Ethical Crisis Leadership: The Terror of Ebola

Assignment Requirement: answer the discussion question for each case study with a total of three case study. (1) 12.1 The Terror of Ebola,  (2) 12.2 Case Study New Orleans as Resilience Lab and  (3) 12.3 Case Study Extreme Leadership at the Bottom of the World: Explorer Ernest Shackleton.  Require total word 1000 for all 3, the case study can be found on this word document. Thank you

Ethics in Leadership – Week 8 Case Study

Ethical Crisis Leadership

Case Study 12.1: The Terror of Ebola

An Ebola outbreak hit West Africa in 2014. The disease ravaged many communities and spread fear among the world. The factors surrounding how to control the Ebola epidemic were complicated.

Analysis

Ebola is a devastating virus which is easily transmitted among humans by way of bodily fluids. The virus was originally discovered in 1976 as a virus that is transmitted from fruit bats to humans in Africa. When the outbreak happened in 2014, government officials were slow to respond to contain the epidemic.

At first the outbreak was minimized for fear of economic repercussions. Then, when the outbreak was clearly visible to the world, officials scrambled into place to limit the effects, but it was too late. The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control underestimated the extent of the epidemic.

Discussion

1. Do medical personnel have the responsibility to care for patients no matter what the risk in doing so?
2. How do you determine when the need for public health should take precedence over local customs, such as hands-on care for the dead?
3. What is the responsibility of government leaders and citizens in wealthy nations to the health care needs of people in poorer regions?
4. What, if anything, should be done to narrow the gap in medical care between wealthy and poor countries?
5. What can be done to prevent a future Ebola epidemic? To better prepare and respond?
6. How can governments encourage drug companies to develop medications for “unprofitable” diseases like Ebola?
7. What leadership and followership ethics lessons do you take from this case?

Case Study 12.2: New Orleans as Resilience Lab

Summary

Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, killing 1,800 people and displacing millions—the worst natural disaster to hit the United States (see case). The New Orleans levees failed, which caused at least $188 billion in damage to the region. After 10 years, the area has mostly recovered in a new form that some have called a “resilience lab.”

Analysis

New Orleans, Louisiana, is located along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Water levees were built to protect the city until Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, leaving sizable damage and destruction to the area. Most revitalization efforts came from local residents and grassroots efforts. People saw the destruction and responded in a way to rebuild their city.

While many residents fled to neighboring cities like Houston and Dallas, some stayed to invest in recovery efforts, even if their own home had been destroyed. While young professionals had also flocked to the area for new job opportunities, local people stepped up in leadership roles to sustain their community’s growth. While the “resilience lab” efforts were very sustainable, it also presented some challenges like gentrification or displaced African American communities; and the 27% poverty rate is unchanged, while the graduation rates did rise under a new charter school system.

The government may have mishandled the crisis, but the local people were able to salvage some of the recovery based on their own hard work and recovery efforts.

Discussion

1. Do you think the successes of the New Orleans recovery outweigh the failures?
2. How long do you think it will take for recovery to be complete?
3. What opportunities did Katrina offer the people of New Orleans?
4. When natural disasters strike cities, what can government leaders do to encourage grassroots leaders to stay and rebuild?
5. What, if anything, can be done to ensure that people of all incomes and races share equally in disaster recovery?

Case Study 12.3: Extreme Leadership at the Bottom of the World: Explorer Ernest Shackleton

Summary

Ernest Shackleton was an early 20th-century explorer. In August 1914, Shackleton set sail to explore the Antarctic in a cross-continent expedition with 27 men to soon find that the voyage would be laden with havoc.

Analysis

The 1914 expedition to cross the continent Antarctica was led by explorer Ernest Shackleton. He led the ship Endurance and 27 men on the voyage. The initial purpose of the journey to cross the continent would soon shift gears as the expedition fell to peril after one natural circumstance to another. Shackleton would instead find himself prioritizing how to get all of his men home alive in the most grave of circumstances.

