Transformational Leadership and Unethical Behavior

This assignment examines the complex relationship between transformational leadership and unethical behavior within a business context. It analyzes how a leader's influence can encourage followers to engage in unethical actions for perceived organizational gain. Two studies are investigated to understand the dynamics at play and propose potential solutions.

Running head: SNOWDEN AND ETHICS
SNOWDEN AND ETHICS
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Question 1.
The movie ‘Snowden’ is based on the real life experience of Edward Snowden. It is
the biographical spy thriller film directed by Oliver Stone. It is written by Oliver Stone and
Kieran Fitzgerald. This film is a complete revelation of Snowden’s life and his ethical
concerns that eventually guided him to indulge in forgery with his own organization. The
character of Edward Snowden is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Laura Poitras is the
documentarian and Glenn Greenwald is the journalist to whom Snowden smuggled the secret
information regarding unlawful mass surveillance by the National Security Agency and
decided to reveal.
The character of Edward Snowden has been portrait as a mentally strong person with
morality and love for his country. The movie ignites the audience to select a suitable
adjective for the protagonist whether he is a traitor or patriot, spy or soldier, fugitive or hero.
The movie starts with Snowden’s background as a soldier of the US army. After he was
injured and discharged from the special force, he applied for the position at the CIA or the
Central Intelligence Agency. Here he underwent screening process and selected to work in
the department of cyberwarfare. It discloses the fact that all his life he served his nation either
as soldier or a hacker.
In the movies Snowden met his girlfriend Lindsay Mills over a social networking site.
They started to stay together but had a complete opposing political ideology. They had
different ideologies regarding the social problems and ethical responses of the government
but they had a strong feeling as well as understanding for each other. Mills found out that
Snowden was a shy person so she wanted to bring him out of his shell. She clicked several
pictures of Snowden which demonstrates her personality as an extrovert that complete
contrasts the nature of Snowden. However, Lindsay Mills joined Snowden all his tours for

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example in 2007, she joined Snowden in his trip to Geneva to maintain computer network
security. She joined Snowden in Tokyo trip in 2009. Snowden used to take her in business
parties where they met a number of diplomats. Here Snowden’s task was to find a banker for
surveillance purpose. Lindsay Mills helped Snowden to meet a banker named Marwan Al-
Kirmani. Despite joining Snowden in every trip, Lindsay had no idea about her boyfriend’s
plan that is to illegal disclosure of secret documents.
Corbin O’Brian was the deputy director of CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency. He
is a man with great experience and expertise. He interviewed Snowden but found his answer
insufficient but realised the potential within Snowden. In the movie this character is shown to
have different ideology which open up new aspect of threat. Corbin O’Brian is critical about
the political agendas of the USA therefore, analysed the concept of terrorism inversely. He
believed in omnipresence of modern battlefield in society therefore, opined that the recurrent
usage of bombs was irrational and irrelevant because modem wars are fought by brains not
with weapons. To him, terrorism is a short term threat (Heyler et al. 2016). It needs physical
handling. The government knows its source therefore they can trace and terminate such
problems but real threats will be coming from intellectual level.
Hank Forrester had a great influence on the mind of the protagonist (Cameron &
O'Leary, 2015). He was the engineer, counsellor and instructor. He is in charge of keeping
eye on the works of the employees so that they don’t start to take drugs to escape the stress of
their jobs. Here, Snowden revealed that computers were his sin of choice on which Forrester
welcomed Snowden in the organization terming it to be a whorehouse. Beside these major
characters, the character of NSA Dep. Director Lowell, Laura Poitras, Ewen MacAskill,
Glen Greenwald and Gabriel Sol are also important to understand the events demonstrated in
the movie ‘Snowden’.

