Military Ethics II. Literature & Language Assignment

Running head: ETHICAL LEADERSHIP1
Ethical Leadership: A Reflection
Student Name
College/University Affiliation
ETHICAL LEADERSHIP

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Ethical Leadership: A Reflection
Leadership is usually understood in general, professional and constraint-free settings. In reality, leadership is put into actual hard test if ethics is involved. That is, leadership cannot be so unless pit against fluid situations where right and wrong are not clear. For if clarity exists, how could leadership be exercised? Unsurprisingly, leadership has increasingly been accompanied by a “moral bag” to be accepted as genuine, if not legitimate. This cannot be more applicable to Marine Corps. In military, command has often overridden acts of individual leadership. For decades, climbing up military ladder has been a matter of loyalty and alignment to hierarchical lines of command. In more recent years, I have come to learn and understand studying military ethics, leading a professional military is not longer a matter of military skill and education only. Instead, Marines should, by all possible means, act ethically as current junior leaders and future senior ones. True, codes of ethics and professional standards still hold as indispensable to define ethical and unethical conduct for Marines (US Marine Corps, 2016). However, increasing fluidity, if not moral mess, in situations Marines get involved in call, I have come to learn, for ethical values and principles deeply ingrained in each Marine – beyond any set of formal laws and codes of ethics. That is why, only in actual situations, not in lecture halls or “convenient” settings, could military leadership be vetted. Let alone to decide, Marines could stray away, each in his or her own set of values, only to come up with solutions to moral dilemmas which might clash with established, albeit unwritten, ethical and moral principles of Marine Corps. To inculcate a sense of ethical leadership in Marines requires, accordingly, genuine effort, a ready acceptance of real world constraints and, not least, a proactive leadership role.
Unders...