The 22-month-long expedition tested and tried each member, and utilized every last resource they had while none of the men perished. When it was evident that the Endurance would be buried in the southern ice and sea forever, Shackleton and crew then began to make their way back to a whaling camp by using three small dories over treacherous seas. He eventually left most of the men on an uninhabited island so he and a few crew members could cross another stretch of treacherous sea to find the whaling station on South Georgia Island over 800 miles away. Even when he and his small crew arrived from what was considered a voyage of death, they still had to hike over mountain terrain and glaciers. When they finally walked into the whaling station, their appearance was so ragged that they were hardly recognizable.

It was another 4 months until Shackleton could reach the rest of his crew left on the uninhabited island to survive, but all men returned to their home country alive. The expedition was nothing short of a miracle. While the intent of the journey was not achieved, Shackleton is considered a modern-day heroic leader based on the way he led his men through such an incredible journey where every man survived the unthinkable.

Discussion

1. Generate a list of virtues demonstrated by Shackleton on the Endurance voyage. How does your list compare to the virtues of extreme leaders presented in the chapter?
2. Do dangerous situations like polar exploration and mountain climbing put a premium on some aspects of character that would be less important in other, more routine contexts?
3. How did Shackleton demonstrate resilience? How did he promote resilience in his men?
4. How did Shackleton act as a transformational leader? A servant leader? An authentic leader?
5. What leadership ethics lessons can we draw from the life of Ernest Shackleton?

Case Study 12.1: The Terror of Ebola

Ebola is a terrifying disease. Victims of the virus suffer from high fever, chills, continuous vomiting and diarrhea, muscle aches, bleeding, severe headaches, rashes, and uncontrollable hiccups. Death rates can range from 25%–90%. The infection puts the body into shock and causes dehydration, low blood pressure, and organ failure. There is no known cure, but patients who receive fluids and other forms of support are much more likely to survive. However, victims may never fully recover, experiencing chronic joint pain and blurred vision for the rest of their lives.

Ebola, first identified in 1976, is transmitted from fruit bats to humans in Africa. It then spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of victims. (This puts medical personnel at particular risk.) Past outbreaks were small and limited to rural areas. That all changed in 2014–2015, when an epidemic in West Africa spread from rural regions to major cities in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. According to conservative estimates, 28,000 were infected and more than 11,000 died.

Leaders were slow to respond to the crisis. Government officials initially refused to acknowledge the epidemic and health officers failed to share information with their counterparts in neighboring countries. Local authorities were afraid of declaring a state of emergency for fear of frightening airlines (who might stop flights) and mining companies in this, one of the poorest regions of the world. Some regional medical personnel resisted outside help. Executives at the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control underestimated the extent of the epidemic (at one point, prematurely declaring it over). Some nurses, fearing infection, refused to treat Ebola patients.

Early intervention could have contained the spread of Ebola. Instead, the epidemic caught fire. The area’s few area hospitals and clinics, which often lacked such basics as hand soap, gloves, and running water, were quickly overwhelmed and the health system collapsed. As world leaders held back, brave volunteers stepped into the breach. Time magazine named these Ebola fighters its 2014 Persons of the Year while asking why the global health system was so slow to respond.

Why, in short, was the battle against Ebola left for month after crucial month to a ragged army of volunteers and near volunteers: doctors who wouldn’t quit even as their colleagues fell ill and died; nurses comforting patients while standing in slurries of mud, vomit, and feces; ambulance drivers facing down hostile crowds to transport passengers teeming with the virus; investigators tracing chains of infection through slums hot with disease; workers stoically zipping contagious corpses into body bags in the sun; patients meeting death in lonely isolation to protect others from infection?1

Eventually, the WHO., the United States government, and other groups joined local residents, Doctors Without Borders, and other volunteers in the fight against Ebola, setting up a network of clinics. At the same time, regional authorities enforced quarantine and travel restrictions. They created separate graveyards for Ebola victims and banned private burials. The epidemic subsided by the summer of 2015.