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Each of the characters has their own understanding and concept of secrecy in their
minds. Some of the character assign with the utilitarian theory whereas the others believe in
universalism (Cianci et al., 2014). Both of these theories explain the moral status of the
characters. The philosophy of normative ethics discuss that morals are determined by
actions. The concept of consequentialism evaluates the morality of actions by the
consequences (Crane, & Matten, 2016). Through this theory the individuals first think about
the positive of negative consequences of their actions then they act. On the other hand, some
people do not judge the consequence but focus on the general good (Denning, 2014). They
act without thinking the rightness and wrongness of the action or the systems of rules.
In the movie, one can find people following either of these approaches to support their
perspectives. For instance, the employees or the mangers working in the National Security
Agency assign with the theory that they are working for preventing terrorism by maintaining
secrecy (Dane & Sonenshein, 2015). The characters of CIA agents and Corbin O'Brian
consider that secrecy is security and security is victory over the rivals. Based on this
understanding they take measures to mitigate the real threats (Effelsberg, Solga & Gurt,
2014). They identify the scopes from which the opponents can enter their security system
then think about the consequences of their actions and finally react. The methods of
surveillance that their organisation applies to prevent the threats, successfully illusions the
employees by realising them that they are doing good (Feltham, 2017).
The movie discusses many ethical dilemmas through the character of Snowden which
made him to question the system as well as the involvement in surveillance program
(Hopkins, 2017). He does not think that about the consequence but feels that his measures
can save many lives. Therefore, he violets the security clearance to inform public about the
unethical initiatives of the trusted security agency of the USA (Harrington, 2014). In the
character of Snowden, the concept of legal amalgamates with ethical because to him, what

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the organization feels to be legal is not ethical. During his operation with the NSA Snowden
becomes disillusioned that he was a part of this unethical process so takes the risk to escape
by revealing the secrets. The movie ends with demonstrating that Snowden continues
his activism.
Question 2.
Edward Snowden in 2013 came in spotlight when he was alleged to mass reveal of
classified documents of the National Security Agency. These data indicated that the
government of the USA conduct illegal mass civilian surveillance (Hutchings, Smith &
James, 2013). To discuss his life as well as action, through a particular perspective will not be
correct. What he had done to the country and its people was analysed by numerous
researchers and everyone found different perceptions to term him a traitor or a hero (Johnson,
2012). After leaving the military service due to injury, he started to work for the NSA near
Tokyo as a contractor. Later, he was transferred to Hawaii and designated as the lead
technologist. During this service in Hawaii, he was alleged to copy and smuggle near about
1.7 million sensitive and secret document from the NSA’s data storage and handed them to
journalists (Kalsi et al., 2015). However, he is termed to be a whistle blower by one set of
critic, and traitor by another set.
As mentioned before, there are numerous perceptions and theories regarding CSR or
social corporate responsibility that analyses the issue of morality of the actions of the NSA.
First of all, one must understand the sole purpose of the actions of the NSA because what
Snowden did, chiefly oppose the morality of the NSA’s mission. This particular organization
deals with the methods as well as necessary tools utilised by the governmental entities to
work and protect nation from the threat of terrorism. In doing this properly, the nature of

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security of this specific organization infringes the basic rights of the civilians (Kim, 2012).
Therefore, question arises regarding the existence of state sponsored surveillance agency.
According to the utilitarian philosophy, the state may go to the farthest extend for
serving its greater number of people. Hence, for preventing terrorism issues and securing the
citizens, the U.S government’s surveillance would be completely warranted. According to
this theory, the state does not need to hold any regard to consequences incurred to the
decision maker but must notice how the decision will be affecting greater population. From
this perspective, the NSA backed up by the USA government states clear but when it comes
to the concept of moral value, then this leads to general unhappiness among the public as well
as severe repercussions to the NSA. This event can be seen from the perspective of the
accused himself.
It can be clearly stated that the actions of Edward Snowden followed the concept
derived from the utilitarian thinking where he did not consider the eventual consequences
which will be incurred to himself. He wanted to safeguarded the interest of greater number of
people. In case Snowden followed the path of sheer egoism, he would have remained silent
about the unethical operation of the National Security Agency but he exposed everything for
greater good (Blais & White, 2015). However, the ultimate consequence of this event did not
server any of the parties. The activities of the NSA came under strict scrutiny, Snowden was
completed to go into hiding and the public become paranoiac and angry due to this revelation.
Moral universalism or universal morality by Immanuel Kant is a duty based approach
which centres round the concept of human autonomy. It chiefly focuses on the personal
understanding matched along the framework of personal experience. According to this theory
people tend to be self-conscious and perceive every situation from personal ideology
(Broucek & Turner, 2013). They are aware of the reasons behind their actions and prove

