Research has continually shown that stress can have a variety of detrimental influences on organizations and leader decision-making. For instance, situations perceived to be higher in stress have led to increased cases of unethical organizational behavior (Selart & Johansen, 2011). Therefore, failing to appropriate manage stress undoubtedly represents the potential for severe healthcare service-quality and organizational failures at the hands of good leaders making dumb and ethically compromised decisions. With this in mind, we can turn to Thompson’s (2010) proposal of a pathway to effectively handle stress and make better decisions. This pathway is contingent upon the development and utilization of stress-resilient emotional intelligence.

Proposed as a new collective intelligence that encompasses cognitive, moral, social, and emotional intelligence, Wickham and O’Donohue (2012) coined the term ethical intelligence. Ethical intelligence is considered a skill essential to the agency leader hoping to develop an ethical organization. The “ethically intelligent” leader is highly process-oriented, personally introspective, and critically retrospective in their analysis of prior organizational choices, decisions, and interpersonal communications. Specifically, the authors noted that:

While all organizations may publish codes of ethics and conduct, the ethically intelligent type will see the advantage in going beyond such traditional and generalized responses to incorporate in their learning and development activities an emphasis on discussion about important decision-precedents within the organization, and the philosophy behind why each might have been considered ethically justifiable or otherwise. (p. 15)

Considering this ethically & emotionally intelligent leadership approach, in order to foster new ethical exchange in a health services organization, your task for Scholarly Paper #2 is to lead a new series of leadership and staff training and development exercises whereby you work to:

a.) examine historically-significant organizational decisions/behaviors according to ethically and emotionally intelligent principles;

b.) examine your own actions and decisions as a leader via the same ethical paradigm; and

c.) identify two key emotional intelligence-building activities (from the Lynn, 2000 attachment) that you recommend be utilized to build ethical and emotional intelligence in all organizational leaders, en route to overall enhanced organizational ethics.

Please remember that this is a scholarly paper, and not an opportunity to vent about poor/unethical decisions your organization or its highest-level leaders have made. Your opinion is influential, but only so far as you have factual information and scholarly theories/research to inform your critique/evaluation. It should be written in current APA style utilizing the provided APA submission Word.doc Template—Specific for Paper Two—for completion. You should utilize the “level III newspaper-headline style headings” at the beginning of paragraphs with new topics (see template). Your textbooks from MHSA6185 and MHSA6186 will likely suffice for scholarly support, along with the supplemental Lynn (2000) 50 Activities for Developing Emotional Intelligence document, although you are welcome to integrate additional scholarly material if desired.

References:

Huhtala, M., Kangas, M., Lämsä, A., & Feldt, T. (2013). Ethical managers in ethical organisations? The leadership-culture connection among finnish managers.Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 34(3), 250-270. doi:10.1108/01437731311326684

Lynn, A. B. (2000). 50 activities for developing emotional intelligence. Amherst, MA: HRD Press, Inc.

Selart, M., & Johansen, S. T. (2011). Ethical decision making in organizations: The role of leadership stress. Journal of Business Ethics, 99(2), 129-143. doi:10.1007/s10551-010-0649-0

Thompson, H. L. (2010). The stress effect: Why smart leaders make dumb decisions-and what to do about it. (1st ed.) San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 978-0-470-58903-8

Wickham, M., & O’Donohue, W. (2012). Developing an ethical organization: Exploring the role of ethical intelligence. Organization Development Journal, 30(2), 9-29.