Political and cultural factors complicated the battle against Ebola. After years of civil war and unrest in the region, many residents didn’t trust their governments. Some believed that the government officials created the epidemic in order to solicit funds from international donors. Authorities raised fear levels by sending inept public health messages, such as that Ebola is an automatic death sentence. Riots broke out Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia, when authorities tried to isolate a crowded neighborhood. Angry mobs threatened medical workers trying to identify victims. In West Africa, families of all religious traditions provide hands-on care to the ill and prepare the bodies of loved ones for burial, which resulted in the infection of relatives until this practice was banned. According to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, “The messages about don’t touch the dead, wash your hands, if somebody is sick, leave them—these were all strange things, completely contrary to our tradition and culture.”2 Treatment centers were seen as places where victims went to die surrounded by medical personnel dressed head to toe in protective clothing resembling space suits.

Experts predict that there will be future Ebola epidemics. And the next epidemic could be as devastating as this one. Wealthier nations refuse to increase their contributions to rebuild the health care infrastructure in West Africa. They have also reduced their donations to the WHO. An independent panel concluded that the WHO is unprepared to handle another Ebola or similar epidemic due to budget cuts and reluctance to overrule local government officials. Until recently, pharmaceutical companies opted not to develop a vaccine for Ebola because they don’t profit off of medicines developed for diseases in poor nations. The failure of the world community means that when the terror of Ebola strikes again, it will once again result in thousands of painful and needless deaths.

Discussion Probes

1. Do medical personnel have the responsibility to care for patients no matter the risk in doing so?
2. How do you determine when the need for public health should take precedence over local customs, such as hands-on care for the dead?
3. What is the responsibility of government leaders and citizens in wealthy nations to the health care needs of people in poorer regions?
4. What, if anything, should be done to narrow the gap in medical care between wealthy and poor countries?
5. What can be done to prevent a future Ebola epidemic? To better prepare and respond?
6. How can governments encourage drug companies to develop medications for “unprofitable” diseases like Ebola?
7. What leadership and followership ethics lessons do you take from this case?

Notes

1. Von Drehle, D. (2014, December 22). The ones who answered the call.Time, 74.
2. Sack, K., Fink, S., Belluck, P., & Nossiter, A. (2014, December 29). How Ebola roared back.The New York Times, p. D1.

Sources

Donovan, G. K. (2014). Ebola, epidemics, and ethics—what we have learned. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, 9:15. (Online source)

Feldmann, H. (2014, October 9). Ebola—A growing threat? New England Journal of Medicine, 371(15), 1375–1377.

Gibbs, N. (2014, December 22). The choice. Time, 67–68.

Gimm, G., & Nichols, L. M. (2015, May). Ebola crisis of 2014: Are current strategies enough to meet the long-run challenges ahead? American Journal of Public Health, 105(5), E8–E10.

Global health inequity in Ebola treatment is major ethical concern. (2015, January 1). Medical Ethics Advisor.

Griffiths, P. D. (2014). Ebola and ethics. Reviews in Medical Virology, 24, 363–364.

Markel, H. (2014). Ebola fever and global health responsibilities. Milbank Quarterly, 92(4), 633–639.

Onishi, N. (2014, August 20). Clashes erupt as Liberia sets an Ebola quarantine. The New York Times, p. A1.

Petesch, C. (2015, August 23). With many Ebola survivors ailing, doctors evaluate situation. Associated Press.

Rid, A., & Emanuel, E. J. (2014, October 1). Why should high-income countries help combat Ebola? Journal of the American Medical Association, 312(13), 1297–1298.

Sengupta, S. (2015, July 8). Panel calls W.H.O. unfit to handle a crisis like Ebola. The New York Times, p. A7.

Single dose Ebola vaccine is safe and effective in monkeys against outbreak strain. (2015, August 6). NIH News.

