Course Reflection
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After you have completed the LDST 200, 201 and 202, or 203 sequence and your elective class, please complete the class reflection and submit your responses to one of the ethical case studies found below.
- Note: If you don't see the option in myKU Portal to upload an ethical case study responses, you'll need to submit a leadership statement instead. Access leadership statement instructions and resources on this forms webpage.
Please submit all your responses through myKU portal. It is highly advisable that you back up your reflections in a Word document.
Course Reflection
Here are the two questions that you will be asked to answer:
- List one or two key ideas you have learned about leadership from LDST 200, 201 and 202, or 203 and your elective course that are applicable to your leadership endeavors.
- Think about why these things are important. How will you apply what you have learned to future leadership endeavors?
Ethical Dilemma Case Study
Please select ONE of the following ethical case studies below and respond to each question accompanying your selected dilemma. There are resources below to help you complete this section. Your responses should total at least 300 words. Save responses in a word document and upload the document to your certificate record in myKU Portal.
Don't see an option in myKU Portal to upload your ethical case study responses? Access complete leadership statement instructions and resources on this forms webpage.
Case Studies
You are the treasurer of your student organization and in that role, you are responsible for fundraising. A large portion of the fundraising money goes to student scholarships. In order to award the advertised number of scholarships next semester, the student group needs to raise a substantial amount of funds in the next 2 months. During your struggling fundraising campaign, an unsavory donor and local business owner with some questionable hiring and bookkeeping practices, has offered up a significant amount of money close to the final deadline. There is no overt expectation that you will be expected to return a favor in exchange for the donation. Do you accept the donation?
- Which of Kidder’s four ethical dilemma paradigms could this scenario fit into and why?
- What will factor into your decision making?
- Identify the stakeholders in the situation. How will you explain your decision to your remaining stakeholders? Consider both if you do take the funds and if you choose to refuse the funds.
- What are your alternatives if you refuse the funding?
- Ultimately, what ethical perspective most strongly influenced your decision (ends based, rules based, or care based thinking)? Explain.
The contractor you have engaged to design your non-profit’s website has put together a series of incredible, impactful personal narrative videos to illustrate the type of work your group does and the potential it has for making a difference. Your plan is to have these available for fundraising and partnership appeals as well as evidence to stakeholders of how you can support progress. Knowing that your funds for marketing are limited, the contractor has given your organization a substantial discount on their services.
However, the individuals featured in the videos are actors who have never had a relationship with your organization and the situations referenced in the narratives never occurred. The dramatizations, while effective, represent an “extreme” of what you might actually encounter in your day to day work. Do you go ahead and approve the content?
- Which of Kidder’s four ethical dilemma paradigms could this scenario fit into and why?
- What will factor into your decision making?
- Identify the stakeholders in the situation. How will you explain your choices to your stakeholder groups? Consider both if you do approve the content and if you choose to refuse approving the content.
- What are your alternatives if you refuse to approve the content?
- After considering your options, what is your final decision and why? Ultimately, what ethical perspective most strongly influenced your decision (ends based, rules based, or care based thinking)? Explain.
To raise awareness for a cause you care about deeply, you wish to coordinate public demonstration. The space you want to use requires a lengthy application to reserve but you anticipate no problem with your application being approved. You submit the application well in advance, start planning the public demonstration, and rallying local community members. 2 weeks go by and you have received no word about the status of your application, so you follow up. The only information you can get is that the application is still pending.
Five days before your event is scheduled, you receive word that your application has been rejected. You feel that the rejection is politically-motivated. Do you go ahead with your event as a form of civil disobedience even though you are directly violating a law?
- Which of Kidder’s four ethical dilemma paradigms could this scenario fit into and why?
- What will factor into your decision making?
- What might this event look like if you choose to move forward in violation of the law? OR What might be the next steps if you choose not to demonstrate but to otherwise address the slight?
- How will you explain your decision to your remaining stakeholders? Consider both if you demonstrate and if you do not demonstrate as planned.
- After considering your options, what is your final decision and why? Ultimately, what ethical perspective most strongly influenced your decision (ends based, rules based, or care based thinking)? Explain.
Resources
Review the ethical dilemma excerpt from, How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living (pdf), 2nd edition (Harper Collins, 2009, pages 1 – 18), by Rushworth M. Kidder (pdf).