Integral and Ethical Leadership as Portrait by Julian Assange

One of the most well-known figures on the planet right now is Mr. Julian Assange. The year 1971 saw Mr. Assange's birth in Townville, Queensland, Australia. He was raised by his parents, who at the time were operating a tourist theater in Australia. Julian's mother, Christine Hawkins, wed Brett Assange when Julian was just a year old. Julian was adopted by Brett Assange, who also gave him his last name, therefore the name Assange. He studied at Australia's Melbourne University, where he concentrated on math and physics. In the university, he became a prominent member of a mathematics society, inventing an elaborate puzzle that contemporaries said he excelled at (BBC, 2017).

He became a father at the age of 18 and he lost the custody of the child by the court order. In around 1995, Mr. Assange was arrested in Australia for hacking. He latter escaped the charges in the condition never to repeat the offence again. After the drop of his charges by the state, Julian tried to put his life in order for a while. He worked with Suelette Dryfus who was researching the emerging, subversive side of the internet (BBC, 2017). They worked underground for a while writing a book on the subversive side of the internet that became the bestselling in the computing fraternity (BBC, 2017).

In the early 2006, Julian Assange created Wikileaks; he decided that this online internet platform would be used to shed light to the secrets that are used to destroy the world. Through this platform, Julian has had a very big mass of people listening and reading his work, following him and looking up to him. For many years, he has had the voice that reaches a very big mass of people. The main reason for this essay is to focus on the integral and ethical leadership qualities of Mr. Assange Julian and their impact to the people.

For a person to be considered a good leader, He or she must have the ethical and integral qualities. This includes keeping your words. In 1995, Mr. Assange was arrested for hacking. He promised the state of Australia that he would never repeat the offence again. In 2006, he went against his words and created an online platform for the hackers. He termed it the “dead letterbox” encrypted to protect the identity of its users.

Furthermore, Leaders uplift and raises the spirit of their followers, unlike Assange who has broken the heart of many including Jemima khan. She helped pay for Assange’s bail in the hope of getting her money back, she lost all her money in the process. She stated that ‘I have seen flashes of Assange’s charm, brilliance and insightfulness, but I have also seen how instantaneous rock-star status has the power to make even the most clear-headed idealist feel that they are above the law and exempt from criticism.’

In addition, an integral and ethical leader possesses the quality of honor and respect. This means that in case of an offence or wrongfully accusation, they will try as much as they can to clear their names off, of these charges. However, Mr. Assange is and has been accused of rape charges in Sweden for a long time; he never reported to Sweden to answer for his deeds, instead, he ran to hide in the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK. In his excuse, he claims that he cannot be extradited in Sweden because by going to Sweden united states of America will extradite him and charge him of espionage. Words that Sweden do not agree with as they state clearly that they signed a treaty of extradition not binding between them and the United States in case of political offence (Dryer 2017). According to the publication by the Washington dc United States department of defense in 2013, USA states that they have nothing against him to extradite him in the USA.

A good leader must, not only have his interest but also the interest of everyone at heart. The purpose of the Wikileaks platform that Mr. Assange created and how he uses it by law makes him a journalist. The core rule of the journalist is to protect their source at any cost. However, if we consider the Iraq Afghanistan scandal leaked by the American soldiers, Chelsea manning, not only did Mr. Assange post this disturbing video online but he also released it with the name of the person he leaked it and left the person to hung. This indicates that he does not care about anyone else but himself.

An ethical and integral leader promotes peace and spreads peace and unity. In every single word they utter, they always try to advocate for peace. This is however not the case with the WikiLeaks founder Mr. Assange, in fact, it would be fair to say that Mr. Assange is advocating for a world war III in the planet. No matter how bad some regrets are, some secrets are better left to be secrets. We all know that the American CIA performs secret missions and for some reason it is never that good, hence the name secret mission.

Furthermore, Mr. Assange is also a hypocrite, his massage is about transparency, putting all cards on the table and no secrets, hence the establishment of the WikiLeaks website where he slums people with the truth free without considering the repercussions. The irony is, the man behind the site has more secrets and he shares with no one. When a reporter asked Mr. Assange for an interview, Assange refused to be interviewed for the documentary, claiming the going rate for an interview was around $1 million (entrepreneurs, 2013). Which begs the question, how would you trust someone who does not trust anyone with his secrets!