Situation summary. (2015, August 19). World Health Organization. Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/gho/data/view.ebola-sitrep.ebola-summary-20150813?lang=en

Case Study 12.2: New Orleans as Resilience Lab

Hurricane Katrina was the largest natural disaster in the history of the United States. The 2005 Gulf coast storm displaced a million people, killed 1,800, and caused $188 billion in damage. In New Orleans, the levees failed during the storm surge, sending as much as 20 feet of water into 80% of the city. Residents fled to their roofs and thousands were stranded for days without adequate food, water, or toilet facilities in the Superdome. Television news broadcasts were filled with images of victims wading in putrid water, rooftop rescues, floating bodies (most of them African Americans), and angry citizens waiting for government help.

The New Orleans floodwaters knocked out most of the electrical grid, damaged roads, and ruined thousands of homes and commercial buildings as well as schools, churches, fire stations, and police stations. Residents fled to other cities like Houston and Dallas, dropping the population from 494,000 to 230,000. When the waters subsided, those who wanted to return had nowhere to live and had to decide whether or not to rebuild. (Even homes left standing had to be gutted due to mold and water damage.) One redevelopment official declared, “We have not seen a challenge like this in city rebuilding since World War II.”1

Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, calls New Orleans a “resilience lab,” one that inspired the Foundation to promote resilience in other cities. By the 10th anniversary of the storm, the city’s population returned to over 378,000 and many homes were rebuilt (often with the help of volunteers). Young professionals flocked to the area to work in new technology and bioscience companies and Forbes magazine named New Orleans “America’s biggest brain magnet.” Newcomers can ride to work on a network of bike paths built since the storm. Airport traffic rebounded to surpass pre-Katrina levels, and the tourist industry is booming.

Much of the credit for the city’s renaissance goes to ordinary citizens who stepped into leadership roles. Often, they had no leadership training or leadership experience. Yet they succeeded in spite of, not because of, their city, state, and federal governments and the skepticism of the rest of the country. According to journalist and New Orleans resident Roberta Brandes Gratz,

The people had to overcome endless impediments . . . the inequities of a state buyout program, the inequities of screwed-up regulations, all of which left people wondering what they should do, and then left them with little money to do it.2

She drew the title for her book on the city’s recovery from a piece of post-Katrina graffiti. One citizen summed up the attitude of many residents toward the rest of the world this way: “We’re still here ya bastards.”3

Examples of grassroots leadership abound. A former Black Panther organized a group called Common Ground, which gutted three thousand homes, businesses, and churches. A white housewife set up a website and resource center to provide rebuilding tips and tools. A weaver exposed corruption and financial wrongdoing in reconstruction programs. Local preservationists fought to save historic buildings from demolition, and environmentalists cut through government red tape to restore coastal areas. A group of New Orleans women lobbied Congress for aid and pressured levee boards to improve flood protection.

The resilience lab has had its share of failures as well as successes. Many ruined houses remain vacant, particularly in black neighborhoods in the Lower Ninth Ward. Most of the new residents flocking to New Orleans are white, lowering the proportion of African Americans in the city from 67% to 60%. Whites generally land the new high-paying jobs while many black residents remain employed in the low-paying tourist industry. Gentrification dramatically increases rents, pushing many lower-income residents out of their neighborhoods. Government officials tore down high-density, low-income housing that survived the storm and replaced it with low-density housing that serves fewer citizens. In addition, many of the problems that plagued the city prior to the storm remain. The poverty rate (27%) is unchanged. Crime and murder rates are high and the police force is demoralized. Graduation rates have improved under a new charter school system, but high-risk students are underserved.

Results from the New Orleans resilience lab demonstrate that crisis recovery can have mixed results. However, there is still much to learn. As Rodin notes, the recovery still has a long way to go. “Ten years isn’t long enough. They’re still on the journey.”4

Discussion Probes

1. Do you think the successes of the New Orleans recovery outweigh the failures?
2. How long do you think it will take for the recovery to be complete?
3. What opportunities did Katrina offer the people of New Orleans?
4. When natural disasters strike cities, what can government leaders do to encourage grassroots leaders to stay and rebuild?
5. What, if anything, can be done to ensure that people of all incomes and races share equally in disaster recovery?

