Leadership - a Good Team Player

What I took away from this week from Module 6 and Scenario E was that ethics is about making the best possible decision for people, resources and the environment. When we make ethical choices we remove the risks, advance positivity, increase trust, determine long term success and build a good reputation. Leadership is reliant on ethical choices. Just like in the book Ethics Project Management “project managers have responsibility without commensurate authority” (Kliem, 2011). As a project managers, we have the responsibly to uphold ethics in our team.

Every project manager should operate with honesty, responsibility, respect, and fairness. All of these values are what drives ethical conduct for all project management. Project managers should always use the ethical code of conduct and apply these values to real-life practice. This will help lead to the best and most ethical outcome. Ethics will always play a huge role in project management but as well in life. Ethics helps us strive to be better people. As well ethics will help raise future standards for projects and increases faith and trust in you as a manager. “This will help with future business relationships, help promote fair decision making, reduce project risk, offer a greater chance of success, and reduces anxiety and stress and ultimately turnover in projects” (Kliem, 2011).

The first article I choose was Project Management: The Journey Continues. The article highlights how project managers take the role of a natural transition. Although project managers strive to help fulfill organizational objectives, being a servant leader is not easy and cannot be done without a code of ethics. As well as help maintain the focus on the scope and project. This article discussed that project management comes with both pros and cons; the pros are that manager roles exercise communication techniques and strengthen delivery, as well as helps highlight your team's milestones on a larger scale. The cons are that project managers will face not being in the right mindset. This will jeopardize the entire project by making uneducated or irrational decisions. Stepping into Project Management: The Journey Continues states that mind mapping is to help you articulate a clear thought process. “Mind mapping is a wonderful tool that can be used in various scenarios to get to know a person and to explain the process, and it can even be used in retrospectives. The transformation doesn’t need to be done in the same way everywhere. Learn about others and who you are working with, bring new techniques to work that bring out the personal point of view and perspective” ( Soma, 2008-2019). It would seem to me that mind mapping is a foolproof plan because it is a powerful tool to use to help keep vast amounts of information. Mind mapping will help provide project managers their own knowledge on the subject of their choice as well as help with their decision making on the project scope and ethical behavior.

The second article I choose was What Is the Moral Responsibility of a Business Leader? As stated in the article “business leaders have long recognized that they play a key role in promoting ethical conduct in their businesses” (Schmidt, 2007). We as managers set the tone for ethics in our organization and projects. As well we lead by example. Ethics is communicated through our words and our actions. We help motivate others to focus on ethics and compliance. We as leaders must promote excellence and avoid harm towards anyone. As well setting the right tone and leading by example will help motivate your employees in a positive way. “Business will always need to pay attention to ethics and leadership. We've learned hard lessons over the years about how best to promote ethics through exemplary leadership. But these lessons are continually challenged by new developments, including technological advances that promote new kinds of communication online” (Schmidt, 2007). As a project manager, we must uphold ethics and lead by example for our team, this will in return help your team be ethical.

When I was completing Scenario E simulation I would always ask myself the question “Is this the best decision I am making for my team,” prior to submitting my work. As a manager, I would want to make sure that this is the best solution for my team. As someone who has worked my way up the latter, I realized that if you’re not ethical it will bite you in the foot. I have been working in sales for quite a while now and some of these people you work with are not very ethical because they just want your sale. I recently was a manager at Sprint and was working alongside a few other managers that I thought were not being very ethical. She was a manager as well at another location but I had to visit her store a few times when she first started to help her in her new role. Sprint and Walgreens decided to partner up and Walgreens wanted to have a kiosk inside there stores. As I helped her get into her new role I realized that she would do anything for a sale. She would lie to the customers and would tell them that it cost less then what she was saying. I confronted her about this and she said that oh I didn’t know I am sorry it will not happen again. Sure enough, she did it again. I reported her to my manager and he did nothing because she was his top seller that month. I felt that this was not very ethical and I reported them both to HR but HR did nothing. So I ended up quitting this job because I wouldn’t put my integrity for this job. As I was reading the chapters this week it made me think of this. As well as when I read a few of the articles. I feel that in any business setting you should withhold accountability and encourage ethics. I felt that these managers didn’t care as long as they got their money and bonuses. As someone who upholds ethics and a higher standard, I will not work for a company like that again.

Ethics is critical to businesses and as well to the public. We must be accountable and have ethical behavior this will help reduce waste, increase transparency, create success, and ultimately provide value. Our values are a guide for our thoughts, words, and behaviors. Being ethical or unethical is an internal and instinct that is at our very core. As a project manager, we should be held to a higher standard as well as people should be held accountable to. As a person and project manager, you should create an environment of respect that creates trust, confidence, and excellence.