issue43

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issue43: To be an effective leader, a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards.14:05

The speaker asserts that a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards in order to be an effective leader. In my view, I concede that possessing the highest ethical and moral standards is an important factor for a leader, without which it is hard for him/her to be trusted and supported by citizens. However, in some cases, an effective leader should be alert and don't have to be honest all the time to keep the highest ethical and moral standards in front of protecting his country's interest. Also, people are now more concerned about a leader's talents and achievement when they judge whether he is an effective leader.

Admittedly, maintaining the highest ethical and moral standards serves an important part of being an effective leader who is supposed to bring a better life to his citizens. If a leader is not loyal to his citizens, finally he will be unavoidably abolished. Take being presidents of united states for example, Nixon, who during the speech before being elected claims that he would devote himself to the construction of citizens' well-being life. Nevertheless, after being president, his behavior mostly operates against the democratic principles of government by the people, for the sake of his own interests,
he lied to the people and even tried to hide his shame behaviors. The Watergate cover-up and the corruption of his financial support to Enron company are two telling examples. Eventually, as we know he was abolished.

However, an effective leader should not always be honest, sometimes being completely forthright is a sign of vulnerability, and opponents will take every advantage to attack such weakness. As a leader, he should keep secret of his nation's information in the field of science, technique, military or politics, if not, it may lead to huge negative effects to his country. Consider that in the battle of world war two, if Roosevelt had have informed his people of every detail of the attack plan to German, Americans might would suffer more hardship. In the field of business, if a boss reveals the whole strategic plan to the public, his company couldn't stay ahead of its opponents. And to some extent, it is necessary for nominators to make speeches to cater to voters' willingness in order to be elected.

There is another thing I want to point out is that the ethical and moral standards now is not the main judge for an effective leader, people are more concerned about a leader's talents and achievement. In spite of the famous scandal with Lewensky, Clinton is still regarded as one of the effective presidents in American history based on the well-developed American economic power and American's well being. If Obama can't handle the financial crisis well, and the rate of unemployment continued to be uprising, people's life won't be well changed during his period. It is meaningless of his highest ethical and moral standard in front of these facts.

In sum, to be an effective leader, maintaining the highest ethical and moral standards is important, but not always. whether a leader should be honest or not, it depends on different cases he deals with. And nowadays the public judges one whether he is an effective leaders mainly based on his achievements.