1. I think what needs to be the focus on is Bernie Ebbers ambitions and greed to be one of the world’s most powerful individuals in the communication industry was ultimately his downfall. Ebber ability to falsely represent a transformational leadership style and his ability to persuade others to follow him was his strength. His country boy cowboy style and appealing personality made a bigger than life character. He was deemed someone that can do no wrong, in short, he was idealized by those who knew him. Ebber projected a very powerful persuasiveness. (Kark, hamir,and Chen (2003). Bass 1995 and Avolio and Bass 2000 study on transformational leadership is a perfect example. Ebber possessed the traits associated with transformational leadership, individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, idealized influence, and inspirational motivation. 2. Ebber was able to influence his subordinates, managers, supervisors to engage in a deviant or unethical behavior because it was rewarded. …show more content…
Ebbers leadership style changed from ethical to unethical during the downturn of the stock market and the effects it had on WorldCom shares. Ebber leadership style created an environment that left for little room for error. During telecommunications stock downturns Ebber was unable to come up with a strategy that would turn things around. During the initial phases of the Commission investigation into WorldCom’s accounting practices, Ebber was questioned concerning several low-interest loans he acquired from the board of directors. Shortly after Ebber was forced out by outside board members. WorldCom upper-level management and individuals in the position of leadership could have taken an ethical stance and collectively formed an opposition against Ebber unethical leadership. This action would have resulted in maintaining an ethical culture within WorldCom. Because of management failure to take ethical stance resulted in several individuals found guilty of accounting
Once Goebbels was initiated into this position, he began to create the Fuhrer myth around Hitler and emphasized it with large rallies that would gear German people toward Nazism. Goebbels’ daily activities included increasing political agitation and publishing propaganda pieces, which were now
Dan West was an exceptional man and a great leader. In Passing on the Gift: The Story of Dan West by Glee Yoder, Yoder quotes The Goshen News after Dan West died, “The Church lost a plain and simple man, who saw in every person a divine image; his goal in leadership was to enable others to let this image come alive” (165). Dan West loved the Church of the Brethren. Dedicated to spreading peace, he created the Heifer Project, an organization giving animals such as heifers, goats, chickens, and ducks away to needy families overseas. Creating Heifer Project and being dedicated to the Church of the Brethren, Dan West showed a variety of leadership skills that Kouzes and Poster developed, such as inspire a shared vision, challenge the purpose,
As a leader of WorldCom, Ebber had the mandate to ensure that all the stakeholders uphold the values and ethics of the company. However it can be noted that he approved the loans of the executive members without putting it in black and white. For transparency, accountability and for future reference sake, there is need to document all the company’s transactions. Fabricating profitable numbers as a way of exaggerating stock prices is a fraudulent and defiant behavior. As a leader, he was supposed to encourage his subordinates to record and make presentations of the actual figures of performance.
After the fraud was discovered, WorldCom filed for bankruptcy and Ebbers got a sentence of 25 years. 4 # Scandal of
Despite the world 's trend toward upholding business ethics, the major corporate scandals in the past decade including the familiar Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, AIG, and Madoff cases along with Toshiba 's disgrace in the recent days, send a clear and consistent message and that is: we are still living in an era of immaturity in ethical awareness. You may be thinking to yourself, "I have a high morale and I know I won 't give in to pressures to do something to make such a scene". While a high morale makes it more likely to act ethically, the problem is in reality when people face scenarios involving ethical issues, often they are not even aware of the ethical implications of their actions and so they think they 're doing the right thing. This is probably mainly because we subconsciously rely on the "ethical efficiency" of our guts to make judgments and internally carry an illusion of morality. Take Dennis Gioia, the Management and Organization Department Chair at PennState University, as an example.
