Marcelino Sarabia

OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:

1. Describe the four ethical communities

2. Apply the ethical communities to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other

course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and

format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

My role is a Senior Finance Analyst, and the situation revolved a new client manager

(Rebecca) making requests to my invoice and process on by Uber account. The change

requests did not benefit our organization or respond to any new requests from the client

(Uber). The current work and process met all requirements of our contract with Uber.

Rebecca pitched her idea to the program manager but was denied for any changes.

Rebecca used her power as my superior to get it done anyways by pushing her requests

past the program manager and requested it by me directly. This results in excess overtime

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 on my part as well as my other accounts suffering since I was doing the work of a team

on top of my normally busy tasks and additional accounts.

2) Describe how the ethics of the organization influenced the situation.

In this specific situation, I think it was influenced by the lack of ethics. Specifically in the

family and caring ethical community. According to our book, this required leaders to be

concerned with the needs and wishes of members and stakeholders (Bolman & Deal,

2017). This was not the case with Rebecca. As someone who is still my superior, when

she was informed that her change requests required a team to be put together, proper

steps should have been taken to get that together if the changes were that important to

her. Instead, she placed the responsibility on one person (myself) who is already busy

with so many other accounts and miscellaneous daily tasks.

That same point goes into the difference between leadership and authority. “Leadership is

distinct from authority and position, although authorities may be leaders” (Bolman &

Deal, 2017). This statement goes hand in hand for this moment with Rebecca. Her

decision was an example of using her authority to get her requests responded to rather

than using her leadership ability to make the necessary changes that will allow them to be

implemented without affecting anything else.

3) Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative

course of action regarding your case.

The ethical community of family and caring can be applied to this situation. It refers to

one’s compassion or concern for another person (Bolman & Deal, 2017). As mentioned

in a previous PCA worksheet, there were negative impacts I endured due to following a

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 request that was previously denied. I had to work tons of over time, little to no time off,

and even other accounts suffering due to lack of time and attention I had to dedicate to

them. None of which support my well-being or the well-being of other accounts that

make up our clientele.

I would apply this ethical community and the alternative courses of action that could have

been taken by Rebecca were to first consider the amount of additional work it would take

to accommodate her request especially after the Program Manager informed her it would

require a whole team to be established. It was my well-being that was not considered

which goes against the family and caring ethical community.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned

about ethics.

One thing I know I for sure still would not have changed was listening to someone of a

higher authority than me. Not only did I respond to orders without any necessary

complaining or issues, but I delivered a product that satisfies the client (in this case was

Rebecca) who delivered it to her client which was Uber. It was a point that showed my

dedication to the organization and the stress and how I managed it got me promoted to an

even higher roles for my solutions to making it work.

One thing I would have changed was not respectfully expressing the effects the excess

workload was causing. This included my other accounts suffering, excess overtime, and a

decrease in quality overall due to lack of resting. I could have brought this to the

attentions of my superiors and revisited the idea of drafting a team together.

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 Reference or References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership

(6th ed.). Jossey-Bass, a John Wiley and Sons, Inc. imprint.