ISSUE 43 -B1-嵩嵩@3.2

cousonUID: 2389644

TOPIC: ISSUE43 - "To be an effective leader, a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards."
WORDS: 512
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE: 2011/2/6 0:25:18

With the development of democracy society, we have seen many effective leaders who had spared their efforts on serving the public. When it comes to that whether an effective leader should maintain the highest ethical and moral standards, there are always a set of different ideas. Does an effective leader must maintain the highest standards of ethical and moral? Admittedly, leaders with good ethical and moral standards will surely benefit the society, but it is not necessary to insist on that they should maintain a highest level.
There is no doubt that an effective leader would benefit the society. As known to all, an honest leader can earn the trust from public easily and therefore win the support from public. With such support from public, the leader can enact policies more smoothly. An apt example is President Lincoln, who was born and raised in a poor family, had confessed his living conditions of his early ages. People did not look down to where Lincoln came from, but supported Lincoln's policy which was meant to benefit them. On the other hand, no civilian would like to elect a lier or a hypocrite to be his/her leader. For that a man has once lied to you may lie to you again. And such leaders may not gain supports to enact their policies even if these policies will benefit the public.
However, such proposal of maintaining the highest ethical and moral standards may leads to some absurd consequences. It may cause a hypocritical personality or distort human nature when a leader is required to maintain highest standards of ethical and moral. Take President Nixon for example, due to great pressures of being a leader, he should set himself as a moral example that never conflict moral problems. However, when the Water Gate Scandal was revealed in its early time, Nixon could not stand pressure of such requirement and had chosen the way of concealing the problem. What's more, a leader's job is to build, maintain, and expand the wealth, prosperity and political influence of his nation, district, county, state. Such proposal may encourage public to blame and intolerance their leader, and such encouragement might render leaders’ inefficiency in their job.
By drawing an eclectic choice, we should place more emphasis on leaders' ability of serving the public. Abilities which leaders should possess might include expertise, vision and administration, and they are what we should place more emphasis on rather than whether they are examples of moral. Every human being has a normal aspect so it is possible and reasonable that he/she will make some mistakes, as well as leaders. A case in point is that President Clinton, known for his sex scandal, had accomplished achievements in improving economic of Americans, such as balancing deficit and improving the employment. And these accomplishments should never be overshadowed by the sex scandal.
In sum, even though ethical and moral standards play an important role when people judge whether a leader is effective, yet they are not crucial. Literally, we should focus more on the achievements in their administration.