In Emmett Rensin 's Vox article, "The Smug Style in American Liberalism", he criticizes the smug air found within the minds of modern liberals. He lays out the mindset "smug style" as "…a way of conducting politics, predicated on the belief that American life is not divided by moral difference or policy divergence… but by the failure of half the country to know what 's good for them." He gains a sense of ethos in the essay due to his credibility as a liberal writer and cements his reliability using relevant examples to solidify his argument. He plays upon the emotions of his audience with an expert use of pathos with references to real examples of the harsh treatment of people deemed "wrong" by liberals. He also highlights common unflattering traits that are common with the liberal masses.
Humans always seek to convince each other that their opinions are in fact superior to other conflicting ideas, and none have mastered this art better than those who seek to run for various political offices within the United States. Through a variety of persuasive techniques, the ultimate goal is to gain the utmost respect and trust of those that they seek to gain support from. As we find ourselves in the midst of an election year, our intellect is flooded with speeches and new ideas as it pertains to modern issues. Bernie Sanders is no different and uses similar technique in order to convey his own political ideologies by convincing us of his knowledge of wealth disruption through statistics, passion for this country through emotion driven
Organizations that make unethical decisions end up ruining their reputation in the market and end up facing long-term consequences. Not all ethical decisions may be in the best interest of the company, however, an unethical decision can prove to be more consequential in the long run. Every organization has to deal with decisions on an everyday basis. Some decisions have the capability to affect the future of the organization and its employees.
Bass & Riggio (2005, pp. 4-8) explains that transformational leaders inspire their followers to exceed their own expectations and perceived capabilities and is comprised of the four components of idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualised consideration. DuBrin (2016, p.163) suggest that leaders in a time of crisis need to
1. What factors in the WorldCom case support the conclusion that CEO Bernie Ebbers Knew about the financial statement fraud? What factors support his defense that he did not know about the fraud? Bernie Ebbers Knew about the financial statement fraud because he was the one who encourage others to go into financial fraud because of the stock prices were going down, which was affecting his marginal loan. For that reason, he was trying to sell his stock, but the board of Directors lent him $341 million, along with 2% interest rate.
Our text states, “transformational leader is one who influences, inspires, mobilizes, and transforms followers to achieve
In this Enron Scandal ,several moral issues and values are being discussed .The moral issues is the misconduct of code of ethics by management level of a corporation , violation of code of professional ,ethical dilemma that faced by a management level when involved own interest . The first moral issues that discussed in Enron Scandal is misconduct code of ethics by management level of a corporation .In this case ,the mastermind of this scandal is the company CEO , Mr .
According to research by Mayer, Aquino, Greenbaum, and Kuenzi (2012), moral leaders will often practice appropriate business ethics. In turn, the leader establishes similar positive ethical attribute in all fronts of their organization, since the employees and stakeholders are prompted to follow suit. This is in line with Terris’ (2005) opinion in the book Ethics at Work. Terris commends the Lockheed-Martin program for institutionalizing functioning work ethics at the administrative level (Terris, 2005, p. 47). Furthermore, according LRN research conducted in the United States, most of the full-time workers preferred working in an ethical company, suggesting the importance of leaders and stakeholders’ ethical behavior in the organization (Dubrin, 2010).
Background WorldCom, once known as one of the most powerful telecommunication organizations of the world, is now studied as a case of a fraudulent company that carried out unethical financial activities to cover its weakening position in the market. After some aggressive investment decisions, the company started to witness huge financial pressure. The management used various forged accounting entries to conceal its weakening position. Cynthia Cooper, Vice President Internal Audit, discovered the unethical activities and raised the issue with the management and relevant departments and received bitter responses. She carried out internal audits in her own capacity with her colleagues and compiled evidence against fraudulent activities.
Managers need to transform into moral leaders: Ethics in business In the 21st century the business organizations have faced many ethical scandals. The different type of ethical scandals are accounting manipulation, bribery, infringement of civil rights, child labour and sexual malpractices at workplace (Frenkel, 2013). Some of the top ethical scandals are Enron, Satyam, Lehman Brothers and Bhopal gas tragedy (Rodriguez, 2013). The business organizations can’t achieve global success without ethical business practices.