Bri­an Lewis

We all make mis­takes in life some of us learn from our mis­takes while oth­ers don't. Ethics in sport–Is it pos­si­ble to achieve the full po­ten­tial of sport with­out pro­tect­ing the in­tegri­ty of sport? Ethics and eth­i­cal lead­er­ship is a front burn­er is­sue here in Trinidad and To­ba­go. There are jus­ti­fi­able rea­sons why the top­ic is front of mind.

Well-man­aged na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions and gov­ern­ing bod­ies and sport clubs are an es­sen­tial el­e­ment to pro­vid­ing val­ues-based and prin­ci­ple-dri­ven sport in T&T.

Na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions must serve as a strong voice in the di­a­logue re­gard­ing ethics in T&T sport and to pro­tect the in­tegri­ty of sport.

Re­cent­ly, I have been re­search­ing the top­ic of eth­i­cal lead­er­ship.

Eth­i­cal the­o­ries on lead­er­ship talk about two main things: (a) The ac­tions and be­hav­iour of lead­ers; and (b) the per­son­al­i­ty and char­ac­ter of lead­ers. Some aca­d­e­mics claim that "ethics are an es­sen­tial to lead­er­ship".

Ac­cord­ing to the Web site http://man­age­mentstudyguide.com/lead­er­ship-ethics.htm an ef­fec­tive and eth­i­cal leader has the fol­low­ing traits/char­ac­ter­is­tics:

Dig­ni­ty and re­spect­ful­ness: He or she re­spects oth­ers. An eth­i­cal leader should not use their fol­low­ers as a medi­um to achieve per­son­al goals. Re­spect­ing the fol­low­ers im­plies lis­ten­ing ef­fec­tive­ly to them, be­ing com­pas­sion­ate to them, as well as be­ing lib­er­al in hear­ing op­pos­ing view­points. In short, it im­plies treat­ing the fol­low­ers in a man­ner that au­then­ti­cate their val­ues and be­liefs.

Serv­ing oth­ers: He or she serves oth­ers. An eth­i­cal leader should place their fol­low­er's in­ter­ests ahead of their own in­ter­ests.

Jus­tice: Fair and just. An eth­i­cal leader must treat all fol­low­ers equal­ly. There should be no per­son­al bias. Wher­ev­er some fol­low­ers are treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly, the ground for dif­fer­en­tial treat­ment should be fair, clear, and built on moral­i­ty.

Com­mu­ni­ty build­ing: De­vel­ops com­mu­ni­ty. An eth­i­cal leader con­sid­ers their own pur­pose as well as their fol­low­ers' pur­pose, while mak­ing ef­forts to achieve the goals suit­able to both of them.

He or she is con­sid­er­ate to the com­mu­ni­ty in­ter­ests, does not over­look the fol­low­ers' in­ten­tions and works hard­er for the com­mu­ni­ty goals.

Hon­esty: Loy­al and hon­est. Hon­esty is es­sen­tial to be an eth­i­cal and ef­fec­tive leader. Hon­est lead­ers can be al­ways re­lied up­on and de­pend­ed up­on.

They al­ways earn re­spect of their fol­low­ers. An hon­est leader presents the fact and cir­cum­stances tru­ly and com­plete­ly, no mat­ter how crit­i­cal and harm­ful the fact may be. He or she does not mis­rep­re­sent any fact.

Some may say the above rep­re­sents an un­at­tain­able shop­ping list of ideals that are un­re­al­is­tic in the cold light of dai­ly ex­is­tence and hu­man frail­ties. Why is it un­at­tain­able? Shouldn't we be striv­ing for the ide­al? There are con­fus­ing sig­nals re­flect­ing with­in our so­ci­ety .

It was Em­me­line Pankhurst who said I'd rather be a rebel than a slave. The choice may very well be a rebel or be a slave.

Can we move for­ward with­out a com­mit­ment to in­tegri­ty, ethics and eth­i­cal lead­er­ship?

In reach­ing out and spread­ing the mes­sage of sport we must have ethics and in­tegri­ty as our breast­plate.

Fol­low the ex­am­ples of the qui­et few who refuse by their dig­ni­ty and in­tegri­ty to bow to the sub­tle and not so sub­tle de­mands of those in­di­vid­u­als who are thriv­ing for the mo­ment in the avalanche of cor­rup­tion.

The qui­et courage of the in­cor­rupt­ible will prove suf­fi­cient in the pas­sage of time. Those who be­lieve that they can draft their own rules will be found out.

In­tegri­ty and hon­esty are im­per­ish­able and will nev­er go out of fash­ion.

Is it bet­ter to be a rebel for in­tegri­ty and ethics than a slave to cor­rup­tion?

Each of us will have to find the an­swer with­in. These days the an­swer seems to be se­lec­tive and sit­u­a­tion­al.

ED­I­TOR'S NOTE:

Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC). The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the TTOC.

?