Michael Peck's Lack Of Ethical Leadership

The most important aspect of leadership is ethics. Ethical leadership should be a tradition that gets passed down through generations. In today’s environment, many organizations, individuals, and leaders find themselves in ‘hot water’ for their lack of ethics. I had the opportunity to interview Michael Peck, who is a retired Sergeant with the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office and is currently a board member for the San Mateo County First Responders Lions Club. Mr. Peck has over 40 years of leadership experiences ranging from educational, administrative, supervisory, to volunteer. Throughout the time that I’ve had the opportunity to get to know Mr. Peck he has shown exemplary ethical leadership and I find his leadership style to be an example

Peck has been a leader from a young age. He participated in sports at Lowell High School in San Francisco, after graduation he owned and operated an auto part store in San Francisco, then spent the rest of his career in law enforcement the San Mateo County Sheriff’s. After retirement, Mr. Peck got involved with the San Mateo County first responders Lions Club, where he now sits on their board. The majority of Mr. Peck’s professional career was in the Sheriff’s Office. His leadership positions included Supervisor of patrol, jail, investigations, training, professional standards, all while being the commander of the County Bomb Squad. All of these assignments gave Mr. Peck a unique insight into the ethical challenges that faces leadership. Mr. Peck has learned a tremendous amount about leadership, honesty, and ethics throughout his industrious career.

I had many questions regarding ethical leadership for Mr. Peck. I asked Mr. Peck a series of eleven questions to gain further insight into his process as an ethical leader.

1. Q. What does ethics mean to you, particularly organizational and professional

Q. What factors or experiences have impacted or shaped your ethical code?

A. What has impacted my ethical code the most is watching my peers make unethical decisions. Such as placing individual to position based on incompetent information causing harm to the organization and the stakeholders. An example of this is a certain individual, who was placed into a position to spend federal funds and made incompetent purchases wasting taxpayer money. This provided substandard service and equipment for first responders and the public.

6. Q. What do you consider to be the core qualities of an ethical leader?

A. One word, honesty.

7. Q. What difficult challenges do organizational leaders face today?

A. In my opinion the ability to fill the needs of a position with competent staff. I feel that the new workforce the “millennials” have been pampered from their parents making them unable to deal with the challenges that face our workforce.

8. Q. How does a leader use power, position, information, and networks ethically and with integrity?

A. One does this by listening from the bottom up and not from the top down. Because the bottom up and the stakeholders encompass the entire group and will most likely have the best solution to any