King Jewels Ethical Leadership in Practice free essay sample

Ethical Leadership in Practice Discuss how the leadership style may have contributed to unethical behavior. In the world of greed, I think people tend to forget what the words leadership mean. Leadership means being a good role model for your peers, being able to guide, lead and direct them in the right direction. In the case of King Jewels Clement Tam failed to do so because he let his power take over he responsibility to be a great leader for the company. King Jewels was just a mom and pop jewel store owned by Andy Wong and his wife for 20 years during the 1985.The business later expanded from Hong Kong to China in the 1990’s. Sells had been booming in the last ten years. According to Mr. Wong a good vision and direction were critical leadership qualities. Mr. Wong always said, â€Å"You do not achieve commitment to, or an understanding of, a company’s vision and mission without actively pursuing and practicing it at every opportunity†. We will write a custom essay sample on King Jewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This statement is very powerful meaning you should live up to your business vision and mission statement on a everyday basics(The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2008).Wong had a vision on how he wanted his company to expand over time. So, he hired his close friend and right hand man Clement Tam who was primary responsible for worldwide gem sourcing. He also was both operations director (overseeing the whole company) and head of the sourcing department. Tam Wai Man who was Tam’s sister was the accountant for the company. Chan Ming was head of business services including wholesale and retail businesses. Lastly, Jonathan Ho, head of production and authentication, he was in charge of the company’s manufacturing operations and gems authentication in China.Ho was known for his efficiency and decisiveness, and occasionally criticized by his staff for having a dictatorial leadership style and making decisions without consulting his colleagues (The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2008). Everyone has their own way of leadership style but when in powerful positions you should always be the one to follow policies and procedures because in the long run it can cost you problems in the end. Discuss how the proper segregation of duties could have prevented Tam from fraudulently sourcing the gems. I think Mr. Wong went wrong for hiring his right hand man and so forth.The whole senior management for this company is either family or friends. This can create a hostile working environment if they every get into a conflict at work or outside of work, which is not good for the business. I think if the proper segregation of duties were put into play I think it still would have been potential fraud involve. My reasons for saying this is because Mr. Ho is known for his style of leadership so even if the gems went though the proper process he had the final say in with gems were to be picked. Mr. Ho is known for making decisions with consulting with his colleagues.So, overall I think so fraudulent activity would have went down one way or another. Discuss the company’s compensation plan contributed to the deceptive behavior. In this particular business the cash flow was booming. Everyone was buying jewelry from teens to elderly people. Their biggest cliente was women of all ages. I being a woman myself do know that women love to shop for nice things jewelry being one of them. This company was making billions of dollars so I can only imagine that the pay and annual bonuses were nice as well. Like I said earlier people will do anything possible for greed.Even if the employees were aware that fraudulent activity was taking place I don’t think any of them would have been whistle blowers because of the compensation they were getting off the company’s profits. Discuss how the culture may have influenced the employee’s attitude towards exposing Tam. In the Chinese culture in many ways the family unit takes precedence over its individual members. Children must learn not to answer back to their parents or other elders. It is assumed that the family as a whole will thrive and prosper if harmony prevails at home. In other words the basic rules of obedience, moderation and self-restraint amongst family members should be observed Chinese Values). In most cultures children are taught not to disrespect parents or elderly people. In Chinese culture they are very family oriented they believe in sticking together like most cultures do. But other cultures only believe in lokking out for self and not as a whole. Once one person get little bit of power they low down on others instead of having the next person out to get were they are.In other words the the employees could have been teenagers working part-time making the jewelry and because respecting parents and elderly is real big in the Chinese culture; they may been afraid to tell on Tam. It seems like in the Chinese culture if you put your family to shame then you will be punished for behavior. How would you recommend Wai Man proceed? I recommend that she do further investigation on her brother and uncle. Once, she has enough evdience she take the evidence to Mr. Wong. From there Mr. Wong should notify the board so they can do their own investigation on the company as a whole.