Old Wars, New Methods: Using science to create weapons
Biotechnology expert Krishna Khanal keeps track of how advances in science and how terrorists groups are using science to develop biological weapon.
The power of apology in successful leadership
One of the most effective skills in the realm of reconciliation is the act of apologizing: admitting the wrongdoing, mending fences, and reviving the initial trust. It is one of the most powerful tools for a leader and the whole organization to build a trustworthy, innovative and a better place to work for. The act of apologizing following a transgression has deep moral and ethical connotations. It begets the culture of forgiveness, trust, and helps to repair broken relationships. It also signifies to the victimized party that offenders are remorseful, empathize with victim, and willing to provide the reparation if it does any good or heals any of his sufferings.
Leaders, especially aspiring ones, should hide their wrongdoings and weaknesses, is one of the most oft-repeated and frequently heard view for a successful leadership. Counterintuitive it might sound, but actually the view is deeply flawed. It is in fact not only best in decision to admit you are wrong when you are; but also it can be a powerful tool for leaders-actually increasing legitimacy and, when practiced in a daily basis, can help build a culture that fosters solidarity, openness to change and many other much needed features for a successful organization.
A good leader builds strong relationships and it is acceptable to a degree that they mess up relationally sometimes. Thus, the organization needs a leader who is capable of willing to admit the mistake, apologize for it and rebuild the bridge of empathy and trust to not only heal a relationship, but also for the overall health of the organization. After all, building a harmonious and successful organization is all about how well leaders manage and create the culture including quality of their personnel selections and ethical climate they foster among subordinates.
Apologizing freely and fully requires a great deal of courage. It’s hardly comfortable for any of us to admit the error or to acknowledge that something we have done has caused others harm and inconvenience. Even we have a very hard times in our personal lives apologizing for the slightest of a mistake we commit and even harder when we are taking a lead. Thus when someone truly apologizes, he/she is putting honesty and honor above personal comfort or self-protection. And it takes a courageous leader to undertake the full responsibility for actions and admitting and apologizing mistakes. Organizations need such leaders to make tough calls and to take responsibility for them. With such courageous leaders, people feel secure-not that they are helpless but they know someone is there you can count upon.
The apology is one of the important forms of resolving interpersonal conflicts in the organization. Apology increases positive emotions and decreases negative emotions in those who have been transgressed. (Lazare, 2004) As an example of this finding we can look at the work recently done by Alyson Byrne, a Canadian scientist who studies apology in the workplace. Her research shows that apology increases psychological health and positive emotions in the people who have been offended. The research done in the organization shows significant statistical correlation between the fact that someone who has been apologized to and how he/she describes their psychological health (Statistical Correlation -0.42**). The same relationship was encountered with a significant statistical correlation between the relation that someone who has been apologized to and self reported positive emotion (Statistical Correlation -0.40**). When Alyson Byrne and her team looked leaders at the workplace setting who had apologized, they saw similar patterns of relationships.
Apology is something that can be learned, studied and you can be better at. Next time when you find you have offended someone, put aside your self-justification, comfort, self-esteem, and simply apologize. Trust me, apologizing is the most magical, healing, restorative gesture human beings can make. And remember, real leaders apologize.
(**Correlation is significant at 0.01 level, N=159, Byrne, et.al., 2014)
The Ethics of Office Romance
Given the time we spend at workplace, almost a third of a day, it might seem as the most promising venue to look out for romance, flirtations, or even a hook-up. After all, the place where we spend a greater part of our day, we have a whole lot of time to share our interests, goals, and values and share a cup of a tea or two, an opportunity to know each other personally and professionally. Thus, the workplace might seem as the most tempting of all to pursue a romance with your co-worker or to find an ideal love of your life.
In addition, office romances seem benign and perhaps some relations may work out happily ever after. Some people also argue that office romances are in fact good for the overall company leading to greater productivity and more job satisfaction. While others argue that office romances are relations subjected to the matter of time. Sooner or later they are to come to end, quiet or violent.So how should organizations deal with corporate cupid? Should it be completely banned, dealt in an explicit manner, or allowed with certain restrictions? Whatever the opinion,policies of an company and probable outcomes, one has to consider the ethical aspects before he/she flings out the flame with his/her co-worker or the boss and, the possible aftermath that might affect the personal and overall company’s reputation.So if you are planning hooking up at your work, you might surely want to consider the following aspects about romance at workplace.
The ugly truth about sweet romance is that, most of them do not last long or do not work out at all. It’s not easy to get the accurate data on the sheer numbers of workplace romances succeeding or meeting an undesirable fate. However, many studies show that success rate is very uncommon.The odds against workplace romance succeeding are no better than winning a Diversity Visa, in very first attempt, to United States of America. Some of them end quietly or even may lead to happy marriages. But most them end up abruptly with detrimental outcomes; the ones we end up hearing about. Now imagine your romance is flowing like a sound river and you are very happy with it which is showing in your work performance. And out of the blue, your happy romance meets with a sad truth: break up. Now what? You can’t leave your job and you have to work with the same person from the very next day and your work performance most probably does not go as par with your previous one.Its better still if it ends the same way. But what if it does ends up very bad. Sexual harassment, accusation, retaliation, and few days of holidays trip to courthouses.
The workplace objectives are converted into reality by the team effort of all the workingmen. Its not just only the hard work of one person that can make a company a successful one. Now consider, in a team, with some company related objective, there is a love-struck couple, a fledgling one,deeply in love. The couple oblivion to others reaction might hamper the entire goal of the project.But the couple should be well aware of all others reactions and concerns hampering the objectives of the project. After all, ethics is all about considering how our actions affect the rights and well being of others. Even in the workplace the romance between the co-workers directly or indirectly hampers the working condition.
When the romance is in between the two workingmen of different level at the corporate ladder (pretentiously called as lateral or hierarchical relationship) the relationship is even more vulnerable. When an employee dates his/her boss, and even if the relationship is discreet, the relation will eventually be public and concerns about favoritism, unfair treatment, and bias may arise from the relationship.Thus, you should be very wise in selecting your date at office, which might arise many concerns ranging from personal to entire organization’s reputation.
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