Leaders must deal with a variety of experiences on a daily basis. Therefore, it is important for them to know how to respond to conflicts or issues in an ethical way.
Imagine you are the newly hired chief executive officer (CEO) of a large pharmaceutical company with major investment in medical equipment, prescriiption drugs, and other health-related supplies to companies throughout the United States. The company experienced tremendous growth in revenue for several years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic while maintaining a six-figure profit margin. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused both sales and profits to dramatically drop, resulting in the reduction of personnel and other organizational restructuring efforts. To help recover, you enlisted the help of a shell organization to inflate your company’s debt to secure federal relief funding. You publicly announced that you would reduce your salary significantly, while covering up an increase in personal stock holdings from the company. Kickbacks were offered to the shell organization to show a continued loss in revenue and services for your company to receive government assistance.
Write a 750-word paper describing the key ethical issues raised in the case scenario and evaluate the individual’s character in the case based on the 4 steps to conducting a utilitarian analysis of an ethical problem.
Address the following items:
Describe the ethical conflicts or issues observed in this scenario.
Explain how you would resolve these issues.
Explain whether you agree or disagree with what was done and why.
Evaluate what could have been done differently to improve the leadership decisions that were made.