The Ethical Trap Of Loyalty Syndrome And The Ineffective Use Of Intellectual Integrity

In the words of Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale, USN, “integrity consists of knowing one’s situation through education and thus understanding the limit of your responsibility.” Stockdale, a former Vietnam P.O.W., writes the importance of integrity in “The World of Epictetus.” In September of 1965, Commander Stockdale ejected from his plane only to be captured by the Vietcong during the Vietnam War. In eight years of captivity, the Northern Vietnamese tortured and isolated Stockdale; and in that time, he observed the actions of his men. He witnessed honorable, high-ranking officers cave into their oppressors, while common soldiers refuted any luxuries offered. Stockdale did not solely witness actions, but integrity; how a man acts when

The 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, a unit known as the Rakkasans, were conducting Operation Iron Triangle in 2006 in Iraq when soldiers killed eight unarmed Iraqi men. The US military severely reprimanded the Commander of the Rakkasans, COL Michael Steele, for the unethical command climate his leadership allowed to exist within the unit at that time. This unit will need a new commander that can set and maintain an effective, ethical command climate through his leadership. That new commander should resolve the issues that led to the reported war crime in order to establish a culture that perpetuates an ethical command climate.

Ethics Theory for the Military Professional by Chaplin (COL) Samuel D. Maloney illustrates the complex ethical decision making process. Army Leaders are responsible for professionally, and ethically develop subordinates. Developing unethical subordinates in a zero defect Army is a leadership challenge. Goal-Oriented Aspirations, Rule-Oriented Obligations, and Situation-Oriented Decisions provide leaders an understanding of the ethical decision making process. The first step to Professionally developing subordinates is identifying, and providing input on all subordinate goals. Leaders are obligated to enforce rules and regulations. Understanding subordinate character provides leaders with the information to evaluate a soldier’s integrity. However,

The book Black Hearts opened my eyes to how leadership from a single Officer can have a grappling effect on such a wide range of soldiers from the lowest of ranks. One of the best takeaways from Black Hearts is to never do anything: illegal, unethical, or immoral. Although this is a easy statement to repeat, Black Hearts demonstrates the difficulties that lie behind these words. It has also painted a picture of how leadership can topple extremely quickly from a top down view. The Army is portrayed in a bad light throughout the book relentlessly. This is due to the concentration of poor leadership of the 1-502nd Regiment (Referred to as “First Strike”), a battalion of the 101st Airborne Division.

Throughout military history, there have been many leaders that can be considered either visionary or ethical. This paper will discuss how BG Robin Olds was a visionary leader, but not a very ethical leader. From the beginning of his career, he was a visionary in aerial combat tactics and a true believer of leading from the front. His vision of aerial combat was beyond his years, but often fell upon deaf ears due to his flamboyant nature. He never hesitated to say exactly what was on his mind, which is why his actions could be considered unethical. But, his men loved him, and would follow him to hell and back. First, this paper will discuss BG Olds’ visionary leadership abilities he displayed the Viet Nam

Most people recognize Colin Powell as one of the most admired and popular leaders of our time. Often times in leadership you will not always be popular or admired, so what makes this leader different? It was those core values ingrained in him at early age by his parents that would shape him as a future leader (Koltz & Powell, 2012). As with any great leader he’s had his fair share of trials and tribulations, but like an infantry officer he continued to press forward. Colin Powell has been a visionary and ethical leader since the early days of Persian Gulf to Washington’s corridors (Roth, 1993). Throughout my research he has become a personal inspiration for me due to his ability to inspire and motivate those around him. Let’s take a brief look into his background to provide a better understanding of his leadership style.

Scandal! I am not a crook, Watergate, impeachment, resignation, one final “two handed V”; which president comes to mind? President Richard M. Nixon was a visionary leader; but an unethical leader. This paper will examine two visionary leadership traits of President Nixon, two unethical leadership skills of Nixon and then look to my own career for two personal examples of visionary and two unethical leadership skills I portrayed. Nixon’s visionary leadership was on display when it came to dealing with Communist countries and recession on the home front. By using the full range leadership (FRL) process of contingent reward, Nixon focused relations with China to establish common political grounds. Using cognitive adaptability, Nixon was able to reign in the 1970’s recession. He applied FRL tactics to push his agenda towards politics and economic policy. But, Nixon’s unethical leadership trait, drive for success, led to the Watergate Scandal. Also, he failed to use the reasoning element of implication when he discharged the Special Prosecutor of the Watergate investigation. After discussing President Nixon’s visionary but unethical leadership, I’ll apply these same principles to myself by showing examples of how I used contingent reward and cognitive adaptability techniques in my Air Force career. Finally, I’ll discuss how drive for success

