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OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I: PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

The YMCA was founded with a mission to serve community needs, but recently shifted focus to revenues under new leadership. This caused ethical issues as priorities changed from community engagement to budgets, damaging the organization's soul. Staff became disconnected and many left. To remedy this, the document recommends reestablishing a sense of family and compassion within the YMCA by having leaders model caring behaviors, understand each other's motivations, and set team goals to foster connection and trust among employees once more.

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59K views

OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I: PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

The YMCA was founded with a mission to serve community needs, but recently shifted focus to revenues under new leadership. This caused ethical issues as priorities changed from community engagement to budgets, damaging the organization's soul. Staff became disconnected and many left. To remedy this, the document recommends reestablishing a sense of family and compassion within the YMCA by having leaders model caring behaviors, understand each other's motivations, and set team goals to foster connection and trust among employees once more.

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api-522595985
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© © All Rights Reserved
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OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet


1) Describe how the ethics of the organization influenced the situation.

At the time I worked for the YMCA, there had been a significant amount of turnover in
various leadership positions for a few years. The CEO had not even been with the
organization for a year and the COO had only been there for a couple of months. Much
of the senior leadership and lower-level managers had begun to leave because of a
noticed shift in how the organization was being managed and the direction the new
leadership was taking. How the senior leadership approached much of what the
organization was doing and the programs that were being run was incredibly different
from the previous CEO and senior management. The focus had quickly become much
more about making money and keeping the organization running as opposed to doing
good for our communities and how to best go about doing that. This was off-putting for
many of the people that had been with the YMCA for a number of years and it lead to
many people leaving the organization.

Part of what was so off-putting for many of the staff that began to leave was that the soul
of the organization began to change. This change to the YMCA’s soul also had a lasting
impact on the ethics of the organization and the focus that was given to the programs
being run. According to our text, “ethics ultimately must be rooted in soul: an
organizations’ commitment to deeply rooted identity, beliefs, and values” (Bolman,
2017). The YMCA was founded specifically to become a positive force within
communities to help those that are in need. While that mission still continues today, the
YMCA of Silicon Valley began to stray away from leading the organization with the
intent of making decisions based on what was best for the community. Senior leadership
was so focused on just making money and reaching the goals in the budgets that
community engagement was not a priority, which caused the soul and the ethics of the
organization to suffer as a result.

2) Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative
course of action regarding your case.

The YMCA was originally established as a nonprofit organization that prioritized the
needs of the communities it serves. In more recent years, the intentions of the senior
leadership of the YMCA of Silicon Valley have strayed away from that ideal and focused
more on operating budgets and revenues. As senior leadership was replaced and new
faces began taking over the operations of the organization, it became clear to many of the
longstanding staff that the working environment and direction of the organization were

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drastically changing. What once felt like a tightly-knit community that was focused on
the needs of children and families that needed support became a group of distanced
workers doing what they could to just keep the doors open. The concerns regarding
finances became an overwhelming priority that overshadowed everything else - there was
no sense of community engagement and caring.

When I first began working for the YMCA, it felt as if I was working as part of a family
that was focused on caring for its community. The more recent loss of this feeling is the
heart of the problem - no one cares about helping the person next to them, it’s all about
meeting the bottom line. Bolman says that “a compassionate organization requires
servant-leaders concerned with the needs and wishes of the members and stakeholders”
(2017). I don’t think I could have said it better myself, an organization has to have
leaders that care about the needs of their community. The YMCA’s best course of action
is to reestablish the sense of family and connection within the organization. The sense of
trust and caring that came as a result of the feeling of family is what had previously
helped propel the organization to success. It was known for being a compassionate
organization that worked to help our local communities and did everything possible to
support families in need. An organization that cares about its employees and creates a
positive environment for them to work in is going to see many positive outcomes and the
YMCA of Silicon Valley could greatly benefit from becoming a “family” once again.

3) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about ethics.

At the time, I thought that I was a compassionate leader that made the most ethical
decisions I could to support my team and the members of my community. I did my best
to care about what was going on with my employees and did what I could to try to get
them to feel the same about one another. What I’ve now come to learn is that I needed to
approach this in a different way. I constantly said to my team that I wanted them to feel
as connected with each other as possible and even spend time with one another outside of
work. While I promoted the idea of connection, I did not always display it in a way that
set the best example for my team and my counterparts. I needed to completely change
my approach and come up with a plan to slowly change the perspectives of my
employees and get them to see that working as a closely-knit team would have been the
most beneficial way for us to operate.

I would have started by having them talk about what motivated each of my team
members to support our community in one of our staff meetings. By doing this in a
group setting, I would have been able to have each person hear why their jobs were
important to them and how they thought they were supporting our members. This would

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have helped everyone have a better understanding of the values and ethics that each
person held, which is a good way for people to connect on a deeper, more meaningful
level. Understanding how someone thinks and what they consider ethical behavior helps
people working together deepen their level of trust and engagement. After doing this, I
would have then changed how I approached setting goals for my team, making all of our
goals related to the group as a whole instead of on an individual level. This would allow
the team to share in victories instead of feeling separated in their win and celebrating
together is a great way to establish a feeling of connection and family. This may not have
been a quick solution but it would have been a good start in modeling what the idea of
family would have looked like in the more present days of the YMCA.

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Reference or References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership
(6th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

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