Name: Duy Thai Ngo

ID
NEU: 001844519
SUT: 101439647
Ethical Leadership

Assignment #1: Case Study 1

The case study about Joseph Ellis is an example of dishonest ethical issues in academic

environment. The dishonest issues are not basic as a lie or joke, which simple impact people in

a short period of time. The loss of believe in a person, or an organization in the larger picture,

cause an unfair or deceptive environment.

Generally, individuals as members of society, all have the awareness of ethical and moral

dimension as themselves interested concerns. Students, or workers, when they see the lack of

trust in their leader, the believe in their corporation might loss. This phenomenon lead to lack

of motivation in working and studying. Trevino, L. and Nelson, K (2011, page 22) pointed out

the practices about human brain during the process of receiving and re-interacting with unfair

offers. Neuroscientist saw that the strong negative emotion part of brain will be associated

when people aware the unfair offers. In contrast, people who tend to reject unfair offers shows

active of their emotional part of brain. Hence, the effectiveness of people in working-space can

be influence by ethical of leaders, which directly impact staffs’ offers and works. Furthermore,

the honesty, altruism and fairness in society are contributed by personal reputation. The

indignity of individual creates a trusted atmosphere in working space. In other words, the trust

acts like a wheel in working process, which is run by the relationships between leaders and

colleges across working departments and different projects teams in one organization.

High level of trusty and honesty are motivations for staffs can fully pay their efforts on work

regardless of fear of being unfair treating. According to Trevino, L. and Nelson, K (2001, p23)
when people clearly know what they are working for is more valuable as noble purpose, there

are expectation of higher commitments and loyalty from people, or at least it’s inspiration.

Eventually, the trust lead to raise the effectiveness in communicating and collaborating

between people and people in one organization, which is key of success in business.

In the case of Ellis in academical environment, his lie in role American culture and Vietnamese

War can be blame as dishonest ethical issues, which leads to long-term negative consequences.

First of all, there is no feasible points to excuse his lie which might support to his academic

carrier. There are possibilities that Billies’s delusion about his role can make his ideas and

arguments more convincible, compare with no relative experience lecturer. However, these

past situations were recreated with Ellis’s vividness. Furthermore, there is no lie can live

forever. The payoff of his delusion is losing all believe of him from students, who support to

be fairly treated with reliable information from their professors. The consequences of ethical

issues in academic term is only not stay in academic term. These impacts can influence

students’ points of views in long-term because it happened in the period of students’ forming

their own value and even their organization value in the future. Trevino, L. and Nelson, K

(2011, p29) value can represents by individuals, to organization or society. In this case, Ellis,

the professor who inspires his students via his knowledge and wisdom, just threw away his

dignity. Jones (The New York Time, 2001) “Mr Ellis case: has provoked a conversation about

the limits and the values of truth”. In the future, the concept of dishonesty and unfair, which

even appears in academic terms with their professors, might lead to the assumption those

ethical issues are acceptable. Thus, the consequences of dishonest issue influence personal

value of not only the storytellers, but also the listeners.

Due to the consequences of Ellis’s ethical issue, suitable punishments should be applied. In the

case study, Mount Holyoke’s applied no paying one academic year and endowed chair–status

with Ellis. Then Ellis came back to his position after one year. In my opinion, the punishment

from Mount Holyoke seem to be not strong enough in Ellis case. Ellis supposes to be ban of

academic term in long-time, until he can be able to fix all his story, paper and books which

contain his vivid story about Vietnamese War and his role during that period of time. The

explanation of this practice is that the consequences of Ellis’s faulty are the impacts on his

students, his books readers, the fame on his university and his value as well. The university

which allowed lectures of Ellis had to face with losing fame, value and reputation after Ellis

scandal. Not only Ellis books audiences, but also the publishing company of his books face

reputational and financial issues. Thus, there can be see that all the consequences from Ellis’s

lie are not about money. They are about the reputation, respect, dignity and value of all victims

from this scandal. Hence, the short suggestions for the college board of trustee are investing

Ellis lectures and content in his books, helping Ellis in gathering reliable information which

related to his old contents. This action not only supports college to fix Ellis content with old

students, but also provides the reliable contents when Ellis back to become the lectures in the

future.
Reference:

- Trevino, L. and Nelson, K. (2011). Managing Business Ethics: Straight Talk About How

to Do It Right (5th Edition). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. (ISBN: 978-1-

119-29854-0)

- Nytimes, , The Lies of Joseph Ellis, (2011) retrieved from

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/21/opinion/the-lies-of-joseph-ellis.html