Stewardship

Student Name

Institution

1. Detail the need and importance of public stewardship in budgeting

Stewardship of the state resources can be defined as the states in which the government acts as the manager and accountable protector of the public funds. For one to attain the state of being a steward, one should be able to restore the security of public safety. Maintaining security would lead to the protection of public resources. A government should effectively and efficiently serve the citizens while protecting the resources also. The government should be able to balance the demands of national policies concerning the utilization of resources to manage the state resources effectively. Public stewardship should is important in budgeting as it prevents any conflicts which may arise in between the government and its people (Morse, Buss, & Kinghorn, 2015). This is important as it would enhance the legitimacy of the need to provide the essential services to the citizens. Stewardship is also vital in protecting the exchange of things between countries. Since the government plans the budget based on the citizens’ tax money, it requires proper planning to earn the trust of the governed people.

In an effort of being ethical stewards, the government should be able to prepare in case of long term challenges which come along with expenditure. State stewards should take the responsibility of proper stewardship to prevent any violent activities which may arise when people are scrambling with the public resources. In environments where they have emerged from conflict, the public resources are most likely to be included as substantial contributions from other sources. The act of ensuring the safety of these funds is an essential element of stewardship. Restoring the both the national and the local institutions in governance which provides control of them civilians, the management and overseeing the safety of the public resources.

2. Ethical requirements for leaders to consider for proper public stewardship and an example.

Ethical stewardship means taking charge of the organization, the resources either finances or households while following a set of principles and morals. As a leader, there is an ethical requirement required to ensure the proper stewardship of public resources. Ethical stewards are needed to be transparent to the rest of the people. This helps other people to know the status of the funds; it also improves the relationship between the steward and the rest of the public. Stewards should even restore the national and the local governance by protecting the public resources; they should be trustworthy, accountable and also reliable (Caldwell, Hayes, & Long, 2010). Also, as a leader, one should not have a previous criminal record or a suspect of an illegal operation which would sabotage the company. Thus, the results of engaging in unethical stewardship should be either termination, lawsuit or reimbursing the missing funds. The punishment of these unethical activities should be severe to serve as an example for other people.

Ethical leadership in the corporate world is equally essential as ethical leadership in the political perspective. The Enron scandal is one of the biggest financial scandals in America. The unethical actions of the top leaders resulted in the collapse of the organization, which was once the 6^th biggest energy company in the world. The senior leaders sold the organization’s stock way before the company’s downfall, while the low-level employees were denied from selling their shares due to their restrictions. After Enron filed for chapter eleven protection, this became the recorded the biggest bankruptcy in America at that time.  The leaders lacked integrity, arrogance, and ambition also their disregard for their actions. CEO Jeffrey Skilling created a staff of executives who together used accounting loopholes, and poor financial reporting successfully hide billions in debt from their failed projects and deals. The Chief Finance Officer Andrew Fastow mislead the company’s directors and the committee on their high-risk accounting activities. The Enron scandal serves as a good case example of the need for ethical leadership in today’s society.

References

Caldwell, C., Hayes, L. A., & Long, D. T. (2010). Leadership, Trustworthiness, and Ethical Stewardship. Journal of Business Ethics, 497-512.

Morse, R. S., Buss, T. F., & Kinghorn, C. M. (2015). Transforming Public Leadership for the 21st Century. New York: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.