Ethics in Leadership
Part 1: Scenarios for analyzing ethics
What I’ve read in Ethical Decision Making and Behavior that might help explain what went wrong with the Space Shuttle Challenger
When the booster O-rings didn’t fit right into the shuttle system, gases burned in an uneven way. This caused the Challenger to explode just a few minutes after it took off, making history. Even though this tragedy was caused by a number of mechanical problems, such as bad designs and temperatures that weren’t low enough, it was also caused by unethical choices. We can use different ethical implications from Chapter 6’s “Ethical Decision Making and Behavior” to explain how this shuttle disaster killed seven astronauts.
One thing that stood out from the presentation was that NASA was under a lot of pressure to launch the shuttle from other space agencies and politicians. But this happened at a time when the management was complaining about not enough testing and bad designs that needed to be fixed. From the cognitive approach to making ethical decisions, it is important to make choices first and then explain why those choices were made before taking the final step. The management, however, did not take this into account because they were under a lot of pressure from the outside world. The third dual-process approach to making ethical decisions, which says that people should get rid of unethical feelings like anger before making a choice, was not used in the Challenger case (Parnell et al., 2022). We can guess that the pressure they were getting from politicians and competitors made the management angry, but they didn’t have time to stop it.
The company didn’t have moral sensitivity, which is one of the parts of moral action. This is an important ethical issue that requires people to be aware of a certain ethical problem (Chen et al., 2021). In this case, the company didn’t do the right thing because of how unsafe the workplace was. Before launching the shuttle, the company didn’t take all of the necessary safety steps. Safety means testing the shuttle’s reliability ahead of time and giving the astronauts escape equipment in case of an emergency. But the company didn’t understand at all how important this moral quality was. These things led to the tragedy that killed many people.
The moral judgment of what is right and wrong is shown all over the case. This ethical implication is based on the idea that people should follow the rules or deal with the consequences (De Tienne et al., 2021). The company gave in to pressure from outside sources and stopped using the most important internal business channels, which led to this failure. For example, there was no good way for the engineers and astronauts to share information or talk to each other. Maybe the tragedy could have been avoided if everyone involved had made better decisions and talked to each other better. Since they chose to make decisions in an unethical way, it was only fair that they had to deal with the results.
A Look Back at the Steps of Making a Choice (The Lonergan Ethical Theory)
Catharyn Baird was the first person to come up with this idea. She suggested several steps to take before making a final decision (Dadosky, 2022). Under the autonomy-equality and rationality-sensibility frameworks, ethical conflicts can happen out of the blue. However, following Lonergan’s steps can help a lot to minimize any conflicts that may come up during the decision-making process (Lopez et al., 2018).
The first step is to pay close attention when starting with the basic idea. This means you need to think about what will work best and what you think won’t work. The second step in this theory is to make decisions based on data. Taking a close look at all of your choices is very important because it helps you make the best choice. In the end, what will matter is making the final choice with courage.
References
Chen, Q., Su, X., Liu, S., Miao, K., & Fang, H. (2021). The link between nursing students’ moral awareness, their professional values, and their ability to make ethical decisions. Nurse Education Today, p. 105, 105056.
Dadosky, J. D. (2022). Reaching Up to Lonergan’s Mind: What Robert M. Doran, SJ, Did to Help (1939–2021). Theological Studies, 83(2), pp. 293–316.
DeTienne, K. B., Ellertson, C. F., Ingerson, M. C., & Dudley, W. R. (2021). A look at and critique of moral growth in business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 170(3), pages 429–448.
López-Calva, J. M (2018). Ethics and Educational Research: A Theoretical Approach from the Dynamic Structure of Human Good to Understanding It.
Parnell, K. J., Wynne, R. A., Plant, K. L., Banks, V. A., Griffin, T. G., and Stanton, N. A. (2022). Insights from three different decision-making models on how a pilot would decide what to do if both engines failed at takeoff. Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing and Service Industries, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 268–285.

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