CPD 410 Learning and Actions
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Old Dominion University *
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Course
410
Subject
Philosophy
Date
Feb 20, 2024
Type
Pages
9
Uploaded by jlitz002
Learning and Actions Paper
1
Learning and Actions
Jacob Litzenberg
Old Dominion University
CPD 410: Leadership Ethics
Professor Garrett Shelton
December 4, 2023
Learning and Actions Paper
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Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to review the information that has been covered in this
course (CPD 410: Leadership Ethics) and how I will take the information and transform it into
practice. In half of the paper, I will take some time to educate you on my significant learnings,
and in the back half, I will reserve to share specific action plans on what I will do with those
learnings.
Learning and Actions Paper
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What I have learned in CPD 410
In just a blink of an eye, we are reaching the end of our 7 weeks together enrolled in CPD
410: Leadership Ethics under the helm of Professor Garrett Shelton ODU Chief of Police. I have
to admit I was curious going into the course not sure what I would gain from taking the course.
The course is described in Banner
as how ethical principles can be used to guide effective
leadership practices. Students will gain an understanding of how ethical principles in the
workplace have developed over time. They will also explore the connections between individual
ethics and workplace behaviors, in addition to leadership strategies that promote ethical
behavior by workers.
In week 1 of the course, we were asked how we would define leadership. I wrote the
following response:
To simply put I would define leadership as one's ability to lead others.
Leadership generally is someone in a position with authority over an individual(s). Leadership
for me is also someone who is a visionary and has the ability to help grow you and other peers
and colleagues. Whether that be a staff team or coaching little league sports leadership can take
many different forms.
This was such a simple question but I loved the conversation it provoked
and engaged amongst fellow peers. I learned from this discussion that leadership has so many
different meanings to everyone. Pushing into week 2 we were engaged in discussing how our
morals impact leadership. During this week we discussed and learned about Kohlberg’s six
stages of moral development and three levels. The three levels consist of Pre-Conventional,
Conventional, and Post-Conventional. These stages help us to understand our own moral
reasoning and our sphere or influence surrounding each stage as we progress from childhood to
adolescence. Additionally, we were introduced to a lecture by Dr. Keith Ng regarding ethical
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Learning and Actions Paper
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principles in business and how to think and manage ethically. This was a lecture we referenced
on multiple occasions particularly to review various leadership ethic theories and how they relate
to moral reasoning. Carrying on into week 3 was perhaps when my favorite topic of this course
was introduced. We were introduced to the term “mensch”. I believe I speak for the majority of
the class when I say this was a new term I was not previously familiar with. I described a mensch
in our week 3 discussion board as:
A Mensch, in simplistic terms is a good person. A mensch is a
term that refers to someone who is generally kind and considerate. Further, if you are titled with
this term you are expected to act with honor and integrity. Often those that are coined as a
mensch are motivated by a sense of values. A mensch should be someone you admire and look up
to.
I learned also through fellow peers that a mensch is a Yiddish term and comes from Jewish
descent also. Further, I learned a mensch is someone who has passed through all of Kohlberg’s
six stages of moral development and has made predetermined decisions to live according to their
principles and values. Some examples of a mensch would be Mother Theresa, Jesus, and
Confucius. It seems that the term mensch is the aspiration of what mankind was meant to
develop into. We are social beings and the fruit of our interactions and relationships are the
keystone of humanity (The JC, 2015). In week 4 we were extremely blessed to have some time
to work on all of our end-of-the-year assignments. Jumping into the week of Thanksgiving,
Week 5, I love how the course aligned with a discussion on gratitude and resilience. It is no
surprise that as leaders we are often faced with challenges and unexpected complications from
time to time. It is easy for us to react negatively, but in week 5 we learned the importance of
turning to gratitude during these difficult times and displaying resilience as a leader. Some of my
favorite learnings from this week came from simple highlights from a document on resiliency
Learning and Actions Paper
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notes. Some of these highlights included:
●
Differentiate resilience as a personality trait vs resilience as a process.
●
Put people in roles where can they experience success.
●
Emotional intelligence competencies are not innate talents but learned abilities.
●
Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to be “be happy.”
Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically.
