved from http://www.matichon.co.th/news_detail.php?newsid=1302688487&grpid=01&catid=02

Lussier, R.N., & Achua, C.F. (2001). Leadership: Theory, application, skill development. Mason, OH: South-Western College Publishing.
Maguad, B. A., & Krone, R. M. (2009). Ethics and moral leadership: Quality linkages. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 20(2), 209-222. doi:10.1080/14783360802623043

The first impression of my future boss(es)

Surprise has never failed to ceases in my life.  Yet most of them are positive ones.  That's the good thing. One day after I had been informed of the prospect department I will be working with, I received very friendly and supportive emails from my future bosses.  I was very touched by their kind words and warm welcome.  They might have no idea how much their words mean to me and how much they affect my perspective towards my future career. It might be too soon to say that their gesture really makes me want to go back to work for them and the organization my very best. Initiating the communication and making employees feel connected to them by being casual and treating an employee as if he/she were their family member is such a great way to welcome and set a positive tone/attitude for the new employee.  I feel very motivated to go back to work with them and for the organization as a whole.


Well, the first email I got was from the Director of my department.  He welcomed me by introducing himself who he was and welcome me.  He told me to call him by his nickname.  No need to address him as Director or even Dr.   This is a huge thing for me and for Thais as Thailand is categorized as a high-power distance country, which can contribute to an authoritative leadership style.   I have witnessed this kind of leadership since I was in primary school particularly from our teachers.  


Teachers can play a role of a transformational leader since they can bring changes to an individual's life through their extensive knowledge and their if-not-better-but-broader outlook towards the world (according to their seniority and the life experience they have had compared to their students').  There is a saying that a teacher is our second parent. The teachers tend to hold on to their title and the position power they have.  According to French and Raven (1959), position power is one of the two major kinds of power.  It is the power, including legitimate, reward and coercive powers,  that a person derives from a particular office or rank in a formal organizational system.  The influence capacity derives from having higher status than the followers.  We had to obey the rules.  Disagreement or even an argument is discouraged; such manners are considered disrespectful.  Such leadership style does hinder creativity.  Unfortunately, many Thais carry this ingrained behavior through their adulthood and in workplace both as a role of a leader and a follower.  We tend not to question authorities since we have a mindset to respect those with power and authority with high regards.  


Although I might appear to be obedient and quiet, deep down there was rebellious feeling inside.  I personally felt I was coerced to obey what my teachers taught or told me.  Hence, this leadership style does not work on me and I have a tendency to stay away from a leader or an organization that encourages that kind of leadership.  Furthermore, I will not develop this kind of leadership traits and behaviors and impose on my followers or coworkers. It is the leadership that disregards emotional needs and intrinsic motivation of the followers.  Ostensibly in some situations where the crisis is heightened and an immediate decision has to be made, the authoritative leadership might be required. 


Back to my future boss.  He makes me feel he is willing to be my coach and mentor as I expressed my concern on the not-so-relevant classes I have taken.  He told me I would be fine and strongly believed in my capability.  Moreover if I have any question regarding the function, structure and objectives of the department, feel free to ask him.  His caring behavior did reassure me that my prospect organizational culture is not going to be bureaucratic and hierarchical like I had imagined. I am not very used to working in a highly bureaucratic environment.  I read some of articles about him, his works and initiatives he has implemented for the organization.  He seems to be a very visionary and charismatic leader.  So far I look up to him and feel that he has demonstrated emotional intelligence and personal power (influence capacity a leader derives from being seen by followers as likable and knowledgeable, French & Raven, 1959).  

At this point, I believe that I will learn a lot from him and I will try my very best to bring out my optimal performance for my organization.  The first thing I can do for now before I go back to my country to work is doing as much research on the ethics and morality in organizations as much as I can to understand more about this issue.  I would like to know what other organizations in other countries like the US handle this issue, how they reinforce the code of conducts and make sure the employees carry out the ethics and committed to integrities of the organization.  I have found quite a number of articles and studies on leadership and ethics and would like to share with you.  Reading is one of the means for my leadership development process.  The articles I have found so far are as follows:

• Corporate Codes of Ethics: Necessary but Not Sufficient                                                                                                                               Webley, S., & Werner, A. (2008). Corporate codes of ethics: necessary but not sufficient. Business Ethics: A European Review, 17(4), 405-415. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8608.2008.00543.x
• Effectiveness of a moral and benevolent leader: Probing the interactions of the dimensions of paternalistic leadership                                                                                                                Chun-Pai, N., An-Chih, W., & Bor-Shuian, C. (2009). Effectiveness of a moral and benevolent leader: Probing the interactions of the dimensions of paternalistic leadership. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 12(1), 32-39. doi:10.1111/j.1467-839X.2008.01267.