Gates began his intelligence career in 1966, with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), at the very entry-level part of it. He was the first member of that agency to rise to the top of the CIA. He has worked in other various senior intelligence positions in the IC. He served on the National Security Council (NSC); served as the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDC/I); Assistant to the President; Deputy National Security Advisor; and Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). His strategic leadership role in the IC supersedes him. Gates was as a leader who did not just drift through his tenure simply managing events. He was a leader who acted boldly, and expected the same from his subordinates. The leadership challenges and leadership approach that I will discuss will be examined

While under Major General David Petraeus, the 101st Airborne Division initially deployed, ready to engage insurgent forces. However, after arriving in Mosul, Iraq the division became heavily involved in a vital reconstruction effort. General Petraeus understood through his previous experiences that in war, reconstruction efforts are inevitable. His critical thinking and problem solving led to a three-pronged strategy to provide a secure environment, to restore basic life services and to facilitate a return to normalcy for the citizens of Mosul. In this paper, I will summarize how General Petraeus used critical thinking, problem solving and the “Screaming Eagles” to earn the hearts and minds of throughout Iraq.

There are a number of significant difficulties for today’s military - the Global War on Terrorism or what has recently been termed the “Long War;” weapon system acquisitions and personnel draw downs. The focus of this paper is on one strategic component of the military quest—Leadership. More specifically, it will center on servant leadership and its impact on the military’s vision.

In General Petraeus' Opening Statement to the Joint House Committee on Iraq, General Petraeus covers a summary of the surge and its effects, the nature of the conflict in Iraq, the situation before the surge, the current situation, and explains his recommendations to his leadership on the future of Iraq. This speech, or statement by title, was made as part of an update following the commencement of the surge. General Petraeus' speech, while lacking in non-verbal communicative properties, was extremely effective when paired with its topical organization and logos proofs.

The 21st century has been marred by war and terror at the global level. Much of this chaos is a result of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks that occurred on September, 11 2001 in the United States. As a result of this attack, new conflicts and wars began in order to prevent such disasters again. Unfortunately, the Iraq War was started under false conditions. The intelligence source named Curveball presented some information regarding the threat that Iraq posed to the US that led much of the effort to proceed with this engagement. Much of this information was wrong or fabricated. The purpose of this essay is to examine Curveball and the HUMINT officers who dealt with this source in order to identify what went wrong in the process and discuss ways in which the system may be improved with better vetting techniques and practices.

Bin Laden formed biases against America based on teachings from extremist mentors he had attached himself to in his younger years (Dreisbach, 2011). Bin Laden’s ethical trap of ethical relativism coupled with his personal biases and prejudices against the US led him to be unethical. Next, I will discuss my own personal relevance with relation to the traits that made bin Laden a visionary leader and caused him to be unethical. Researching Osama bin Laden’s traits as both a visionary leader and unethical leader allowed me to reflect on my own traits as a leader, which I will now discuss, beginning with my Full Range Leadership traits.

What comes to mind when you think of ethics? When I think of ethics, several words come to mind (a) beliefs, (b) conduct, (c) integrity, (d) morals, (e) standards, and (f) principles.

Barbara Kellerman’s Bad Leadership provides specific accounts on how leaders can use his or her power and influence by convincing followers to conduct immoral and unethical acts. Her book takes a different approach from discussing the positive aspects of successful leaders and details the dark side of individuals. The focus of bad leadership is a valuable lesson for leaders and followers in any organization. She provides information on how leaders cross the line from good to bad in seven types of bad leadership. The seven types of bad leadership are: incompetent, rigid, intemperate, callous, corrupt, insular, and evil (Kellerman, 2004). A few of the leaders she examines throughout the book are Mary Meeker, Bill Clinton, David Koresh, Radovan Karadzic and Jim Jones (Kellerman, 2004).