{"id":710,"date":"2018-12-20T10:46:57","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T18:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/insightsofakahuna\/?p=710"},"modified":"2018-12-20T10:46:58","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T18:46:58","slug":"diversifying-ethical-perspectives-through-transformational-servant-leadership-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/insightsofakahuna\/2018\/12\/20\/diversifying-ethical-perspectives-through-transformational-servant-leadership-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversifying ethical perspectives through Transformational Servant Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How can you personally do your part to understand the ethical choices before you? What potential biases or blind spots might you have for not recognizing when ethical choices are before you and\/or how might you avoid choices? In your leadership, how can you exhibit transformational servant leadership in helping others recognize and make ethical choices?\u00a0(Be specific and creative in your response).<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

* Technically blind spots are not known to oneself. The nature of the unconscious is that it cannot be accessed (otherwise it would be sub-conscious or conscious). With that being said, there are ways that we can set ourselves up to be in a position that would encourage certain things in our unconscious to move into our sub-conscious, which could then occasionally be accessed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Website on\u00a0blindspots:<\/strong>
http:\/\/www.businessballs.com\/johariwindowmodel.htm<\/a>\u00a0(i.e. dilemma) that are in front of us.<\/p>(Mays, 2018)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A basic description of a transformational servant leader (TSL) is one who focuses on developing followers to their full potential to be transformational servant leaders themselves, both within the context of their group as well as in their personal lives within their communities (Imbenzi, Williaume, & Page, 2013, p. 7). One key aspect of transformational servant is the ability to understand and make ethical choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making ethical choices however, can be an extremely complicated matter depending on the complexity of the situation. Philosophers are still engaging in a centuries old debate about a framework of universally agreed on truths. To begin the process of helping others improve (or personally improving) their ethical decision-making ability, it helps to understand and self-reflect on which perspective you align your personal beliefs with most. Educating others or yourself on key ethical perspectives allows you to develop your own personal philosophy and make better ethical decisions. Johnson (2018, pp. 281-288) outlines several ethical perspectives that one could align their personal philosophy with to make consistent ethical choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first is\u00a0utilitarianism\u00a0<\/strong>which Johnson (2018, pp. 270-272) describes as a process of making choices that will benefit the most amount of people (or harm the least amount of people). Utilitarian choices are made by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Identifying the action or issues present in the context of the situation<\/li>
  2. Specifying those who might be affected by the action (eg the organization, the local community, a professional group etc), not just those immediately involved in the situation.<\/li>
  3. Determining the likely consequences, whether good and bad, for those affected.<\/li>
  4. Adding up the good and the bad consequences. If the benefits outweigh the cost, then the action is morally right. (Johnson, 2018, pp. 270-272)<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Another ethical approach is known as\u00a0deontological ethics<\/strong>\u00a0which basically outline that you should always make ethical choices based on your ethical values and what you view as morally right despite, or independent of, the situation. European philosopher, Immanuel Kant summarized this perspective best with the sentence: \u201cdo right, no matter what the cost\u201d (as cited in Johnson, 2018, pp. 275-277).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    One last perspective I will highlight out of many is\u00a0pragmatism<\/strong>\u00a0which is the view that we should approach and solve ethical dilemmas through the method of scientific inquiry. John Dewey, a proponent of pragmatism, argued that to solve ethical dilemmas, we would need to develop a hypothesis for the solution of the problem, test our hypothesis (often through moral imagination as we can\u2019t always scientifically test these hypotheses), and be open to other viewpoints since our knowledge is limited (Johnson, 2018, pp. 283-286).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For those unfamiliar with these perspectives, transformational servant leaders must do their part to educate followers about different ethical perspectives and then encourage reflection to determine which perspective aligns best with their personal philosophy. Each perspective have their own strengths and weaknesses and may also complement or disagree with each other. However, the strength of TSL helping followers discover what ethical perspective they personally align with can benefit the group. If followers understand more about themselves, it illuminates what Johari describes as our \u2018unknown area\u2019 and further helps followers reach Maslow\u2019s highest need of self-actualization (Businessballs, n.d.). Along with this, groups who are more well-rounded with diversely thinking followers can help the overall group identify blind spots in their ethical decision making. Groups with members that exemplify a diverse range of perspectives have the ability to make better decisions, especially when these decisions affect a large number of people. A transformational servant leaders\u2019 role in this context is to foster the development of their followers\u2019 personal philosophies, accept differences within the group as a means to diversify perspectives, and then coordinate the group to reach the best overall decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\nBusinessBalls. (n.d.). Johari Window Model and Free Diagrams [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https:\/\/www.businessballs.com\/self-awareness\/johari-window-model-and-free-diagrams-68\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Imbenzi, G., Williaume, D. & Page, D. (2013).\u00a0Transformational servant leadership. Unpublished manuscript, Master of Arts in Leadership. Trinity Western University: Langley, Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Johnson, C. E. (2018).\u00a0Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow\u00a0[E-Book]. Los Angeles: Sage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Mays, A. (2018). DQ 7.3: Art of Choosing. [Blog Post]. Retrieved from\u00a0https:\/\/learn.twu.ca\/mod\/forum\/view.php?id=105608<\/p>\n\n\n\n


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    How can you personally do your part to understand the ethical choices before you? What potential biases or blind spots might you have for not recognizing when ethical choices are before you and\/or how might you avoid choices? In your leadership, how can you exhibit transformational servant leadership in helping others recognize and make ethical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":889,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ldrs500","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/insightsofakahuna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/insightsofakahuna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/insightsofakahuna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/insightsofakahuna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/889"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/insightsofakahuna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/insightsofakahuna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":714,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/insightsofakahuna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710\/revisions\/714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/insightsofakahuna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/insightsofakahuna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/insightsofakahuna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}