Analysis of Enron Documentary: Leadership, Ethics, and Governance

This essay analyzes the documentary film "The Smartest Guys in the Room," which chronicles the collapse of the Enron Corporation. The essay emphasizes the importance of effective and ethical leadership, highlighting the significance of corporate governance in business operations. It discusses the accounting manipulations, unethical practices of leaders like Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow, and the impact of financial statement fraud on stakeholders. The essay explores the characteristics of charismatic leaders and their potential for selfishness. The author reflects on how they would have managed Enron's activities, emphasizing the importance of ethical practices, corporate governance, and maintaining a positive work environment to achieve organizational goals. The essay concludes by underscoring the essential role of business ethics in ensuring profitability and avoiding negative implications.

Essay

Table of Contents
Essay on documentary movie of Enron ..........................................................................................3
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................5

Essay on documentary movie of Enron
The smartest Guys in the room is a documentary film that is based upon case of Enron. It is
amongst the best selling film. It has shown collapse of Enron corporation which gradually led to
criminal trials of top directors in Enron. This film explains that there is importance of using
effective and ethical leadership while managing the business operations. After seeing this movie,
it is analysed that there is great importance of corporate governance within the companies
(Ailon, 2015). There was corporate arrogance in Enron and this led to major financial crisis in
several US companies. Within Enron, there was aim of defrauding different stakeholders of
funds. Here is explanation about the accounting manipulation that occurred in Enron. There is
explanation of various issues which explain the need of ethical leaders within an organisation.
This documentary showed ineffective functioning of the Enron managers which led to it's failure
(Hardin, Sarkis, and Urc, 2015). There were two traders in Enron who starting betting on oil
markets. This helped in making high profits but it increased suspicion. There were also cases
about fraudulent of Enron. New appointed CEO naming Jefferey Skilling handled the company
operations but he used mark to market accounting. It helped this company to earn huge profits.
This company launched public relations campaign for making profits. This movie states that
main perpetrators of financial crime are Lay and Skilling. They helped other traders to escape
when company filed for bankruptcy.
Both Jeff Skilling and Lay were involved in unethical conduction of business operations.
Andrew Fastow in the person who was behind the accounting fraud within Enron. This person
helped engineer to make millions by working under debts. It is concluded from this documentary
that financial statement fraud costs market participants great losses (Kalinowski, 2018). There
are various creditors, investors and cost marketers who have to work in a transparent, vigilance
and integrate manner. There are some legal consequences which are ineffective while preventing
financial frauds. Companies have to use effective audits to monitor and control unethical
practices and prevent any kind of fraud within the organisation.
This documentary explains the characteristics of charismatic leaders. It explains that these
leaders do not care about employees and subordinates. They are selfish and they use personal
allure to do achieve their goals. This helps in leading the business operations and influencing

people to do extraordinary work. Such kind of leaders are having ability to fill gaps between
stakeholder's need and what company provides to the stakeholders. When the leaders of Enron
started to follow mark to market accounting, then it was easy to manage conducting the business
in stable manner. According to me, Skilling done the right thing and he used investment strategy
for conducting business. There is great importance of using effective strategies that will lead to
manage the business operations. It is analysed that there is importance of managing the
responsibilities of running a successful business and adopt ethical practices when monitoring the
activities. In context of Enron, there is need of managing the business activities in ethical
manner. These will help in developing positive work environment and attaining goals.
If I would have been manager of Enron then I must have focused upon practising ethical ways
while conducting business operations. It is helpful in managing the business operations in proper
manner and achieving goals. I have always thought of being committed and managing excellent
business ethics. I will always give value to my employees while working in the company. In
Enron, I would have been managing the activities and tasks properly and developing good
corporate culture. It will lead to manage the working in effective manner. All the business
activities are based upon managing human needs and demands. These will help to develop and
manage the work properly (Markham, 2015). Corporate governance and business ethics are two
essential factors which led to managing of business activities properly. It enables achievement of
organisational objectives in specified time frame. I have believed that there is great importance
of working in ethical manner and controlling business activities. I have seen that if all the
operations are conducted in ethical manner, then company will make profits and there will be no
negative implications on company.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Ailon, G., 2015. From superstars to devils: The ethical discourse on managerial figures involved
in a corporate scandal. Organization. 22(1). pp.78-99.
Hardin, J.S., Sarkis, G. and Urc, P.C., 2015. Network analysis with the enron email corpus.
Journal of Statistics Education. 23(2).
Kalinowski, C., 2018. Topical Analysis of the Enron Emails Using Graph Theory.
Markham, J.W., 2015. A financial history of modern US corporate scandals: From Enron to
reform. Routledge.