issue43,唉…拍死我吧

colin8741UID: 2835824

ISSUE43
To be an effective leader, a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards.
要成为一个有效的领导，他必须具有最高的伦理和道德标准。

As nationwide elections been hold in the world every year, requirement of candidates has become more and more stringent. The future leaders are demanded to work out every emergency efficiently as well as having a good reputation. However, to require a publish official to maintain the highest ethical and moral standards is not sensible.

Admittedly, as a public official, one must maintain the basic ethical and moral standard which is the ability of discriminating wrong and right, good and bad. People will maturely do what is good, if they know what was right. Evils, or bad actions, are the result of ignorance. If a criminal were truly aware of the mental and spiritual consequences of his actions, he would not commit them. Any person who knows what is truly right will automatically do it, according to Socrates. Be a leader, making decisions all the time, the insisting of maintaining basic ethical and moral standard is especially important.

Prestige is also important to a leader; maintaining a high standard of morality and ethics is one way to obtained that. A prestigious public official will respected and followed by lots of people; his policy will be supported and his decisions will be trusted. For example, Karl Marx, honored by lots of people due to his high ethical standard, was supported by masses even in his toughest days.

However, the maintenance of high ethical and moral standards is not the key factor to judge whether he is an effective leader. For example, Napoleon Bonaparte, well-known by his ambitions and talent of war, was never denied to be a effective leader due to his lack of highest moral standards. Winston Churchill, former British prime minister in World War II, being famous because of his jagged policy in the war. In that special time, in order to protect the interest of the nation and people, high moral and ethical standards cannot be required on a leader.

Not only in times of war, today, the highest moral ethics still have to be abandoned in some decisions made by a leaders. Between two opponent countries, spies are set into the other country for the purpose of discovering the confidential information. In order to avoid financial crisis and economic storms, financial policies towards other countries, may be not fair, are necessary.

In sum, personal morality, though important, is unrelated to effective political leadership. We can’t demand all leaders to be perfect, if effectiveness is required to a public official, we should not expect too much on leader’s moral and ethical standards.