Further in another document this week there was a resource titled
The Road to Resilience
which
shared ten ways to build resilience. I learned the importance of the following ten steps: Make
connections, avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems, accept that change is a part of
living, move toward your goals, take decisive actions, look for opportunities for self-discovery,
nurture a positive view of yourself, keep things in perspective, maintain a hopeful outlook, and
take care of yourself (American Psychological Association, N.d) all have towards building
resiliency. Also in this week my favorite read of the whole course came from a case study on
Joseph White a University President and Professor emeritus to multiple universities. White
displayed true resilience in how he dignifiedly delivered a graceful message to a former
University when he did not get selected as University President. As week 5 concludes we
revisited the term mensch and how a mensch practices gratitude. Next to the plate we have week
6 where we focused on relationships and compassion. An author that was frequented this
semester Jane E Dutton cowrote on an article titled Leading in Times of Trauma. Right off the
bat, the article reads
The unspeakable happens: A beloved leader dies; a fire leaves dozens
homeless; terrorists kill thousands. Traumatic events cause incalculable pain for
victims and all who care about them—pain that spills into the workplace and overwhelms
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employees. As a leader, you can’t eliminate the suffering. But you can ease the collective
anguish and confusion. How? By demonstrating your own compassion and unleashing a
company-wide compassionate response (Dutton, et, al, 2002).
This article goes on to teach
strategies for displaying compassion in the workplace including openly expressing your feelings,
being present physically and emotionally, modeling behaviors you’d like others to demonstrate,
using your influence to reallocate needed resources, using existing systems to mobilize
resources, supporting bottom-up compassion, and later shows the importance of performing
quick high-level company checks
(Dutton, et, al, 2002).
Further, in week 6 I learned how
compassion can help develop your working relationships and the importance of identifying
relationship needs and scheduling time to build relationships. As we pull into the final week,
week 7 we reviewed the topic of callings. This is the perfect conclusion to this class as I love
how it taught and served as a reminder as to how to measure and evaluate our lives. Looking
back to week 1 learnings and how this whole class relates to ethics I love the self-reflection
pieces and it taught me how my ethics, reasoning, and compassion all ties together to form a
mensch of a leader.
Putting Learning into Action
Through 7 weeks of class, I was privileged to learn more about leadership ethics and the
principles behind the moral development of a leader. I would like to take some time to discuss
various learning objectives and how I plan to put them into action. I think for me one of the
biggest takeaways from this course was learning about a mensch. While it isn’t realistic for any
of us to be fully like Jesus, Mother Theresa, or Confucius we can certainly take away some
learnings. Some of the areas I plan to be more intentional about are how I evaluate myself and
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the businesses I have the opportunity to work with in the form of a mensch. Some of my fellow
peers did an excellent job finding articles on how a business can be a mensch. I’d like to take
more time to evaluate this. How can my business be more of a mensch to my clients? How can I
encourage my team to be more mensch-like? How can I set myself as the best example? All of
these questions are things I have been pondering. For me personally, I think I want to spend more
time on always showing compassion. Specifically not waiting until something is wrong to
display it. Further, I want to continue to develop my skills in taking initiative. I feel one way I
can do this through these learnings is identifying a staff member on an upcoming event even it
doesn’t relate to my own benefit and taking time to coach them in what I am doing so that it can
benefit them in the future even though it may have no benefit to me. This will allow me to
remind myself at times as a leader I am only as successful as those around me. Another big
takeaway that I want to put more into practice comes out of the compassion and relationship
learnings from this class. As a leader day to day, it can be easy to get focused and perhaps block
out some stuff from the outside. That said you never know how what is going on in the outside
world is affecting the rest of your team. I have realized that I do not do a good job of ensuring I
stay educated on what is going on around my primary scope. I am unable to be an effective
leader and show compassion very well if I do not stay informed. Switching gears a little
something else I would like to discuss further is resilience. I like to think of myself as a pretty
resilient leader and I am often able to pivot and problem-solve quickly. That said this class taught
me there is so much more to resilience looking at the case study of Mr White. I realize there are
countless situations I could’ve taken a different approach or perhaps tried to display gratitude in
place of showing frustration. Going forward I plan to try the various strategies learned above to
Learning and Actions Paper
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display resilience such as being able to differentiate resilience as a personality trait vs resilience
as a process.
As this class comes to a conclusion I would be remiss if I didn’t share my gratitude for
the opportunity to take this class, Mr. Shelton your leadership, the monarch community, and have
to have had the opportunity to grow as a a leader. I have a new outlook on leadership ethics and I
am hopeful I can work towards even being 30% more of a mensch than I have been.
Learning and Actions Paper
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References
The JC. (2015, January 6).
What is a mensch?
. Thejc.com.
https://www.thejc.com/news/israel/netanyahu-israel-will-have-security-responsibility-for-gaza-af
ter-defeating-hamas-1NN9vbtM1dMqDseL0scfLT
American Psychological Association. (N.d). The Road to Resilience
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