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themselves to be right. According to Kant one’s moral philosophy must be based on their
autonomy. Though this philosophy, people follow their personal principles or maxims in
identifying the reason being their every actions. These often guide them to achieve personal
goals (Lehnert, Park & Singh, 2015). To the theorist, these maxims therefore must be set on
the framework of ethics or supported by morality.
This theory focuses purely on the intentions of the decision maker. Therefore, it
makes the individual to be his own ethical agent and encourages to practice esteem for the
people he meets or affects through his decisions. In addition to this, the reflective component
in universalism theory, evokes a profound consideration aiming to the welfare of all parties
involved in the actions. The critics of this theory questions the relevance of universalism
theory in the lives of the people because it is impossible to bring diverse nations, people,
cultures into one point. In the case of Snowden, it can be said that the decisions of Snowden
to reveal all the secrets about the activities of the NSA perfectly matches the criteria of the
Universalism theory by Kant (Leo et al., 2016). Here, Snowden’s personal background and
autonomy acted as catalyst in hi decision making procedure. He understood the concept of his
organization and revealed alternate ways to correct the process. He was self-conscious and
aware of the consequences of all his actions. Treating humanity is the chief motto of this
theory which can be seen in the confession of Snowden. As mentioned before, the ideology
that Snowden conforms with, aims to serve greeter number of people so he never thought of
his own interest but served his community (McQueen, 2015).
As discussed before, the discussion over the case of Snowden, had ample political and
legal orientation. The debate whether he is a traitor, or a whistle blower disclosed many
scopes for further researching the importance of activities and process of the National
Security Council. From the legal point of view, Snowden had done an illegal activity that led
him to take espionage in the foreign country (Norris et al., 2017). However, Snowden had

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been accused for deception and information closure of highly sensitive documents of the
NSA where used to work. From the legal point of view, he broke the law of the company as
well as the contract. However, after the incident the government allowed him to attain a
position of faith in the area of necessary interest to the national security. As Snowden have
uncovered illegal and unconstitutional behaviour of his organization, cleared personnel were
informed to analyse the concept of blowing whistle illegality or unethically and through other
wrongdoing. It was done through the company management, the agency that allows the
clearance even involvement of the congress. Snowden said that he was motivated by self-
interest than the concept of altruism, because he sensed that it would improve the societal
wellbeing by ultimately dismantling the metadata collection programs of the NSA. To him,
he felt the moral responsibilities to act where legal system or judgement no longer reflect the
morality of the society it governs (Shafer, 2015). He was definite about the institutional
failure in the government which ultimately allowed for the activities of the NSA in question
to arise.
The case of Snowden can be analysed from the ethical or moral grounds. Edward
Snowden smuggled top secrets to the journalists so that the news can be reached to the public
that the NSA is keeping surveillance in the personal information of public in the name of
protection from terrorism. According to the ethical theorists, it is an obligation to the avoid
public harm. It includes the invasion of confidentiality which ultimately leads to loss of trust
on the government of the country. In addition to this, from ethical perspective it can be said
that he must have felt the ethical responsibility to set right the detriment practiced by this
organization and like the other members of the NSA, he also engaged in this practice of
illegal surveillance.
Due to the feeling of regression and remorse in one hand and moral responsibility on
the other, that Snowden took such step. Despite the fact that the actions taken by Snowden

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was not very intelligent and the government did not accept the NSA’s activities to be evil,
Snowden was able to make people know the ethical breaches were taking place with them. To
the researchers, as the public employee serves the public, he needs to protect their freedom,
create scope for common good and work according to their interest. Therefore, what
Snowden did in revealing the illegal surveillance by the NSA, was supported from the moral
ground.
The philosophical literature has raised more additional points which opposes the
activity of Snowden and accuse him to play unethically to his own organization. According to
this perspective, the employees are first accountable to their organizations and they must
never act unethically such as revealing the secret data which they can access easily. However,
this particular perspective views the event to be an example of civil disobedience. It is a
method of political protest which is public, non-violent and conscientious act that aim to
bring changes in the law and policies. Despite the fact that it has potential constraints, it is
guided by the concept of moral right. Through this agenda people raise he issues which are
vital but do not get proper or sufficient attention. According to virtue ethics theory, Snowden
has used civil disobedience to create a will-formation for activating the deliberative inertia.
This issue of civil disobedience if used with sound judgment, can help to strengthen the
institutions.

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