Notes

1. Roig-Franzia, M. (2015, August 23). A bittersweet influx.The Washington Post, p. A01.
2. Jonsson, P. (2015, August 25). A “new” New Orleans emerges 10 years after hurricane Katrina.The Christian Science Monitor.
3. Brandes Gratz, R. (2015).We’re still here ya bastards: How the people of New Orleans rebuilt their city. New York, NY: Nation Books.
4. Roig-Franzia.

Sources

Associated Press. (2015, August 24). New Orleans rises decade after Katrina but gaps remain. New Orleans City Business.

Bucktin, C. (2015, August 16). Hurricane Katrina: Despair of the victims 10 years on. Daily Mirror, News, 26–27.

Dart, T. (2015, August 23). New Orleans dares to dream, 10 years after Katrina. The Observer, US News.

Jervis, R. (2015, August 23). Nagging divide cuts through New Orleans. USA Today, p. 2A.

Jervis, R. (2015, August 24). Post-Katrina New Orleans still the same. USA Today, p. 2A.

Rich, N. (2015, August 9). Hurricane’s wake. The New York Times, p. BR11.

Rivlin, G. (2015). Katrina: After the flood. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Robertson, C. (2015, August 30). A decade after Katrina, New Orleans is partying again, and still rebuilding. The New York Times, p. A15.

Case Study 12.3: Extreme Leadership at the Bottom of the World: Explorer Ernest Shackleton

The early twentieth century has been called the Heroic Age of Polar Exploration. Teams of adventurers from Norway and Great Britain competed to see who would be first to reach the South Pole. Antarctic expeditions faced temperatures as low as –100 degrees Fahrenheit and gale force winds up to 200 miles an hour. Britain’s Captain Robert Scott tried unsuccessfully to claim Antarctica for the Crown in 1901. Ernest Shackleton, who had accompanied Scott on his first journey, came within 100 miles of the Pole in 1909 but had to turn back to save his party. Scott and his companions died during their second expedition, launched in 1911. Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who set out at the same time as Scott, succeeded in reaching the southernmost point on earth in January 1912.

Undeterred by Amundsen’s success, Shackleton decided to launch one last great Polar journey aimed at crossing the entire Antarctic continent. This adventure has been chronicled in a number of books and films, and Shackleton is frequently cited as a role model for contemporary leaders. Author and museum curator Caroline Alexander provides one of the most detailed accounts of the expedition in her book titled The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition. Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men set sail on their wooden sailing ship—The Endurance—in August 1914, just days before World War I broke out. Soon, the last great Polar journey turned into one of the world’s most incredible tales of survival.

The Endurance was trapped by pack ice at the end of January, stranding the party. When the ice melted the following October (springtime in the Southern Hemisphere), it crushed and sank the ship. The crew relocated to ice floes. At the end of April, fifteen months after being marooned, the group abandoned camp on the shrinking ice packs and made it to an uninhabited island in three small dories.

Shackleton and five companions then set out in one of the small boats (only twenty-two feet long) to reach the nearest whaling station on South Georgia Island, 800 miles away. This voyage would later be ranked as one of the greatest sea journeys of all time. The odds were against the small party from the beginning. They were traveling in the dead of winter on one of the roughest oceans in the world. Darkness made navigation nearly impossible and they survived a severe storm, one that sunk a much bigger tanker sailing at the same time in the same waters. The crew overcame these hurdles and, frostbitten and soaked to the skin, reached South Georgia Island. Yet even then, their suffering was far from over. Shackleton and two colleagues had to cross a series of ridges and glaciers before reaching the whaling camp. Alexander describes how the survivors looked when they finally reached help.