In conjunction with that, in 2012 when Assange was in the Ecuadorian embassy, they released a press statement saying that Assange was very sick with lung failure and that he needed quick medical attention. There point was, to get a leeway for the extradition Sweden had over them. Two years later Assange claimed that he was never seek and that he is very much fine. The strength for good leadership with ethics and integral is sticking to the truth, this is clearly not the case with Assange, him and his community seems to be people who can say anything to get themselves out of anything.

Although he has poor qualities of a leader, he also has good ethical and integral leadership qualities to look at like devotion. He is dedicated to finding the truth. One of the New Yorker magazine reporters Raffi khatchadourian stated that he did spend a little time with him and he could go for long stretches without eating, and focus on work with very little sleep (BBC, 2017). He dedicated his time on his works trying to make his site better and to find the secret information for his site.

In addition, he is also courageous, a desirable quality for a leader. Leaking peoples and states secret like the United States puts anyone doing it at risk. Mr. Assange however decides to take that risk and shines the light to these secret missions by the USA in the Afghanistan and Iraq.

He also has the loyalty quality to his followers. September 2015, his tweet is picked addressing Obama stating that he would surrender himself to the America court to answer for his crime if Barack gives clemency to Chelsea Manning. The ability for him to give himself up for the freedom of someone else is a good ethical and integral leadership value for a leader to have.

Other than loyalty, he also values justice to the people despite the circumstances, location or the place. In the recent and ongoing Catalonian political disagreement and injustice, Mr. Assange used the opportunity to share his thoughts on the matter and support the Catalonians. He posted some of the picture of the police brutally assaulting the civilians. According to the post by Sunday express, the Spanish official’s complaint that Assange posted fake news. They tried to shut him up by using the president of Ecuador. To tell him that his asylum in Ecuador does not allow him to dig into matter of any country, by doing that he is breaking the privileges of the asylum. The president of Ecuador however responded saying that they told him so; he is however surpassing the conditions (khatchadourian, 2017).

Moreover, he is also self-motivated. He believes that the truth needs to be out there no matter the cost he pays for it. In his interview with the New Yorker time reporter, after questioning him if he would still post the other content of Manning; the ex-soldier who was arrested for sending him the secret files of the United States. He indicated that he would not allow himself to be captured before releasing all that Manning had submitted even if it meant causing the destruction of Wikileaks (khatchadourian, 2017).

Julian is considered a person with no country. He is a born Australian but he is not accepted in his own country, he is currently in the UK but not in the UK, he has no life no freedom, because of his posts online, for an average person, this would have made him surrender and take the site down. With Assange, this is not the case he is resilient. he wants to see his work through. He continues releasing the fraction of the documents send to him by the American soldier Chelsea Manning.

In conclusion, it is not always easy to find a leader with only the good ethical and integral qualities; however, most leaders try to leave by good example. Needless to say, leaders have both the good and bad ethical and integral leadership qualities, it is upon those who look up to them to be able to tell these differences and sieve the good and ethical qualities from the bad.

Reference

BBC, 2017. Julian Assange: Campaigner or attention-seeker? [Online] (updated 16th may 2017) available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-11047811 [accessed 20th November 2017]

Dryer, S, 2017. The telegraph, Why is Julian Assange still inside the embassy of Ecuador?[online] (updated 12 November 2017) available at:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/11681502/Why-is-Julian-Assange-still-inside-the-embassy-of-Ecuador.html [accessed 20th November 2017]

Entrepreneurs, 2013. Leadership Lessons From… Julian Assange?, [online] (updated 17th July 2013) available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229056 [accessed 20 November 2017]

Khatchadourian, R, 2017. Julian Assange, a Man Without a Country The new Yorkers [online] (updated 21st august 2017) available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/21/julian-assange-a-man-without-a-country [accessed 20th November 2017]

CNN, 2017. Julian Assange Fast Facts [online] (updated 20 June 2017) available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/18/world/julian-assange-fast-facts/index.html [accessed 20 November 2017]

Wood, V, 2017. Spain V Assange: Ecuador warned Wikileaks leader is spreading ideas 'contrary to reality' Sunday express [online] (updated 16 November 2017) available at: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/880591/Spain-Catalonia-crisis-independence-Julian-Assange-Ecuador-Embassy [accessed 20 November 2017]