Ethical Decision Making in the Military Lawren John Doyle Business Ethics 323 Professor Smith July 25, 2012 Thesis The American public is bombarded with ethics violations on all levels, including corporate scandals, university cover-ups, and wasteful government spending. Ethical leaders are becoming important now more than ever. If basic, common sense ethics had been exercised, the economy would not be in the situation it is in today. The military has been known for creating exceptional leaders, but just like any other organization, there is always room for improvement. In the military, it is extremely important to make ethical decisions. Leaders are entrusted with hard-earned taxpayer dollars and the lives of America’s most valuable asset, people. This paper focuses on the importance of making sound ethical decisions. Leaders operating overseas must use ethics as a cornerstone in their decision making process to ensure commanders are able to maximize resources and to promote a culture of integrity for soldiers to emulate when they become leaders. During a recent deployment, our Task Force conducted a series of Joint Combined Exercise Training blocks to build relationships with foreign allies. One of the well-respected platoon leaders began writing inaccurate reports that embellished the positive points and left out the negative points to demonstrate his superior management skills. When others in the team were asked to review the reports and add their comments,no one agreed with the reports. Still, the reports were sent up the chain of command to senior field commanders. Then, shortly afterward, when a few soldierswent out in town to eat with the host nation’s soldiers they were training with, an argument began shortly after dinner. The argument ended with a local national drawing a pistol on one of the host nation officers. Some of the task force team members were in the group that could have been shot, had the individual decided to pull the trigger. Once the group returned, everyone informed the platoon leader about the situation. This created an ethical dilemma for our platoon leader. This is when a minor ethical violation had the potential to turn into a major ethical violation if the platoon leader had chosen to leave out the incident on his next report. If he had chosen to inform the chain of command about the incident, they may have decided to shut down the operation, question his leadership, or they may have simply noted the incident to warn other soldiers about the potential dangers. Unfortunately, he took the unethical route, and the incident went unreported, and the team was told never to speak about the incident again . Stakeholder Analysis This decision immediately affected three stakeholders: the platoon leader, junior soldiers, and strategic level commanders. The platoon leader believed that if the incident had been reported, he might receive a black mark and avoid achieving a higher rank he was sure to receive. Due to the remote area in which they were operating and the control he had over the junior soldiers, the platoon leader felt he had everything to lose by reporting the incident and everything to gain by continuing to submit only positive reports. However, due to the platoon leader solely focusing on his own career, he failed to factor in the other two important stakeholders: junior soldiers and field commanders. Junior soldiers emulate their leaders and usually follow in their footsteps when they become leaders. When unethical leaders go unrestrained, they act as a force multiplier and turn junior soldiers into future unethical leaders. This translates into sub-par individuals being promoted into leadership positions, in which they manage soldiers in the same unethical, self-serving way their previous mentors had. This creates a culture where it is acceptable to report inaccurate information, as long as it boosts the individual’s career. Once the platoon views leadership as self-serving individuals who place their career over ethics and the well being of junior soldiers, their morale will drop and they will care less about the overall success of the platoon. This type of environment makes it difficult to retain top performers and others who have better options elsewhere. When a group has leadership issues, the whole team pays the price and does not progress as efficiently as groups with exceptional leadership. Lastly, the commanders make strategic level decisions based on the reports they receive from operators on the ground. This has the possibility to corrupt the decision making process and result in the misappropriation of resources that could have otherwise been used more effectively. Considering each relationship building exercise can easily costs U.S. taxpayers half a million dollars, it is extremely important for commanders to receive accurate information. Also, if the commanders had found out the incident was covered up, the platoon leader could have easily been fired. When commanders have reasons to question their subordinates, they are slower to respond to issues because they need more information. Questionable reports force commanders to conduct their own research prior to making a decision, to ensure it is based on accurate information. This, in turn, results in supply lines slowing and re-enforcements being held up. Therefore, unethical decisions have negative effects on everyone involved in the situation, and ethical leaders are extremely important to ensure the overall success of any organization. Analysis and Recommendations In the book