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CHAPTER 6: COURAGE AND MORAL LEADERSHIP 189
manner. However, through hard work and persistence, he had overcome many obstacles,
made many friends, and worked his way up in the organization. He had been in a leader-
ship position as an account manager for 2 years, and he particularly loved working with

new employees and helping them find their niches in the company and develop greater

skills and confidence. His employee evaluations by both superiors and subordinates had
been exceptional, and Rasinghe himself was pleased with his success as a leader.
Now, this! The purpose of the Young Leaders Council was to provide a training
ground for young executives at Werner & Burns and help them continue to improve their
leadership skills. In addition, top executives and the Board used the Council as a way to
evaluate the potential of young managers for higher-level positions. Everyone knew that a
good showing on the Council often resulted in a promotion. Typically, an appointment to
the Council was for a 1-year period, with new members added every 6 months on a rotat-
ing basis. Occasionally, some members would stay an additional 6 months, based on the
results of an appraisal process personally introduced by the CEO. The process involved
each member of the Council being rated by each of the other members on four criteria:
(1) general intelligence and knowledge of the business; (2) creativity and innovativeness;
(3) cooperation and team spirit; and (4) adherence to company values.
Rasinghe was attending his fifth monthly meeting when several members of the
Council raised a concern about the rating system. They felt that it was being forced on
the group, was controlled by top management, and was not used as a fair and accurate
rating of each member’s abilities but just as a way “to pat your buddies on the back,” as
his colleague Cathy Patton put it. Most of the other members seemed to agree with their
arguments, at least to some degree. Rasinghe agreed that the system was flawed, but he
was surprised by their suggestion for a solution. One member made an informal motion
that in the next appraisal every member of the Council should simply give every other
member the highest rating in each category.
Rasinghe quickly considered what to do as the chairman called for a show of hands
from those in favor of the motion. His gut feeling is that such a “solution” to the problem
of the rating system would be dishonest and unethical, but he remembers what it felt like
to be an “outsider,” and he doesn’t want to be there again.
Source: Based on “Junior Board,” in John M. Champion and Francis J. Bridges, Critical Incidents in Management,
rev. ed., (Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1969), pp. 106–107.
QUESTIONS
1. What personal and organizational factors might influence Rasinghe’s decision?
2. Do you believe it would take courage for Rasinghe to vote against the motion? What
sources of courage might he call upon to help him vote his conscience?
3. What do you think about the current rating system? If you were in Rasinghe’s posi-
tion, what would you do? Discuss.

The Boy, the Girl, the Ferryboat Captain, and the Hermits
There was an island, and on this island there lived a girl. A short distance away there was
another island, and on this island there lived a boy. The boy and the girl were very much
in love with each other.
The boy had to leave his island and go on a long journey, and he would be gone for a
very long time. The girl felt that she must see the boy one more time before he went away.
There was only one way to get from the island where the girl lived to the boy’s island, and
that was on a ferryboat that was run by a ferryboat captain. And so the girl went down to
the dock and asked the ferryboat captain to take her to the island where the boy lived. The
ferryboat captain agreed and asked her for the fare. The girl told the ferryboat captain that
she did not have any money. The ferryboat captain told her that money was not necessary:
“I will take you to the other island if you will stay with me tonight.”
The girl did not know what to do, so she went up into the hills on her island until she
came to a hut where a hermit lived. We will call him the first hermit. She related the whole
story to the hermit and asked for his advice. The hermit listened carefully to her story,