Throughout this essay, Szegedy-Maszak attempts to answer the question: Are there particular conditions in Iraq that might shed light on why these soldiers committed these unconscionable acts? (Szegedy-Maszak p. 173). She begins by presenting two famous psychological experiments that explore the capacity for evil residing in normal people, (Szegedy-Maszak p. 174). The first experiment, conducted by Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo, attempted to mimic a real life prison scenario with students impersonating actual guards and prisoners. Surprisingly, the results were analogous to the actual events that took place at Abu Ghraib prison. The second experiment, created by Stanley Milgram, studied some peoples willingness to follow orders. The experiment began with an actor sitting in a chair supposedly wired with electricity. For every wrong answer this actor would give, volunteers were asked to deliver increasingly dangerous electric shocks to the actor in the chair. The results showed that two out of the three volunteers delivered potentially lethal electric shocks.…
If you need to save money on food, turn your eye to breakfast. There are plenty of options that you can make that are quick, will fill you up and that don"™t cost a lot. For example, oatmeal is a great choice. If you are able to save on breakfast and lunch, you may be able to treat yourself to a meal out with friends every now and then.…
References: Barnes, C. M., & Doty, J. (2010).What does contemporary science say about ethical leadership? Military Review, 90-93.…
Question.3 Explain how a commander sustains an ethical command climate in war? Leaders, at all levels, are the most important factor, with the biggest influence on the unit's ethical command climate. Leading by example should be one of the basic issues in every commander’s leadership philosophy .All the time commanders must ensure that orders,SOP’s and surrounding environment are very clear and understood by all subordinates, to be able to differentiate between what is ethical and what is not .Not…
As program work relies on others to be accomplished, internal and external factors of the program environment can wreak havoc on stability and clarity in not only the objectives but how to achieve them. Two attributes that I contend are valuable at L4 competence for program managers to exhibit are: O2 – Approach to conflict and divergence and E6 – Attitude to Scope.…
As a result of early criticisms of the leadership trait approach, theorists started to research leadership as a set of behaviors. They assessed what effective leaders did, created catalogs of actions, and identified expansive patterns that indicated different leadership styles.…
Is the price of utopia worth it? In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, society is depicted as a peaceful heaven on worth. Once delving into the book further, one realizes that maybe the civilization pictured is not what it appears to be. The occupants of this society seem like robots, completely devoid of any strong emotion with love being the most abhorred of all. Being brainwashed from their synthetic birth, no matter what class they are in, has left them acting ignorant of the world and only able to run on spoonfed information. They are treated more like experiments rather than humans. Dehumanization is unethical and therefore harmful to a society when trying to achieve utopia. Stripping humans of their emotions and their individuality can cause them revert back to an ignorant civilization that can only thrive on supplied propaganda.…
In the movie “A Few Good Men”, Lieutenant Kendrick is on trial, and seems like an unbreakable character. Kendrick does not realize the intensity of the punishment he gave to PFC Curtis Bell, because of falling down the slippery slope leading to pure obedience. Kendrick says, “The only proper authorities I'm aware of are my commanding officer Colonel Nathan R. Jessup and the Lord our God” stating openly that the only authorities he respects is his superior officer and God. (A Few Good Men) Because he says this, it supports the claim that military personnel carry out their orders regardless of danger, and in result, was considered one of the villains in the movie. They feed the soldiers information represented in the movie such as, “we follow orders or people die,” to scare them into submission to authority which is one of the initial steps to achieving blind obedience by authority and dehumanization. (A Few Good Men). However, Kelman and Hamilton explain how soldiers fall into an obedient state in three simple steps- authorization, routinization, and dehumanization in “The My Lai Massacre”. These authors advance the idea that soldiers continually feel obligated to follow authorities whether they agree with them or not, which leads to a psychological state where they lose the ability to make decisions, and finally are completely dehumanized to the point where they lose all human feelings especially empathy. The authors claim, “authority requires subordinates to respond in terms of their role obligations...often people obey without question even though [it] may entail great personal sacrifice or great harm to others” (Kelman and Hamilton 140). This point exercises the authors viewpoint that soldiers are being stripped of their humanity and becoming robots of mass destruction regardless of the danger they may…
Blind obedience is when a person carries out an order even if it goes against their moral values or codes. Prejudice is an unjust attitude towards an individual solely based on their membership of a social group. Both of these issues were present in Abu Ghraib Prison (Iraq). They occurred when American soldiers commit terrible act upon Iraqi prisoners staying there. The soldiers claimed they were merely following orders, but scepticisms have been made about whether it was blind obedience or prejudice that made them commit the acts. There are 2 main theories that help to explain what blind obedience and prejudice are, and why they occur.…
A Marine must have the integrity to report such cases and depend on their senior leaders just like those senior leaders rely on those younger Marines to do the right thing to protect their fellow Marines. I have witnessed firsthand what it costs a unit when a Marine’s integrity is lost and they fail to live up to the Marine Corps standard. By teaching Marines the value of integrity and teaching attention to detail our Marines will continue keeping their integrity clean and living up to the Marine Corps standard leading to the overall success of our…
Although this experiment is over 30 years old, it strikingly resembles the events that occurred in Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq in 2003. It was there, where detainees were humiliated, abused, and degraded by American Soldiers. Images of abuse soon appeared online, and spread viral across the world. Almost immediately the United States military defensively stated that “it’s just a few bad apples” (Levin, 2008) When individuals are doing bad things, we assume that they’re bad people and often ignore how external factors in the environment may contribute to that behaviour.…
1. Identify and analyze one leadership theory or style that you believe best aligns with your own thoughts of what leadership means. Use that theory or style to analyze your strengths and weaknesses.…
Leadership Blindspots is an excellent book that is clear, straight to the point, thoroughly researched and supported. The most important, honest in its evaluation of leadership performance issues and helpful in its offering of possible solutions. I highly recommend reading this book for any type of leader. It will help them stop and think a little longer before taking a decision that may not be the best at the end. Moreover, It is a good read for any individual who desire to discover the practices and challenges of being a valuable…
I began this book like most books, with great anticipation that it was going to be amazing, why else would a qualified instructor assign it. I assumed that it would be a shining example of the finest managerial principals in existence all compacted into a simple to read text with plenty of graphs and helpful handouts. I was certain that I would be a more effective leader for having read it. I spent time strategizing how I would write my paper with great enthusiasm. Then, I read the book.…
In my experience, discipline in high schools has always been over the top. From what I heard, it has gotten so much worse since I left. Now the students need not only uniforms (just a strict dress code really) but also I.D. tags that they have to wear around their necks like cattle. They are herded from one class to the next with teachers and rent-a-cops waiting down every hallway to prod along the stragglers. Even when I was there, a student needed a good reason to be anywhere, and even with hall passes they were hassled by monitors on patrol. In the morning when they first get there (at the ungodly hour of six A.M.) they are subjected to metal detectors, random searches, and the occasional patrol of drug-sniffing dogs. There is absolutely no trust in the system, because after all, they’re just children and are not ready or able to make their own decisions, barring the fact that once they leave High School they will be completely responsible for everything in college.…