The Responsible Administrator: An Approach to Ethics for the Administrative Role
Carefully go over the following readings assigned for Week 7. 1. Chapter 2 in the required course textbook The Responsible Administrator: An Approach to Ethics for the Administrative Role. 2. Menzel, Case: 4.9 "Mired in an Ethics Swamp" (pp. 106-116) available in the required course textbook Ethics Moments in Government: cases and Controversies. • (a) Using the following framework (incorporating elements from different decision-making models covered in the course) and (b) taking into account the takeaways from Case 4.9, analyze a real-life ethical dilemma that you have personally experienced working in the public or private sector. In doing so, please provide answers to each of the following questions/prompts: 1. Ethical issue perception: What was it about the situation you experienced that made you “see” an ethical issue? (e.g., being confronted with expectations, demands, opportunities, and conflicting interests) 2. Gut feeling: What was your gut feeling reaction to the situation? 3. Personal responsibility: How did you know it was your responsibility to do something about the situation? 4. Ethical dilemma description: Develop a description of the dilemma, including pertinent factual background information. Specifically, please emphasize the following: key actors, the viewpoints of each actor, the issues, the sequence of events, and the risks. 5. Conflicting values and principles: What were the conflicting ethical values or principles embedded in the situation? (e.g., efficiency/expediency vs. civic engagement; organizational interest vs public interest vs personal interest). 6. Ethical dilemma: Based on the conflicting values or principles that you identified, provide a general statement of the ethical issue involved in the situation you experienced (e.g., conflicting loyalties). 7. Dealing with the problem: Now that you have defined the ethical issue before you, think about how you should deal with the problem from different perspectives. Specifically: ? Identify your responsibilities to your organizational superiors, to your colleagues and/or subordinates, to elected officials, to the citizenry
Sample Solution
When I was working a government agency, I experienced an ethical dilemma concerning how to handle one of my employees. The employee in question had recently been promoted and had received a raise; however, their performance on the job had not improved much since then. They often came into work late and without notifying me beforehand, used company resources for personal tasks while at work, and took long breaks that impacted their productivity negatively.
In this situation, I perceived an ethical issue because it seemed like this individual was taking advantage of their position for personal gain. On the one hand, as a manager it was my responsibility to ensure that all staff members were operating efficiently within our organization’s stated objectives (Menzel 2006). However on the other hand there were certain expectations from upper management about how individuals should be treated which included avoiding confrontation or appearing too critical (The Responsible Administrator 2020). This made it difficult to know how best to move forward with this situation given these conflicting interests.
To address this ethical dilemma, I utilized a decision-making model outlined by Menzel 2006 in which potential solutions are identified through analysis of consequentialist ethics versus deontological ethics. By doing so I concluded that talking directly with the employee would be best so as to provide them with clear direction regarding changes needed while also preserving corporate values such as respect and fairness (The Responsible Administrator 2020). This ultimately helped me resolve the issue without needing any further action while allowing us both maintain proper professional etiquette during our interactions.