People and Events that have made me who I am and who I would like to become...

The upbringing, family background, my education background, work experience and people who come across in my life have shaped and molded me to who I am and the leader I aspire to become--authentic and transformational leader.  


Being the first born and only daughter of the family has significantly shaped and defined my personality and characteristics.  Undeniably I have gotten quite a lot of attention from my family members--my parents, my uncles and my grandparents as I am the only girl in the family besides my mother.  I have been raised in an extended family consisting of my grandparents, my parents, my younger brothers and my two uncles.  We used to live in the same roof when I was very young.  These days as my grand parents passed away, there is only my uncle who still lives with us.  I have been surrounded by adults who have influenced my behaviors, my attitude and the way I see the world.  We are very close with each other.  Besides my parents, especially my mother, who are very close to me, my uncles are my friends and mentors as we talk about all kinds of issues from daily life to politics.  My parents, in particular, have always been my great mentor and coach in most of major aspects of my life.  I could feel and have been told that I was mature early and before many of my friends.  It can be seen that my family can be considered male dominant as there are only my mother and I who are female.  However, patriarchy is barely in existence.  Everyone in our family listens to each other and shares the leadership.  My dad is not the one and only person in the family who has the final word.  Sometimes or most of the time it is my mother who makes a decision and my father would listen to her.  Hence the idea and the concept of authoritative or directive leadership styles are not really embedded in me.  
As mentioned above, I am the eldest child of my family, I have been raised and taught to be 'good' big sister. By the definition of 'good' big sister, my parents mean and I also interpret that I should be a giver (being willing to sacrifice for the sake of my brothers), a good student (getting good grades but not having to be a top or the 4.00 student), a mentor and coach (being able to listen to my brothers, giving them advice on everyday life, academic and career aspects) and a role model for them.  It might sound too much; however, it was not that too much as my parents did not force me to do or accomplish all those things.  They have given me the guidelines and most importantly they themselves do what they have told us or taught us to do.  My parents have younger siblings and both of them are looked up to by their siblings.  They lead me by example.

My parents always tell us that no one else would love us as much as our family and our siblings do.  My mother, in particular, has stressed the importance of being strong, persevering, independent, hard working, striving for opportunities and having positive attitude.  She herself possess those traits and personality as well since she is also the eldest child of her family.  I remember helping my parents take care of my younger brothers when they were babies.  All in all, my upbringing and family background contribute to my personal traits such as having caring behavior, which is in according with the TLP assessment score as the observers gave the highest score in this leadership behavior category for me), having nurturing personality, being confident, being compromise, and decisive when appropriate.  

The persons, who significantly and crucially shape me to who I am and I would like be and whom I look up to the most, are my parents.  It has always been hard for me when being asked who my hero is because all I can think of is my parents, who I am very close to, whom I have witnessed what they have done and whom I can relate to the most.  My father is a lawyer with high integrity.  He will not accept the job which goes against his values and integrity.  He is loved by many people because of his kindness, genuineness and thoughtfulness.  He does respect my mother a lot as well.  He does not have the final word on everything.  My father and my mother plays a role of leader in our family interchangeably.  My mother is a successful working woman who can balance both her career and family very well.  I look up to her a lot and would like to become like her.  She is an English teacher/professor.  


She is hard working, risk taking, opportunity seekers, optimistic, smart and strong.  She is a person of high integrity and ethics as well.  She is very open-minded and modern in the way that she does not hold on to the old sayings or some of Thai cultures and norms which are impractical and are not in sync with today's society.  I have seen her work since I was very young.  She is a visionary leader in her field--initiating many innovative projects, designing integrated curriculums and etc.  She is an authentic leader who is true to herself and to her followers and a transformational leader who has touched the lives of her students, intrinsically motivated them to do their best in their study, changed their lives by being their teacher, mentor and life coach and using her expertise, in-depth knowledge and extensive life experience.  I love teaching because of my mother.  I have learn teaching skills from her as well.  I am a substitute tutor at her tutoring school whenever she is engaged with something else or has an urgent issue to solve since I was in my freshman year in college.  Teaching is one of the skills I have developed over the years and I will use it as my strengths and tool as a leader.  I aspire to become a transformational leader who uses my teaching, coaching and mentoring skills which I have accumulated and developed through mentoring my brother and coaching and teaching my students.  The TLP assessment scores by the observers validated my strengths as I scored very high in credible leadership behaviors which attribute to trustworthiness, competence, dynamic and inspiring quality that the followers see from me.  However I still need to learn more about mentoring and coaching in organizational setting so that I can apply these skills to my followers or coworkers at my organization effectively.  I can enhance the said skills by reading a lot of studies and articles and take some training courses.  If it is possible, I would like be get a certification in mentoring and coaching. Being able to use my strengths to make a positive impact on a person's life is such a special feeling and blessing for me.  Just like when I see my students or whoever I teach understand more about the subject and improve both academically and personally, I will always be on a cloud nine.