Coach Wooden’s Leadership Game Plan for Success, legendary UCLA coach John Wooden describes how leaders have to be willing to sacrifice personal considerations for the welfare of the organization. He also explainedthat demonstrating ethical behavior starts at the top. The leader must demonstrate to the team that the team is more important than his legacy or possible promotion (Wooden & Jamison, 2009). Otherwise, the group will start to focus more on individual wants and needs instead of what is best for the group. In the military, team leaders have to submit daily situation reports to ensure commanders stay informed and have an accurate understanding of daily operations in the field. Therefore, it is extremely important for the reports to be accurate to ensure commanders are making decisions based on reliable information. Making decisions based on sound principles is the best way to ensure a leader makes ethical decisions. In the book Managing Business: Straight Talk About How To Do It Right, Trevino and Nelson describe deontologists as people who base their decisions on ethical principles such as respect for human beings, honesty, fairness, compassion, responsibility, and justice . Individuals should focus on using a deontologist’s decision-making style. The deontologist system focuses on doing what is “right” based on principles.Therefore, to avoid unethical decisions, leaders should focus on a deontologist principle based system . When asked about how he made decisions, U.S. Army General, Norman Schwarzkopf simply replied, “The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it” (Addington&Graves, 2000). In this situation, the platoon leadershould have written accurate reports that reflected the whole picture instead of only what accentuated his management skills. Once the incident had taken place, he should have submitted a detailed situation report to the commander. This report should have described exactly what happened, along with solutions to ensure the incident did not happen again.However, if the platoon leader had decided to use the deontologist method, he would have simply questioned whether writing inaccurate reports violates any principles such as honesty, responsibility, and fairness. Immediately,the platoon leader would have realized that writing inaccurate reports is dishonest because knowingly submitting incomplete information is lying. Then, he should have asked himself whether submitting exaggerated reports is responsible. Clearly, it is irresponsible to submit reports that leave out information that may be considered questionable. Responsible leaders are always truthful and give honest feedback when asked. Finally, the platoon leadershould have askedwhether it is fair to other platoon leaders who are submitting accurate reports. It would be unfair for him to receive a promotion over another platoon leader on the basis of a few mishaps that were not reported. After conducting the deontologist method, the platoon leader would have quickly realized that submitting inaccurate reports clearly violates all three of the principles discussed. Therefore, platoon leaders should use a principle-based deontologist decision-making system that correlates with military values to ensure field commanders receive accurate information and junior soldiers have a positive leadership example to follow. Conclusion Everyone will have difficult, ethical decisions to deal with in any job. What makes the difference between success and failure is how a person decides what to do. Instead of selfishly thinking about self-gain, military leaders should use the deontologist method to ensure the principles of the individual and organization are not violated for personal gain. Ethical leadership is like weaving a rug. For every ethical decision a person makes,a tight, beautiful weave is created; while every unethical decision creates a loose, faded weave. The longer a person lives, the bigger the rug gets, and people start to recognize whether or not you are an ethical person. Then, upon death, you are remembered for having a tightly weaved, beautiful rug or a loose, ugly rug. Everyone has the opportunity every day to make ethical decisions. The choice lies within the individual to determine what type of friend, employee, or leader they will become. References Trevino, L. K., Nelson, K. A. (2011). Managing Business Ethics: Straight Talk About How To Do It Right. Danvers, MA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Wooden, J., Jamison, S. (2009). Coach Wooden’s Leadership Game Plan For Success. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Addington, T. G., Graves, S. R. (2000). The Fourth Frontier Exploring The New World of Work. Nashville, TN: Word Publishing. Case Analysis Rubric: Criterion Unacceptable Minimum Fair Good Excellent Weight Description of Case & Identifying the Issue Description of case is minimal, or merely capture small portions of the case. Does not identify major issues. Description of case is too long, or merely repeats major portions of the case. Does not identify major issues. Summary rambles; only identifies some of the issues the case covers. Concisely describes or summarizes the case, and identifies most of the issues. Concisely describes the case, and summarizes and identifies all major issues in the case. Score 0 8 10 13 15 15 Links to Course Readings and Additional Research In analyzing the case, the author does not use any course content to support conclusions or address case issues. 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