[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Will leaders guide us into a better life, society?
A simple distinction is between two forms of power.
*Socialized power is power used to benefit others. We hope that our elected officials have this sort of power in mind and are primarily concerned with the best interests of their constituents.
*The other form of power is called personalized power, and it is using power for personal gain.
Importantly, these two forms of power are not mutually exclusive. A leader can use his or her power to benefit others, but can also gain personally. The obvious problem is when personalized power dominates and the leader gains, often at the followers’ expense.
“Power corrupts.” 0r the longer version: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
Yet, leaders can delude themselves that they are working for the greater good (using socialized power), but engage in behavior that is morally wrong. A sense of power can cause a leader to engage in what leadership ethicist, Terry Price, calls “exception making” – believing that the rules that govern what is right and what is wrong does not apply to the powerful leader “for other people, this would be wrong, but because I have the best interests of my followers at heart, it’s ok for me to….” During Watergate, the argument was made that President Nixon could not have acted illegally because “the President is above the law.”
Wikipedia
Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual enquiry, moral philosophy also is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][/vc_row]