Ethical Leadership in Corporate America - Essay Example

United States possesses anti-fraud regulations that can execute the offenders in the courts of law as criminals of the society. But significant number of fraudulent activities happen in the United States erasing hundreds of billions of dollars of government treasury and public money every year. The Enron fraud revealed the huge extent of involvement of corporate executives in illegal market manipulations and tampering of financial books & balance sheets that can shake the fundamentals of US economy and in turn the global economy. [Ostas. 2007. p.571-578] Enron fraud was a significant event in the history that resulted in a mammoth decline of about $1.

5 Trillion in the New York Stock Exchange alone within an year of their public disclosures which eroded the confidence of the general investors significantly in the United States and rest of world [Ostas. 2007. p.571-578]. This was one of the most rude shocks to the world about a country where ethical conduct is taught as dedicated management subject and Jesuit tradition of education is followed in so many universities. Is America developing bad managers at the academic level or the work environment in the corporations erases their fundamental learning of ethics that they bring from the academic world This is a question that is not easy to answer but the people of United States and from all across the world have begin to wonder if the corporations of the United States are in the hands of managers that are incapable and selfish that possess very poor self restraint and self reliance and poor (or NIL) dignity towards the nation and its people.

In this article, I present a review of the impact of leadership values and ethics within Corporate America taking the events in Enron as the baseline. The article begins with an analysis of the events in Enron and their mapping with the empirical theories of corporate ethics. Further to this, the alternatives are discussed that management in Enron should have considered to prevent this fraud and the most appropriate alternative is discussed in detail along with its implementation plan.Table of Contents:1.

1 Background of the Enron Scandal 71.1.1 What was the ENRON scandal 71.1.2 Brief summary of the issue 91.1.3 Sarbanes - Oxley Act and other major changes post Enron Scandal 101.1.4 The Problem Statement 122.1 Amazing rise of Enron and its fall thereafter 132.2 Where did Enron lacked in Corporate Ethics 152.3 Linking Enron and the Corporate America with the empirical theories of corporate ethics 18Table of Figures:S.No.Description and Hyperlink in the documentFigure 1The mapping of IT enabled Corporate Governance with the corresponding attributes (Source: IT Governance Institute. 2000)Figure 2The extremely complex transactional framework created by Enron to sell their SPEs (Source: Jenson, Bob.

at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory/00overview/speoverview.htm)Figure 3The Critical Thinking Model (Source: Paul and Elder. 2006. p.3-21)Figure 4The decision making process that develops the individual traits helping in being more