ISSUE43 第二篇issue 望点评

runbrookUID: 3011209

TOPIC:ISSUE43 - "To be an effective leader, a public official must maintain thehighest ethical and moral standards."


Moral,derived from personal conscience, is a constraint on individual behaviors. Inthis sense, a public official must maintain a high ethical and moral standardsto serve the people better and keep himself or herself away from corruption;however, a less ethical and moral people could also be an effective leader, interms his abilities of leading or deceiving.
Admittedly,in some certain special areas such as social activity, high moral standard isnecessary. Consider certain notable figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Indiannationalist leader, who established his country's freedom through a nonviolentrevolution, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Roman Catholic nun, who is thefounder of the Missionaries of Charity. Both of them are of the highest moralstandards. And I would be hard-pressed to figure out a man who advocatedimmoral behaviors or behaved in unethical manners to be an as successful social-spiritualleader as those two eminent people. It is just indispensible for such leadersto be effective to maintain the highest ethical and moral standards as whatthey advocated is just the high moral standard.
Nevertheless,in other areas there is no necessary connection between leading ability andmoral standards. History informs us that some personal ethic flaws do notaffect an effective leader's leading ability. For example, President Jefferson,the author of the Declaration of Independence, used to hire someone to aspersehis political rival in newspaper; Winston Churchill, who was widely regarded asthe greatest leader of British, was an alcoholic; President Kennedy, theyoungest president ever to be elected in the U.S, is famous for his maritalindiscretions. And few would disagree that they are eminent leaders. Meanwhile,maintaining the highest moral standard does not necessary means an effectiveleader. Mencius, for instance, one of the most influential figures in Chinahistory, is a man with moral integrality. However, he could not account aneffective leader in his country at all. All these cases indicate that leadingability has nothing to do with moral standards.
Additionally,an immoral leader could also obtain and wield his or her power effectively bydeceiving the public. History is replete with examples of politicians who masktheir nature and use unethical means to obtain the power: Hitler, for instance,whom most people would consider an egregious violator of public morality, wonthe support of the people of German by misinforming the public. Anotherremarkable example is Chen Shui-bian, the first member of an opposition party—theDemocratic Progressive Party(DPP)—to be elected to Taiwan’s top governmentpost, ending more than 50 years of Kuomintang(KMT) party rule. However, justafter his second term, he was revealed with corruption of millions. While theirmeans by which they obtained and wielded their power are immoral, Hitler andChen Shui-bian do are effective leaders at least in a certain period otherwisethey would not be elected as the supreme leader. And in these cases, it seemsthat it is the immorality that affords them their leaderships.
Inconclusion, while we all want to see an effective leader with moralintegrality, whether a public official is an effective leader to a large extentis not determined by his or her ethical standards but rather his leadingabilities or the way he or she foul the public.






个人感觉逻辑上有些问题， 但又说不出是怎么一回事， 希望大家指导指导。