Learning Activity #1

Ethical leadership is a subject that scholars have debated for years. Is all leadership, by definition, ethical or is it possible to have unethical leadership?

Download the article from the link below

http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/sl_proceedings/2007/griffith.pdf

In it, I argue that ethical leadership is made up of two components, an ethical leadership process and and ethical leadership objective. Study the article and then respond to the following:

Pick a famous leader whom you believe is or was either ethical or unethical. Argue your case in the discussion post using the criteria set forth in the article above. Make sure you discuss both the leadership process employed and the ethicality of the leader’s objectives.

Learning Activity #2

This week’s material covers the perils of groupthink, overcommitment and avoidance of failure, and the concept of a premortem, an analysis of potential failure scenarios before embarking upon a project or activity. The following podcast touches on all of these topics and attempts to make the case that failing early is good and avoiding failure at all cost is unhealthy. In addition, it applies market based economics to the prediction of failure in a novel way.

Premortems are becoming increasingly popular and, in fact, a formal method for conducting them and prioritizing risks has been developed. Failure Mode Effects Analysis was originally designed to allow engineers to predict failures in complex systems and to prioritize the risks to allow them to be reduced in an orderly and cost effective manner. It has now been widely applied to other situations where a premortem makes sense, such as in the management of complex projects. Read the short tutorial at the following link:

https://www.moresteam.com/toolbox/fmea.cfm

Then, identify a significant project or process where you are employed and use the technique to conduct an FMEA. Use an Excel spreadsheet to show the various failure modes, severities, and probability of detection and their associated ranking numbers. Sort them into descending order of RPN, and then propose actions that can be taken to remove or control each risk.