issue43[big fish]-----by tc1220

tc1220UID: 2585174

43"To be an effective leader, a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards."
Basically, I agree with the statement above. In this modern society, morality is one of the most significant factors that reveal one’s innermost thinking and intention. Of course, as for a public official, superior moral standards are indispensable for the effective and convinced leadership. In addition, from my perspective, the highest standards are not practical and unnecessary to some extent.

To begin with, morality, simply speaking, is the ability to distinguish between good and evil. In society, everyone has a morality which controls the understanding of objects and hence the thoughts and behaviors. It is extremely dominant and important for the public official to be an effective leader. Without prominent morals, one could not consider for the community interests, on the contrary, he would always place himself ahead of all other considerations. Without preferable morals, one is unable to make a rational decision for the group and may even threaten the survival of the community. Thus, how can a selfish, irrational and irresolute public official to be a leader? For example, in the modern history of U.S., there was a Nobel Laureate and African American civil rights activist who was considered as a hero, peacemaker and martyr. He was Martin Luther King, Jr. What the fundamental reason for his success in the struggle for black equality like voting rights, desegregation, fair hiring and other basic civil rights? The answer stems from his highest moral and ethical standards for black people. Therefore, sufficient moral standards are one the dispensable components for a leader.

In addition, it could be acknowledged commonly for the leader with high morality. Normally from our daily experience, we all would like to get along with people with morality and it could be also applied to the leaders. People endorse the leaders with high morals since they will work for the community and respect the community interests. From this aspect of view, fewer obstacles will be encountered thus improving the effectiveness.
In contrast, those leaders with villainies would definitely be revolted like nasty, corruption and bribery. This could be illustrate by the current politic events happened in Taiwan. The president of Taiwan in 2000 Chen Shui-bian was sentenced to life in prison after a Taiwan court convicted him on graft charges. Although he was a good politician leader and the first one being the president of Taiwan outside the Kuomingtang, the villainy had lost the espousal of people and ended his political career. Similarly, Watergate Scandal was another political scandal occurred in the United States. Hence, in the political realm, the official without high morals is doomed to fail.

However, the suggestion that the officials should maintain the highest morals is not practical and to some extent it conflicts the effectiveness of measures. To explain, officials, the same as people, are human beings. In this sense, we cannot suppose them with the perfect morality since it is tolerable that everyone has weakness in reality. Moreover, sometimes too much morality might take everything into account, thus, one will become indecisive about what to do, which affects the effective decision-making. For instance, the famous Confucius who owns the highest personal and governmental morality, however, he was only a thinker and social philosopher instead of a leader.

In summary, high moral and ethical standards are the basic factors for public official to be a leader. On one hand, one with prominent morals is supposed to consider for the community interests. On the other hand, superior morals can bring espousal and supports to leaders. However, the highest morals are not recommended since everyone is not saint with acceptable faults.