Moon is an ambitious, well-intentioned lady who describes herself as a servant leader with a mission to help both her colleagues and clients develop to their full capacity. In the past year, she left her previous job where she held a mid-level management position in a non-profit organization, for a lesser role as a support worker with \u2018Higher Hope for Humanity,\u2019 another non-profit. She left because of her admiration for Higher Hope for Humanity\u2019s success in upholding their mission: To provide housing and access to post-secondary education for immigrant, low-income families with teenage children. Over the years, the organization received a donations and grants totalling about $35 million for their success in providing access and graduating their teens in post-secondary programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In her first year however, Moon\u2019s perception of the organization changed. The organization\u2019s growing complacency negatively affected its work for the families. She also found out that in the last five years, only 65% of these kids were accepted into post-secondary school, down from the 95% that the organization boasted on their website. Meanwhile, families with kids who are unsuccessful are asked to leave the housing program. Also, only 40% of these kids in the past five years actually graduated from post-secondary school. As a previous manager, Moon identified several key areas and strategies to improve these figures; but when she tried to share them with her colleagues, they refuted her ideas and attributed the problem to \u2018kids being lazy.\u2019 She also heard rumours that for many years, managers were exaggerating statistics in the annual provincial audits to give the impression that the organization was meeting its stated goals. Moon has a strong gut feeling that most of the sponsorship money is going towards the organization\u2019s employees due to her colleagues raving about the bi-annual salary increases they received in the last five years. On top of this, she also noticed that her superiors wear luxury items which is uncommon for non-profit executives, increased the number of employee outings, and increased everyone\u2019s vacation time. One of her favorite colleagues, Scorpio, who is also the manager that hired her, constantly expresses to her how happy he is to have finally saved enough money for his three teenage girls\u2019 post-secondary education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moon\u2019s new Director of Operations, Sagittarius, seems to share the same sentiment as Moon and introduced new policies five months ago designed to improve the well-being of their graduating high school kids. However, the policies will also require workers to double their efforts and cut back in employee spending. Moon is enthusiastic about management\u2019s new direction because of the support it will provide to the kids. Her colleagues on the other hand, do not share the same sentiment and are finding ways to secretly undermine the new policies without Sagittarius\u2019 knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coincidentally, Moon\u2019s best friend Aquarius, a freshly graduated journalist, also revealed that she is having trouble linking evidence for a story to expose multiple non-profit organizations for corruption and fraud. Aquarius seems determined to succeed because of the effect this would have on the community and could also be a major career breakthrough. Higher Hope for Humanity however, was not one of the organizations that Aquarius was looking at. Knowing Moon has connections to the non-profits she\u2019s investigating, Aquarius asks Moon if she has any information that could help her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At this point, Moon feels a lot of pressure from herself to take action but does not want to make a hasty decision. Moon feels that the overall mission of the her workplace is noble but the organization has lost sight of their vision. She contemplates on whether she trusts Sagittarius as the Director to find ways of improving the organization. Should she disclose to Sagittarius the actions of her colleagues knowing it can get certain employees fired and possibly reduce everyone\u2019s wages? Not to mention she would be despised by her colleagues if they find out. She\u2019s also guilty that the organization is using money that\u2019s not theirs for their own personal benefit and contemplates informing Aquarius because she suspects there\u2019s problems rampant throughout the whole organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Discussion Question<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What course of action should Moon take, if any?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ruiz<\/p> Great case study.\u00a0 Nice names.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p> For some reason, I am not a fan of current employees passing along information\u00a0that could potentially damage the organization\u00a0to journalists to others.\u00a0 Although tempting to make short-term\u00a0gains ( EI – the possibility\u00a0of change) long term\u00a0it could be damaging to Moon and others.\u00a0 I would recommend not disclosing any information about the current organization and even go as far as to let Aquarius know that due to your current position, it is difficult to help at all.\u00a0 I feel that Moon should either keep pushing as an employee for change and supporting the new leader, or move on and continue to work at a place that aligns more with her values and purpose.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p> I am looking forward to Leona’s perspective – she also felt compelled to move from one purposeful organization to another for valid\u00a0reasons.\u00a0<\/p> There is an element of Altruism here that needs to be articulated. How can Moon show love in this situation? Who are Moon’s neighbors?\u00a0 Johnson states that altruism is shown when our actions are designed to help others, whatever the personal cost (2018). Moon may have to keep her confidential information to herself and prolong her disappointment\u00a0in others as a result of not telling the journalist her observations.\u00a0 The may have to disappoint her friend by not cooperating with her investigation.\u00a0 If Moon really cared about others within the\u00a0Higher Hope for Humanity organization, she wouldn’t\u00a0cut them at the knees by “selling information”.\u00a0<\/p> She should use her gifts and support the new director.\u00a0 True love is helping the weak and encouraging the wayward. As always there is an element of time.\u00a0 If the Director is new, I would try for a while to reignite and support the new directives and policies.\u00a0 The new director will need people like Moon to drive change and bring the organization back to its purpose and mission.\u00a0<\/p> Tim<\/p> Hi Ruiz and Tim,
References
Johnson, C. E. (2018).\u00a0Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership.<\/em>\u00a0California: Sage.\u00a0<\/p>(Rivera, de Haan, So, Sierra, Kaur, Ibomor, Shonhiwa, 2018)
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I agree that Moon should not be involved with Aquarius\u2019s investigation. Defaming an organization such as Higher Hope for Humanity does not only harm the organization, but the families they work with and Moon, herself. By defaming the organization, the organization may lose funds and not have the ability to run its programs anymore; this would be a loss as Sagittarius is starting to make changes to the organization. Families working with the organization would also lose a potential resource and trust \u2013 trust is essential to anybody\u2019s success, but for an immigrant, low-income family, it may be detrimental to their success as they lose confidence in those who say are trying to help. Lastly, Moon could be affected by guilt in harming the organization, staff, and families. As a servant leader, Moon would aim to serve the people she works with first, and defaming Higher Hope for Humanity goes against her values of healing, empathy, commitment to the growth of people, and building community (Monograph 2, 2015, pp. 12-13) as a servant leader. As Tim mentioned, I believe following through with one\u2019s values is more important than doing what is monetarily beneficial or \u201ceasier\u201d by going along with the norm.
Moon\u2019s first step should be forgiveness. Forgiveness of the current leadership\u2019s manipulation, spending, and disappointment. Johnson (2018) states, \u201cForgiving instead of retaliating can prevent or break cycles of evil\u201d (\u201cBreaking the cycle of evil\u201d). In saying that, I do not believe Moon must sit ideally. Moon can support Sagittarius by vocally acknowledging her support of the changes and her enthusiasm for what is to come. Hughes, Beatty, & Dinwoodie (2014) state, \u201cReal change comes about through the connections that exist and are leveraged\u201d (p. 150). By creating excitement about the impact she believes the changes will make and building the relationships she has with her colleagues, Moon can begin changing the culture of the organization. If no changes occur despite Moon\u2019s efforts, I believe Moon should leave the organization because her values no longer align with the organization\u2019s.<\/p>