To be an effective leader, a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards.

There is an intense controversy for philosophers, politicians and even common citizens that whether a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards to be an effective leader. To begin with, what is the ethical and moral standard? The definition of the term is an active action and thoughts that does no harm to the public and society according to the custom putatively obligated by the public. In this point, it is certainly that a public official should maintain the ethical and moral standards. Yet to be an effective leader, he should accommodate to the circumstances just not maintain steadily the highest ethical and moral standards. The method to judge whether a public official is an effective leader, there is another way to evaluate instead of highest ethical and moral standards.

According to the definition of the ethical and moral standards, it is wholly right that public officials should main ethical and moral standards, otherwise he will not get confidence and support from the public. A public official who have no ethics will lose heart of the people and no one will advocate what he proposes, leading to ineffective leader. Just like Richard M. Nixon who wanted to won the election to eavesdrop the opponents' information and denied it, which resulted in the famous affair Watergate because of his dishonesty. When his losing ethics are demonstrated to the public, he was forced to resign, because people will not believe in a leader who is full of lies. Simultaneously, a public official who injured others without ethics can also not be supported by the citizens, such as Adolf Hitler. Therefore, public officials should maintain hold high ethical and moral standards to achieve public support to carry out the policies well.

A good public official, however, should not maintain the "highest" ethical and moral standards. To be an effective leader, he also needs to know how to be flexible to deal with some matters. Only maintaining highest ethical and moral standards will make the leader too stiff to be an effective leader. An effective leader sometimes should withstand some information to the public such as the information of the military strategy, some big disasters, and so forth, which seems to betray the ethical and moral standards, but these actions will prevent the public into panic to make the things worse and will bring a lot of long-term benefit to the public who cannot perceive right now. Even if some things determined by the leaders deflect the ethical and moral standards a little, the foothold of the leaders is good for the well-being of the public. Thus, to be an effective leader, he should not maintain the highest moral and ethical standards in the cost of welfare of the public.

Moreover, the criterion to judge whether to be an effective leader is not only the ethical and moral standards. The public should concentrate on the capability of the leader who serves for the general people. Since the extent of power and prosperity of a nation is the most effective standard to evaluate whether the leader is effective. For example, although Clinton is accused of the scandal with Monica Samille Lewinsky, no one will negate that he is one of the most successful and effective presidents in the United States. From the instance, it is obvious to us that what the people concern are their benefits rather than the ethics of the leaders. Hence, the public should pay more attention to what the leader do for them more than the ethical and moral standards of the leaders.

In conclusion, a leader should maintain the ethical and moral standards but not the highest, because he also learns to be flexible to the different affairs. To evaluate whether is an effective leader should focus on their capability of strengthening the country instead of ethical and moral standards.