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Excerpt from Independance 2011. This is a copyrighted material!

1)
As Cavanagh et.al (1982) argue, "The teleological or goal oriented form of management theory (Keely,1979;Krupp 1961;Pfeffer, 1978) leads managers and scholars alike to restrict normative judgments about organizational behavior to outcomes (e.g., performance, satisfaction, system effectiveness) rather than consider the ethical quality of the means employed".

The authors conclude that "Without ethical paradigm, individuals too often infer that success is controlled by others and attained only by those who engage in unproductive behaviors".

The examples that follow may appear to corroborate the previous statement.

The United States Army is organized into an active and a reserve component.

The latter usually demonstrates a lot more rigor for the Uniform Code of Military Justice when called to active duty. In the words of Lucas (1987), "If the goals or behavior of a particular individual or group are identifiably at variance with those of the organization (usually operationalized as goals state by senior management), then those individuals or groups are usually defined as deviants and are subject to sanctions".

In light of this pattern of behavior, past and current deviations from the military rules and regulations are assessed and offenders are punished to the fullest extent of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

With that said, two occurrences are worth being mentioned.

Example 1- A soldier made a congressional inquiry approximately one year prior to his deployment to Iraq. After having vainly exhausted all echelons of the chain of command in relation to promises stipulated in his military contract, namely a percentage of enlistment bonus that was years past due, he took the hopelessness and frustration built by futile attempts to communicate with a cohesive and hostile human wall to another level.

Around that time, the soldier's promotion packet to Sergeant, which was handed out to his first line supervisor, was lost for two months, and ultimately found underneath an unused desk. The issues aforementioned were later dealt with through a meeting between the chain of command and the soldier; eventually both parties reached a consensus after a senator intervened on the soldier's behalf.

Nonetheless, upon arrival in theater, that flame was tacitly rekindled and a cascade of retaliatory actions took place.

The soldier was later among a few others that predictably did not receive a certificate of good behavior from the reserve unit. The soldier remained highly dissatisfied throughout the ordeal, his efforts and performance plummeted, and he repeatedly and overtly expressed the desire to leave the service.

Example 2- A military couple tied the knot before the same deployment to Iraq as well. Their clandestine marriage was made public during a three-month pre-deployment training.

The husband is an enlisted Sergeant, and the wife a commissioned officer.

Since military rules and regulations prohibit marriages between enlisted soldiers and officers, the couple's union can be equated to a dereliction of duty. Fraternization is a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

It falls under a subparagraph of Article 134 and is defined by the Manual for Courts-martial.

Army fraternization policies are contained in Army Regulation 600-20, and Army Command Policy.

Nonetheless, the couple had an agreeable sojourn and later the officer was awarded the bronze star medal, and the enlisted soldier a meritorious service medal.

Leadership is the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the groups of which they are members (Schaffer 2008).

These cases show that, even in the armed forces where a well-defined and unequivocal hierarchy dictates followers' behaviors, leaders feel compelled to entice followers in order to get things done. Of course, the developments depicted in this military environment are legion in civilian settings.

Organizational politics does not discriminate between organizational settings.

The distribution of advantages and disadvantages with regard to scarce resources forces human beings to embark in a constant battle to secure their share.

Power and authority, in the work place, are actively and predominantly sought.

Collaboration and loyalty are often subject to trades.

The good old days when superiors could order subordinates around without hurdles are gone. Several factors have contributed to this shift by putting emphasis on interpersonal relationships rather than on the abilities of a single person.

Getting things done has become a matter of obtaining collaboration as opposed to exhibiting tsarist patterns of behavior.

Division of labor and expertise are among the factors that have redefined superiors' ability to give orders and not expect inquiries and/or feedbacks.

Nowadays, leading a business organization narrows down to motivating rather than ordering a group of individuals toward accomplishing a set of established goals.

2)
Nonetheless, as any Harvard professor would argue, unless, the United States contributes to efforts aimed at encouraging both Macoute and Lavalas to engage in meaningful and collaborative talks designed to define and discuss their contentious differences, and be predisposed to a win-win- like outcome, there cannot be conflict resolution.

By virtue of this argument, it's safe to assert that a withdrawal of the American troops from Iraq will be disastrous because the United States has been consistent with policies that promote ethnic favoritism.

A prelude to this potential disaster is offered by the withdrawal of British troops from an area considered an example of military success.

Following this withdrawal, internal strife over oil distribution had resumed.

Based on the conflict resolution methods of the Bush administration, it can be predicted that troops will be back in the area sooner or later.

Knowledge of the underlying causes would help decipher that oil distribution is just one catalyst to "sectarian violence".

To arrive at an acceptable local solution, understanding of the causes is a must. After all parties have a chance to enunciate their positions, a transformational leader should get a better grasp of the underlying causes of this particular problem.

With that said, the leader should begin to relinquish the only way to deal with "sectarian violence, the military way, and start exploring new alternatives to military interventions: sectarian negotiations and conflict resolution.

The relative emergence of a leader of that sort happened so smoothly that we tend to forget the legacy of his predecessor.

"Same difference!" That's what most Americans uttered when Secretary of Defense Robert Gate came on board.

The motto "Army of One" became "Army strong".

The first one suggested that the institution's agenda was not in the nation's best interests, but one being implemented to satisfy the most visceral and whimsical ambitions of one individual, the leader.

The stubbornness and idiosyncrasy of the former Secretary of Defense in the handling of the war inspired distrust and kept a perpetual tension line between the administration and public opinion.

The second however invites all political antagonists to reinforce the institution's culture.

Fundamental changes and new strategy to realign elements of the new reality was a must. Relationship between the U.S Congress and the Executive over the military was in disarray when Donald Rumsfeld had the reigns.

The willingness to accord some credibility to military officials has latently transpired with Gate's effort to enhance the communication channels.

Although the U.S armed forces have gone through major reengineering to better face urban warfare and the news face of terror, something more significant than the changes in structure and process was an imperative.

Gate used his power and developed a new role for his position.

He made collaboration and achievement the central concepts of his endeavors, and relatively succeeded in altering the institution's paradigm.

Consequently, although scrutinized, his numerous trips to the Middle East in quest of better alternatives aren't considered as rehearsed and futile as the ones Rumsfeld took.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration has predominantly opted for military actions since the beginning and failed to address the core issues that drive the fragile security environment under which the Iraqi people have been living for a duration that is a few years shy of a decade now. Carefully listening to the parties directly involved in the fighting could be helpful.

It would show impartiality and a will to frankly engage in objective negotiations and non military approach such as accommodation.

"The mission", as President Bush so often calls it, is ambiguous, if not equivocal.

It has morphed from "Weapon of Mass Destruction" to "Operation Iraqi Freedom", to "Managing Sectarian Violence" and to recently, just the "Mission".

The administration's ethnocentric position had inhibited the interests of the United States as a people in this conflict.

The U.S thus deliberately refrained from even sponsoring a negotiated and indigenous pact for peace.

Gera Bougui, June 5 2009, 3:39 PM

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