Given the understanding of youth leadership and ethical standards, it is wise to emphatically disagree with the declaration that young leaders tussle with upholding firm ethical principles due to their little experience. It is naïve and unrealistic to judge how youth leaders maintain strict ethical standards based on their experience on issues related to ethics and leadership. It is also rather unfair, harsh, and impolite to make such an unfounded assumption. The perspective is influenced by the fact that virtues like character and integrity, which help one in strictly maintaining their ethical standards, are in-born and mostly do not come with experience (Karagianni & Montgomery, 2018). Therefore, it is imperative to completely do away with the misguided ideology that strict ethical standards are influenced by the amount of experience a leader has.
A leader is tasked with the basic responsibility of upholding a strict ethical standard no matter their age (Sosik & Jung, 2018). Leaders are inherently born with the specific character traits that make them stand out and hold leadership roles. Consequently, a young leader, born with integrity, will uphold the strict ethical requirements of being a leader based on his/her personality. For example, the following case will illustrate how a young leader observed strict ethical standards as compared to the “older and more experienced colleagues. The issue involved settling a dispute where a senior manager had made a derogatory remark about a citizen of color who needed help. The young public leader openly condemned the act and stated that the older leader had not acted under the ethical guidelines in public administration. The above example proved that indeed experience does not influence whether a leader maintains strict ethical standards.
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Despite my position regarding the statement, other individuals believe that experience has a major influence on how youthful leaders, uphold firm ethical principles. Public leadership has empirically acknowledged the numerous advantages associated with the influence of more experience on upholding ethical values (Liu, 2017). These individuals argue that leaders might be born with character, but experience motivates them to maintain the required ethical standards (Shapiro & Stefkovich, 2016). A young leader might fail to strictly follow the ethical principles required of a leader because they are considered untested and inexperienced (Sosik & Jung, 2018). The facts provide a foundation for those whose opinion is contrary to mine on the topic of youth leadership and ethical standards. Various phenomenological facts evaluated from disparate studies show that experience has a major impact on leaders as it helps them discern situations prudently (Shapiro & Stefkovich, 2016). It is believed that vast experiences present various dynamics for individuals to be successful leaders. Therefore, this ideology influences most people to believe that young leaders may fail to observe strict ethical standards because they lack enough experience.
The perception of leadership has extensively transformed in the past two decades. Leadership ethics today is influenced by many factors. Some of the factors include technology, environment, new policies, contemporary behavioral aspects, and traits required of leaders among others. These factors have changed people views and perceptions of leadership and their ethical standards today (Karagianni & Montgomery, 2018). Therefore, various concepts have to be applied in ethical leadership to ensure that everything remains up-to-date with modern requirements. For example, in the last decades, autocratic leadership and its ethical guidelines happened to be the common feature in most organizations (Liu, 2017). On the other hand, currently, leaders are required to work more cooperatively with others to help in attaining the organization’s objectives (Liu, 2017). For example, in public leadership, a leader is required to work closely with the general public in formulating the best practices to lead them. A public leader is nowadays required to showcase the ethical qualities of a servant leader as opposed to twenty years ago when they were mostly authoritative. Therefore, the change in leadership styles has gradually resulted in the changes witnessed on how the concept of leadership ethics is generally perceived.
In conclusion, the above argument has shown that leadership has nothing to do with experience but the personality of the person. Young leaders just as their counterparts are born with traits that help maintain ethical standards at the workplace. However, it is true that experience contributes to one being ethical but the main contributor remains one's personality. Additionally, the changes experienced in leadership ethics are an advantageous addition as they enable leaders to work collaboratively with the junior workers hence better leadership techniques.
References
Karagianni, D., & Jude Montgomery, A. (2018). Developing leadership skills among adolescents and young adults: a review of leadership programmes. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 23(1) , 86-98.
Liu, H. (2017). Reimagining ethical leadership as a relational, contextual and political practice. Leadership , 13 (3), 343-367.
Shapiro, J. P., & Stefkovich, J. A. (2016). Ethical leadership and decision making in education: Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas . Routledge.
Sosik, J. J., & Jung, D. (2018). Full range leadership development: Pathways for people, profit, and planet . Routledge.
