Servant Leadership: Unethical Practice And Social Services

2600 Words11 Pages
What is Servant Leadership? What are its implications of Using Unethical Practices in Department of Children Services ? And, how do ethics relate to this Unethical Practice and Social Services as a whole? First let us define Servant Leadership. Robert Greenleaf, the Author of Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power & Greatness defines the Servant Leader: “The servant leader is servant first…It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead” (p. 27). I will attempt to examine the leadership of the Department of Children’s Services; its ethical code; and my personal ethical stance. In the arena of Social Services, our communities…show more content…
According to Greenleaf, a servant leader is “one who makes sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?” In my opinion, these are the questions that should be on the minds of every public officials and those that are in social services as well across the land. Greenleaf, stated the essence of leadership is recognizing that leaders have a moral responsibility to serve not only the needs of the organization but also the needs of their followers, customers, and society. A leader initiates, provides the ideas and the structure, and takes the risk of failure along with the chance of success. (Greenleaf, pg. 29) Let’s look at a public agency, the Department of Children’s Services, DCS. Within DCS, as with all State agencies, a mission statement was developed to identify the purpose and the objective of the agency. The mission statement simply says, “Our mission is to…show more content…
Why? Because as I mention previously, I believe in the core values of social work profession. First of all, there are people that are holding positions in DCS, does not have the working knowledge nor a set of values, principles, and standards to guide decision making and conduct when ethical issues arise. I truly believe if one is to working in a setting such as the DCS that should be held accountable for their actions. Why? Because that what we as the department have done to their parents, and now DCS has becomes the parent once the child has been removed. There are something that is call a "norm" and the norm is people who has been in certain positions 20 to 30 years that think they know everything. You have those people that are in social services that does not have a clue how to promote social justice and social change with and on behalf of clients or employees. Who are the clients? "Clients" is used inclusively to refer to children, who we serve as well as the families. Also there are some employees that does have a working knowledge and also abide by the code of ethic, nevertheless they do try to adhere to mission of the DCS, and that is the goal which is a, however a code of ethics cannot guarantee ethical behavior. Moreover, a code of ethics cannot resolve all ethical issues or disputes or capture the richness and complexity involved in striving to make
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