To be an effective leader a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards

Essay topics:

To be an effective leader, a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards.

A public official has an entrusted responsibility to lead the nation and its citizens to prosperity. His effectiveness as a leader is dictated by his success in fulfilling this duty. Lack of moral and ethical compass seriously interferes with an official’s ability to achieve this success and hence his effectiveness as a leader. Therefore, the statement that a public official must maintain the highest moral and ethical standards to be an effective leader is largely agreeable. Yet, one must not underestimate other requisites for effective leadership.

The public official is selected to operate crucial government offices on behalf of the people for their welfare. He is supposed to work in the public interest, overcoming personal temptations. Without maintaining highest moral and ethical standards, he is almost certain to fail in this expectation. Clinching to power at any cost, embezzlement, nepotism, etc. would become his driving interests. This scenario would deprive the nation from economic and social growth and result in rampant disparities among the people. Moreover, without highest level of ethical and moral standards, the authority of a leader would hardly serve as a deterrent for his subordinates against malpractices. They would perceive their boss as either too lenient or complicit in their misadventures. This in turn fosters a corruption lobby concentrating all the power to exploit the country and its people. Breaking this lobby, requires an official to lead by an example giving a clear message that he would neither participate nor tolerate even the slightest of immoral and unethical behaviour.

Highest moral and ethical standards are also the pre-requisites for a leader to defy short-term transient gains; envision long term goals for his country and adopt fair means to achieve them. It was for this reason that Abraham Lincoln was able to abolish the practice and idea of slavery permanently despite the contemporary popular belief that blacks are naturally inferior to whites. Without adhering to moral and ethical values, he could have easily succumbed to the public sentiments for electoral gains and America would have never evolved as torch bearer of freedom and equality. Apart from setting high goals, moral and ethical principles also show the right path to achieve them. Consider two contrasting examples of Nelson Mandela and Adolf Hitler who both struggled for the pride of their races. While the former successfully achieved the abolishment of apartheid imposed against the Blacks by then South African government; the latter lacking moral and ethical beliefs brought destruction and carnage both for the ‘Aryan race’ and the rest of the world.

Critics argue that as long as an official’s character doesn’t refrain him from fulfilling his duty, he can be exempted from this requirement of morality. For instance, while Nixon was fixed in Watergate scandal, he achieved many diplomatic goals with USSR and China in a turbulent global environment. This argument becomes more prominent for personal morality which hardly has a bearing on an official’s functioning. However, effective leadership cannot be established without building a trust with the people who view their leaders as role models to be emulated. Hence, once a leader’s misdemeanours come to the fore, he suddenly falls from the popular grace. This has especially become more prevalent in the present age of media scrutiny. Bill Clinton’s demise brought about by his personal scandal is a telling example. Therefore, in personal life too, officials must at least maintain a baseline of ethical behaviour.

People further argue that virtuosity is an inherent and rare quality of late. Thus, demanding highest level of morality is unrealistic. However, philosophers have espoused that like any other behaviour traits, ethical and moral behaviour can also be acquired over the time through constant practice. However, moral and ethical behaviour must not come at the cost of other leadership qualities. A saintly leader can also prove to be the worst without wisdom, pragmatism and other important leadership qualities.

In conclusion, the statement finds credence in the fact that without maintaining the highest moral and ethical standards, a public official cannot fulfil the assigned responsibility of achieving the well-being of the nation. Even in personal life, he is required to achieve a baseline moral behaviour to keep public trust which is a requisite for effective leadership. However, in stressing the importance of morality to be an effective leader, one must not underestimate the importance of other leadership qualities.

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Average: 6.6 (1 vote)
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Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 202, Rule ID: THE_SUPERLATIVE[2]
Message: A determiner is probably missing here: 'maintaining the highest'.
Suggestion: maintaining the highest
...vercoming personal temptations. Without maintaining highest moral and ethical standards, he is almo...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 531, Rule ID: THE_SUPERLATIVE[2]
Message: A determiner is probably missing here: 'without the highest'.
Suggestion: without the highest
...disparities among the people. Moreover, without highest level of ethical and moral standards, t...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 790, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...cit in their misadventures. This in turn fosters a corruption lobby concentrating...
^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: THE_SUPERLATIVE[2]
Message: A determiner is probably missing here: ' the Highest'.
Suggestion: The Highest
... of immoral and unethical behaviour. Highest moral and ethical standards are also th...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 1067, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...‘Aryan race’ and the rest of the world. Critics argue that as long as an officia...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 395, Rule ID: A_RB_NN[1]
Message: You used an adverb ('saintly') instead an adjective, or a noun ('leader') instead of another adjective.
...the cost of other leadership qualities. A saintly leader can also prove to be the worst without ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 519, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...portance of other leadership qualities.
^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, hence, however, if, moreover, so, then, therefore, thus, well, while, apart from, as for, as to, at least, for instance, in conclusion

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.5258426966 118% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.4196629213 137% => OK
Conjunction : 29.0 14.8657303371 195% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 11.3162921348 106% => OK
Pronoun: 46.0 33.0505617978 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 88.0 58.6224719101 150% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 12.9106741573 116% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3959.0 2235.4752809 177% => OK
No of words: 724.0 442.535393258 164% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.4682320442 5.05705443957 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.18721968825 4.55969084622 114% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.93347112068 2.79657885939 105% => OK
Unique words: 353.0 215.323595506 164% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.487569060773 0.4932671777 99% => OK
syllable_count: 1241.1 704.065955056 176% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59117977528 107% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 14.0 6.24550561798 224% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 4.99550561798 160% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 3.10617977528 64% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.77640449438 0% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.38483146067 160% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 37.0 20.2370786517 183% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 23.0359550562 82% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 49.2985863985 60.3974514979 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.0 118.986275619 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.5675675676 23.4991977007 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.78378378378 5.21951772744 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 4.97078651685 121% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 7.80617977528 90% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 24.0 10.2758426966 234% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 5.13820224719 175% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.83258426966 83% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.469847623551 0.243740707755 193% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.114586465936 0.0831039109588 138% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.136752046235 0.0758088955206 180% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.29462397005 0.150359130593 196% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.154440623961 0.0667264976115 231% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.1392134831 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.8420337079 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.1743820225 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.45 12.1639044944 119% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.2 8.38706741573 110% => OK
difficult_words: 212.0 100.480337079 211% => Less difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 11.8971910112 71% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.2143820225 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.7820224719 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.