Sallie Krawcheck’s response to a moral dilemma and how her perfection in adopting the best decision translating to positive implications

 Sallie Krawcheck’s response to a moral dilemma and how her perfection in adopting the best decision translating to positive implications

Ethics, which refers to the performance standards explaining the expected options that individuals ought to take when responding to different circumstances, is an essential consideration not only in the business world but also in other sectors. Individuals, especially leaders and managers, are faced with an ethical dilemma as they render their services to the community of organizations. Such leaders or managers find it challenging to come up with the best decisions among the competing/conflicting options. The ethical sensitivity to the implications of one’s decision is an essential consideration when coming up with a choice to take between or among the contradictory alternatives. Many leaders/managers face the challenge of decision making when responding to circumstances raising ethical dilemmas. The paper reflects on Sallie Krawcheck’s response to a moral dilemma and how her perfection in adopting the best decision translating to positive implications both at the organization level and her career.

In her career life, Sallie participated in various leadership positions. She is recognized due to the role she played when working as the co-founder and CEO of Ellevest Company (Johnson, 2017). The company was a digital financial advisor specialized with guiding women on the best considerations when coming up with investment decisions. Sallie worked with other prominent institutions and organizations before she was hired as the CEO of this digital financial advisor. Furthermore, she worked with Merrill Lynch, where she was tasked with various roles. One of the significant role was the management of wealth division. Her participation and contributions to Merrill Lynch did not go without notable ethical concerns and dilemmas. The moral concern that Sallie encountered during the year 2009 evidenced her to be a good leader, thus translating to recognition by many investors and institutions as one of the best managers in the business world during the time. When she took over the task of financial management, Sallie noticed that her predecessors had poor financial management. She had to take a risk in trying to save the sinking Merrill Lynch. Being low risk was vital to enable the company to manage its value.

The major problem was that Sallie needed to formulate faultless measures to enable Merrill Lynch to curtail the trend of losing the value that risked its collapse. Even though she was determined to reinvent Merrill Lynch and get it back on track, she appreciated that various ethical concerns were surrounding diverse options that she could take. Sallie was alarmed that the financial mistakes made by her predecessors risked the low-income citizens to losing their investment finances.

Most of the low-income citizens had invested a lot of money with optimism that Merrill Lynch could perform better and get financial gains. The two available options raised the ethical dilemma that Sallie considered. The mismanagement of stocks had run the business into financial crises that risked investors to the probable loss of their money. Saying tough luck to most of the investors who were employees of Walmart was one of the options that Sallie could have considered (Sims, 2017). The other option was to put in money and ensure perfection in management to increase value. It was morally and ethically acceptable for Sallie to put money in and hide/cover some of the financial losses that had been previously incurred. In her reflections, she remembered such an ethical dilemma faced when she worked for CitiGroup. She remembered that her decision to reimburse investors’ money at the CityGroup cost her the job, and she was fired. Even though Sallie knew that she risked being fired, she opted to adopt the decision that was in the best interest of the low-income earning investors.

It is worth appreciating that Sallie’s decision was faultless. Personally, Sallie adopted the best choice when faced with an ethical dilemma. As briefed earlier, leaders/managers are faced with diverse ethical dilemmas when rendering their day-to-day services to organizations. When faced with such moral dilemmas, most employees consider the adoption of decisions that are fit for their personal goals. Arguably, some leaders/managers opt to adopt unethical choices as far as such options favor their career and personal interests. For example, some managers/leaders may choose to make unethical decisions to please their employers and save their job. Arguably, most leaders/managers will opt to avoid ethical choices to save their jobs. On the contrary, Sallie adopted the best decisions even though she knew that it was a risk to her career. She had chosen a similar decision in her previous work, and the option made her lose the job (Sims, 2017). As such, she knew that opting for the same decision at the Merrill Lynch was a risk to the task. Despite such risks, she chose to adopt a decision that was morally and ethically acceptable. Some of the recommendations considering the case include;

1. Leaders should always make ethically acceptable choices regardless of the probable implications of their careers.
2. It is fundamental to reflect on the downside when faced with an ethical dilemma when rendering professional services.
3. Prior negative implications should not hinder a leader/manager from adopting an ethical decision when faced with a similar dilemma.

In summary, ethical decisions may pose negative implications for individuals, especially when working as a manager. Many managers may opt to adopt unethical behavior to avoid negative consequences, such as losing jobs. Leaders are faced with various ethical concerns in their lifetime. Sallie Krawcheck is one of the persons faced with a moral dilemma. When working as a manager at Merrill Lynch, Sallie was subjected to an ethical dilemma that risked her job. Sallie adopted an ethical decision regardless of the probable risk of losing the job. As a leader, it is fundamental always to maintain moral choices irrespective of the likely risks as far as one’s job is concerned.

References

Johnson, S. K. (2017). What 11 CEOs have learned about championing diversity. Harvard Business Review.

Sims, R. R. (2017). A contemporary look at business ethics. IAP.