My educational background during my undergraduate in English literature/humanities also influence me who I am and the leader I would like to become.  I was taught to understand people before judging them by understanding where they come from, how they were brought up, what social norms and cultural values influence them to make them act or behave in a certain way.  Coupled with courses I have taken at HRD program, the holistic view and approach to work/deal with people have been constantly and significantly emphasized and embedded in me.  I believe that this will make me an authentic leader, who has potential and capability to transform followers.


My two-year work experience at an Embassy and 6-month work experience at a world-renowned nonprofit international organization gave me opportunities to witness, experience and apply styles of leadership--transactional, transformation, situational, contingency, and authoritative leadership.  I have learned what good and bad sides and components of each leadership are and which kind of leader make me aspire to become.  The first offcial boss in my professional life was a very high ranked diplomat.  I have learned about pros and cons of his leadership style.  Most of the time he administered authoritative leadership style as the work he handled was critical in terms of diplomatic relations.  It was crucial for him to make sure that things get done successfully and flawlessly.  This leadership style hinderes him to employ other leadership traits and style which would faciliate the work process and the development of his employees better such as situational leadership, contingency leadership, path-goal theory leadership, leader-member exchange theory, and transformational leadership (Northouse, 2010).  Everyone seemed to have to accommodate and adjust to his leadership style, which in turns triggered the clash of ideas and psychological conflicts.  There was no exhange of ideas and making mistakes was a taboo.  On the other hand, I have learned a lot from my boss by double checking every task I did and being very meticulous with everything I did in order to avoid 'making mistakes'.  My performance was significantly improved; however, I will not use this approach of mindset to motivate my employees to bring out their optimal performance.  It involves some kind of coercion as well as extrinsic reward (if you do not performance well and cannot meet the expectation, you will be punished or heavily criticized).  


I have come across with this video from Harvard Business School titled "Learn From Failure"

http://www.youtube.com/user/HarvardBusiness#p/u/2/dGT7X5R1bpw

During the Leadership course in this semester, I have come to realization that I unknowingly applied situational leadership style, contingency leadership, and transformational leadership.  My main task revolved around coordinating, managing, organizing and dealing with many different people of different backgrounds.  I needed to adapt my leadership once I had known what work orientation of my subordinates was, what their work style was and how much direction they needed from me in order to execute the assigned tasks.  Some of them needs both direction and support in order to accomplish the task.  I found myself enjoying teaching, giving direction and mentoring my coworkers and subordinates. It was challenging for me to observe and assess each of my coworkers how they work and what their strengths and weaknesses are so that I could help them improve and get the tasks done successfully for the organization as a whole.  Some of my coworkers were not proficient in English language which was the primary language used at the Embassy.  Thus not having English proficiency hindered their performance.  As I have my bachelor degree in English literature and am a private English tutor, I utilize my teaching skills to teach my workers English.  I also learned a lot from them since some of them were very senior than me and have more work experience in the Embassy more than I did.  When I resigned from my job there, many of my coworkers told me they enjoyed working with me and they learned a lot from me.  With that being said, I am determined to apply and adapt my teaching skills to coaching and mentoring.  I would like to make coaching and mentoring as my strengths in leadership. They will serve as methods to lead and ultimately develop the followers or people around me to the optimal. 


Working at the internationally recognized non-profit organization was a different story for me.  My supervisor gave me a lot of autonomy, which makes me believe he trusted me and believed in my capabilities.  This intrinsically motivated me to do my very best in order to live up to my supervisor's expectation and to bring out the best performance for the organization.  He could notice that I was very uptight and stressed as I was very afraid of making mistakes.  He reassured me by telling me it was acceptable to make mistakes.  I felt very fortunate to have experienced different leadership styles and to be led and to lead.  


All in all,  at this point and with all life experiences, I aspire to become an authentic and transformational leader to touch upon other people's lives and make a positive impact on them. I do not mean I would play a role of a leader only at my workplace, but in my everyday life as well.  I strongly believe that my upbringing, educational background, unique life and work experiences contribute to my authentic personality, traits, perspective and ultimately leadership style.   In order to achieve the goal, I need to develop certain skills and traits I lack and enhance my strengths to its optimal.  Continuously striving to learn and seeking, creating and using opportunities to its optimal will serve as means for my personal leadership development.  I strongly believe in the power of reading.  I need to read more to enhance and broaden my knowledge about leadership and other relevant issues.  However reading alone is not enough.  I have to create and take advatage of opportunities to exercise my leadership and apply the knowledge I gain in real life to see whether how practical and useful it is and to see what I can do better.  Keep a journal reflecting what I experience and how I feel on daily basis can also serve as a way to learn more about myself.  I will also seek feedback both in verbal and written manners from my coworkers and supervisor when appropriate.  Attending seminars and taking relevant certificate courses will enhance the existing knowledg I have gained from taking the Leadership course at GWU and to give me real time knowledge/tool to apply on my job. I have found a quote which speaks my mind and the type of leader I would like to become

Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing.

