Career Vision: Servant Leadership, Ethics, and Entrepreneurism

Completing my master’s degree at Grand Canyon University will be an achievement of the second step of my academic and career journey. This is because my ultimate goal requires a further advanced degree, Ph.D., with which I would be able to actualize my vision of becoming a seasoned academic, public intellectual and business consultant in a leading global think-tank. The master’s degree shall be a great source of motivation as it marks the first step of breaking through graduate studies and focusing on inductive thinking. I am confident that by completing this step, intellectualism and academic rigor shall be well founded in readiness to the final lap. In practice, working in academia goes hand in hand with being a public intellectual and a high level consultant due to the exposure to new and revolutionary ideas that are needed in strategy, policy and entrepreneurism at large. It is a fulfilling position that places one at the apex of any knowledge-based problems in the marketplace and the greater society within their line of study, in this case business. Many entrepreneurs, governments and the general population continues to crave well thought strategies of creating sustainable competitive advantage while maintaining ethics in business, and a balanced analysis of emerging challenges. This is the gap to be filled through teaching and research, op eds and high quality consultancy services. The master’s degree shall thereby act as a bridge opening up opportunities for further education and experience leading to the actualization of this vision.

The completion of the current level of education shall play a critical role in promoting the greater social good in the industry. First, with research skills bolstered, there shall be a critical thought and enquiry into any problem that comes about in the marketplace, helping to come up with viable solutions. The master’s degree allows one to become a critical and reflective thinker, while linking evident problems to evidence from normative literature and other applicable bodies of knowledge. Additionally, it equips one with the knowledge that is required for servant leadership and entrepreneurism. To be a servant leader, one must have the requisite knowledge on various concepts that matter in their areas of influence and be able to apply such in practice to guide the rest. The master’s degree is one step towards intellectual leadership and allows one to guide others through application of knowledge in problems and creation of new opportunities. As Peterson, Galvin, & Lange (2012) note, servant leadership is a predictor of better firm performance and this shall therefore help in maximizing value to all stakeholders. Elsewhere, there is higher order thinking with respect to several marketplace issues which helps instill the culture of entrepreneurism which greatly lacks in the industry today. Many businesses are started with the sole aim of making money, hence end up with unsustainable business models and failure to live through competitive forces. They are easy to copy and in some instances do not create genuine value to customers. The course shall therefore help in the incubation of businesses that create value sustainably rather than merely chase profits.

            To the greater community, the instilling of ethical leadership and management in business shall be of great value. There has been an ethical crisis in the business world in the recent past which has left the communities languishing in financial and material losses. Cases like Enron and Nestle hurt shareholders and in the case of Nestle endangered lives, precipitating the need to cushion the society from unethical business practices. Though there are popular arguments that ethics is discordant to value creation, growing evidence shows that they are actually aligned (Clarke, J., & Holt, 2010). The course demonstrates how this is possible hence showing businesses how they can create value without harming the societies around them. The financial recession in 2007-2008 and the attendant housing market crash is evidence that unethical business practices harm the community indiscriminately and therefore should be checked. Rather than struggle with regulatory reprieves, the business community can engage in ethical leadership and come up with “self-legislating maxims” (Peterson, Galvin, & Lange, 2012). This is what the master’s course partly instills, benefiting the community in the process.

            In the end, it is also important to note that the three pillars of servant leadership, ethics and entrepreneurism relate to the Christian mission of Grand Canyon University. In essence, business ethics can be automatically applied if business leadership was approached from a Christian standpoint (Sauser, 2005). Therefore, Christianity when applied in the manner stipulated by the university shall help in enforcing business ethics. While the two are related, it has also been demonstrated that entrepreneurism and ethics follow each other. This shall in the end create a cycle of Christianity-ethics-profits. Notably, servant leadership is a concept that is intertwined between ethics and entrepreneurship and shall therefore be realized automatically. The three pillars of servant leadership, ethics and entrepreneurism are therefore derivatives of the Christian mission of Grand Canyon University and are achievable through it.

References

Clarke, J., & Holt, R. (2010). Reflective judgment: Understanding entrepreneurship as ethical practice. Journal of Business Ethics, 94(3), 317-331.

Peterson, S. J., Galvin, B. M., & Lange, D. (2012). CEO servant leadership: Exploring executive characteristics and firm performance. Personnel Psychology, 65(3), 565-596.

Sauser, W. I. (2005). Ethics in business: Answering the call. Journal of business ethics, 58(4), 345-357.