At three in the afternoon, they arrived at the outskirts of Stromness Station. They had traveled for thirty-six hours without rest. Their bearded faces were black with blubber smoke, and their matted hair, clotted with salt, hung almost to their shoulders. Their filthy clothes were in tatters . . . Close to the station they encountered the first humans outside their own party they had set eyes on in nearly eighteen months—two small children, who ran from them in fright. (p. 164)

It would be another four months before Shackleton could reach the rest of his crew stranded on the first island. Amazingly, not one member of the party died during the whole twenty-two-month ordeal.

Many qualities made Shackleton an effective leader. He had great strength and physical stature that enabled him to endure extreme conditions and to deal with rebellious followers. He understood the skills and limitations of each expedition member and made the most of each person’s abilities. Shackleton was both accessible and firm. He mixed easily with his men but, at the same time, enforced discipline in a fair, evenhanded manner. Whatever the setting, he quickly established a routine and made every effort to maintain the group’s morale, planning song fests, lectures, dog races, and other activities for his men.

Alexander suggests that Shackleton’s character was the key to his success. In 1909, Shackleton could have been the first to reach the South Pole but he turned back to save the lives of his companions. As the supply of food dwindled, he made expedition member Frank Wild (who would join him on the Endurance voyage) eat one of his (Shackleton’s) daily ration of four biscuits. “I do not suppose that anyone else in the world can thoroughly realize how much generosity and sympathy was shown by this,” the grateful Wild later wrote. “I DO by GOD I shall never forget it.”

Shackleton continued to demonstrate concern and compassion for the needs of his followers on his Trans-Antarctic voyage. When the most unpopular crewmember was laid up with a bad back, the commander let him use his own cabin and brought him tea. He made sure that those of lower rank got the warmest clothes and sleeping bags. During the perilous trip to South Georgia Island, Shackleton kept an eye out for those who were growing weak but never embarrassed anyone by singling him out for special help. If one sailor appeared on the verge of collapse, he made sure that everyone got warm milk or food. Shackleton himself valued optimism above all other virtues. “Optimism,” he said, “is true moral courage.” Relentless optimism kept him going during the hard times, and he had little patience for those who were anxious about the future.

Alexander sums up the essential quality of Ernest Shackleton’s leadership this way:

At the core of Shackleton’s gift for leadership in crisis was an adamantine conviction that quite ordinary individuals were capable of heroic feats if the circumstances required; the weak and the strong could and must survive together. The mystique that Shackleton acquired as a leader may partly be attributed to the fact that he elicited from his men strength and endurance they had never imagined they possessed; he ennobled them. (p. 194)

Discussion Probes

1. Generate a list of the virtues demonstrated by Shackleton on the Endurance voyage. How does your list compare to the virtues of extreme leaders presented in the chapter?
2. Do dangerous situations like polar exploration and mountain climbing put a premium on some aspects of character that would be less important in other, more routine contexts?
3. How did Shackleton demonstrate resilience? How did he promote resilience in his men?
4. How did Shackleton act as a transformational leader? A servant leader? An authentic leader?
5. What leadership ethics lessons can we draw from the life of Ernest Shackleton?

Sources

Alexander, C. (1999). The Endurance: Shackleton’s legendary Antarctic expedition. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. (Also available as a PBS Nova documentary film.)

For more information on Shackleton, his expedition, and his model of leadership, see

Giannantonio, C. M., & Hurley-Hanson, A. E. (2013). Extreme leadership: Lessons from Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance expedition. In C. M. Giannantonio & A. E. Hurley-Hanson (Eds.), Extreme leadership: Leaders, teams and situations outside the norm (pp. 3–14). Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar.

Morrell, M., Capparell, S., & Shackleton, A. (2001). Shackleton’s way: Leadership lessons from the great Antarctic explorer. New York, NY: Viking Press.

Perkins, D. N. T. (2000). Leading at the edge. New York, NY: AMACOM.

Shackleton, E. (1998). South: A memoir of the Endurance voyage. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf.

CLICK HERE TO PLACE YOUR ORDER