~Mary D. Poole

The challenges I might face and surface during my leadership development process can be from external and internal forces--overwhelming workload and people who I will work with.  I might be discouraged by the overwhelming workload I will have in the future.  Moreover the people I will deal with might change my desired leadership style.  I might become less caring and more authoritative. 


According to the TLP score, the seven observers who are my friends, my former coworkers and my former supervisors gave me the highest score in caring leadership behavior (70.38), credible leadership behavior (54.13), leadership communication behavior (32.12), and enabling leadership behavior (31.91).  Clearly I need to work on how to engage people in the work process and seek more opportunities to demonstrate and emerge as a leader.  Sometimes I am not confident with my capability such as when making decision or I initiating a new project.  I need to build up my confidence by continuously being engaged in learning both self-directed learning (reading more books about human resources, training development, learning and leadership) and instruction-led learning (attending seminars and trainings).  I can understand why I received the lowest score in this category as in my previous work experience, I did not have a formal role of leader and did not have much autonomy. 


In transformational leadership characteristic section of the TLP assessment, I received the highest score in confident leadership (48.67), follower centered leadership (39.70), culture building leadership (37.96), and visionary leadership (33.83).  I believe the follower centered leadership is an attribute to my caring leadership behavior.  I always put myself in others' shoes.  The visionary leadership characteristics is my most concerned characteristics.  My strategic thinking skill has not yet been developed to its fullest due to the lack of work experience and my tenure in my professional career.  However, I am confident that when I go back to Thailand and work for the Thai government, I will be given opportunity to lead some critical projects and that experience will certainly serve as a stepping stone for me.  I am looking forward to that.  In order to improve my strategic thinking, I will apply the "Zooming In Zooming Out" strategy coined by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School professor.  It is about how to look at a problem or a situation is a big picture (zooming out) or in detail (zooming in).  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saNj6B0Vasw

I cannot wait to go back and embark on my new life journey.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
~Henry Kissinger

References

Northouse, P. (2010).  Leadership: Theory and practice (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

A surprise from my prospect employer...

I would like to start off this first blog in my life with the new chapter of my life as a designated Thai Government Officer.  It's going to be the third career I have had.  I am very excited and looking forward to embrace this new journey!


A couple days ago I was informed by my future employer of where I would be posted once I go back to Thailand this June.  Honestly I was very surprised not so much in a positive way.  It was more like a shock; the department I have been assigned to never crossed my mind and was not of my interest.  I am more interested in training, performance management, talent development and performance assessment. It is the department of promotion of ethics.  This is just life! Expect the unexpected!  Who knows I might like it and it might be the right place and job for me.  With that being said, being optimistic and willing to embrace new experiences/opportunities is one of my strengths which I believe are one of important attributes of a leader especially when the time a change takes place. 


Another surprise I got was that my department would like me to attend a workshop at OPM before I go back home.  This is a great surprise for me! Learning is my passion.  I always strive for learning opportunities either self-directed learning or instructor-led learning ones. The workshops I will be attending are Introduction to Conflicts of Interest, Elements of a Complete Ethics Program, and Ensuring Consistent Advice and Counsel. I am really looking forward to exploring this field of HR.  I hope by the time I leave US, I would have been well equipped with the right knowledge and necessary tools to be used or applied in my job.  


My main task is to make sure that ethic codes of conducts are efficiently and effectively communicated and reinforced so that all employees both at national and local levels understand and commit to the defined moral principles and ethics.  


This is going to be a challenge for me to embrace this new career path as it is in the field that I barely have direct experiences in.  However I believe in myself that if I stay positive, work hard and am willing to take risk and to learn, I can execute this job well. 


The leadership style that hit me once I was informed that I would be working in the department is transformational leadership as (hopefully) the training or mechanism that I will design and reinforce will have an impact both on personal level (changing the behavior and attitude of employees) and organizational level.  I am excited and looking forward to adopting and adapting theories and applications I have learned from the leadership class to my real work.  It's going to be a challenge as my future organization's structure is considered bureaucratic and the organization values are heavily influenced by the culture and norms of the country which can be both hindering and enhancing forces.  I would like to see how applicable and effective the theories and applications which were developed by the westerners can be when being applied in a significantly different work setting.


I will end this post with the official name of the department I will be working for both in Thai and English language!