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.

This situation occurred while serving as a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy. My mother
unexpectedly passed away and over the next few months, my performance at work was
negatively affected. During my semi-annual mid-term review, my leadership told me that
I was doing well and to keep up the good work. Six months later when it was time for my
official evaluation, the leadership told me that my performance had declined leading to
my performance scores falling from where they were the previous year. The reasons they
gave were poor and were not justified. This negative evaluation would make it so that I
could not advance for at least five years leading me to passionately arguing and
confronting my leadership.

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

The overall ethics of the Navy are based off our core values of honor, courage and
commitment. Because the Navy is such a diverse force, these three values help to align us
with the Navy’s vision. This doesn’t mean that every leader and every command lives by
these values. This command’s triad was located in another building and made very little
effort to visit the other sites they were responsible for. This made myself and my sailors
feel like we did not belong and that we were not part of the family. “A compassionate
family or community requires servant-leaders concerned with the needs and wishes of
members and stakeholders” (Bolman & Deal, 2021, p. 417). There was no sense of
community or family because the leadership did not seem to care about its Sailors outside
of the main building.

Because of how the leadership portrayed themselves to be, I did not feel they would care
about my problems. This made me not want to talk to them to get any assistance with
what I was going through. Bolman and Deal (2021) state “In work organizations, faith is
strengthened if individuals feel the organization is characterized by excellence, caring,

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 and Justice” (p. 420). I had no faith in my leadership, therefore I felt there was no temple
to seek out for guidance and assistance.

3) Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative
course of action regarding your case.

An alternative course of action that could be applied in my situation is by doing more on

my part to foster a family type of atmosphere throughout the organization. I believe this
should usually come from the top down, but I may have been able to do something more
on my end. I did a good job of fostering such an environment at my location but failed to
pursue that with the other locations. My Sailors and I had an us against them sort of
attitude towards the other locations. This helped pull the team together, which led to
some outstanding accomplishments. My team called ourselves the “Black Sheep”
because of the disconnect to the other locations. The leadership saw how close all of us
were and appeared to be threatened by that or at least felt jealous. I believe that factored
into me getting the poor evaluation. Instead of only focusing on my team, I could have
done more to build relationships with the leadership and the other locations. If that sense
of family was present, I may have received help dealing with my loss and a better
evaluation.

For an alternative course of action during my evaluation debrief, I would recommend the
leadership at my organization use the factory ethical community. I was the highest-
ranking person at my location, so that allowed me to lead the way that I thought was best
for my team. The senior enlisted leader didn’t agree with one of my strategies and used it
against me at evaluation debrief. I believe that learning from one's failures is a good way
to grow. In this instance, one of the Chiefs that worked for me failed an inspection that
was conducted the course he was responsible for. They are relatively easy inspections if
one is prepared. I asked him two months ahead of time if he was ready and then again at
least once a week to make sure that he didn’t forget. The day prior to the inspection I saw
that he was scrambling around the office fumbling around with a plethora of documents.
Even though I reminded him weekly of the pending inspection. He chose to do nothing
until the last minute. He ended up failing the inspection which the senior enlisted leader
used as one of his reasons for giving me the poor evaluation. The senior enlisted leader
clearly did not trust me and my way of doing things. “Trusting people to solve problems
generates higher levels of motivation and better solutions” (Bolman & Deal, 2021, p.
416). If he had trusted me or asked me about the situation, I could have explained
everything regarding the situation.

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

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 I place a lot of the blame for my situation on the senior enlisted leader and the
commanding officer, but I am not without fault. I knew that my overall performance was
taking a step back and wasn’t honest with myself that I needed to change what I was.
Even though the senior enlisted leader told me that I was doing a good job during my
midterm evaluation, I knew differently and could have brought it up at that time. As
Bolman and Deal (2021) state “Confronting vulnerability allows us to drop our mask,
meet heart to heart, and be present for one another” (p. 417). If I had opened up about my
struggles, the leadership may have been able to help see me through them.

As I mentioned above, I would try to do what I could to promote more of a family

environment across all the organization's different locations. The two ways I would
attempt to make that happen are by promoting a team culture across all buildings and dial
back the us versus them that my team developed. By promoting the team culture amongst
everyone, communication throughout would have improved. The leadership then may
have cared more about me and my situation.

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 Reference or References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership
(7th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.