"What's your cell phone number? Good, I'll call you about the meeting." If you're like many people in the world who have used a smartphone for years, or one of the 1.4 billion people who bought one recently, chances are you've used it for work. In fact, your employer may have even invitedor askedyou to use your smartphone, tablet, or laptop in your job. Such is the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend, which started out of friendly convenience but now carries major ethical issues. For instance:

Did you know your employer can wipe your personal devices clean?Remotely? With no warning? It happens, especially considering that 31 percent of organizations require employees to BYOD to work and 61 percent of organizations expect their employees to be available remotely, without giving company-owned devices. Anytime an organization has a privacy concern, it may wipe all devices clean to prevent a further breach of its cyber defenses, as long as the employee has consented to a "mobile device management" agreement. For instance, Rivers (a former transgender Google employee) had her entire personal phone wiped almost completely to the point that it appeared like it was back at factory settings. This was especially painful for Rivers, who lost four months of her transition timeline photos that she will not be able to get back.

Is your device part of your employment contract, either explicitly or by understanding?If so, who pays for the device? Well, you did, and you continue to pay for the service. If the device breaks, then who pays for the replacement device? Can you lose your job if you can't afford the device and service?

Can you use your device for all work-related communications?The cloud has brought opportunities for people to send classified work information anywhere, anytime. Organizations are concerned about what social media, collaboration, and file-sharing applications are in use, which is fair, but some policies can limit how you use your own device.

Once you use your personal device for work, where are the boundaries between work and home life?Research indicates that intensive smartphone users, for instance, need to disengage in their off-hours to prevent work-home stress and burnout. Yet not everyone can do so even if they are allowed to; research indicates that a significant proportion of smartphone users felt pressured to access their devices around the clock, whether or not that pressure was warranted.

The clear dilemma for employees is whether to acknowledge you own a smart device, and whether to offer its use for your employer's convenience. Put that way, it seems obvious to say no: Why would you risk possibly later losing everything to a corporate swipe? But the convenience of carrying one phone is real. Some people think it's just better to carry two phonesone for work, another for personal use. Attorney Luke Cocalis tried it and concluded, "It frankly keeps me saner."

Reflective Thinking on Leadership

After reviewing the ethical dilemma, consider the issue of character and character building as an ingredient in effective leadership. One of the fundamental reasons for a leader to have integrity is because it is a cornerstone of great leadership.

As evidenced by the growing number of corporate scandals of which almost all involve the CEO and other top officers, corporate America in many cases is missing one essential leadership ingredientcharacter. Character building may well be one of the new buzz words that will be heard across the airways and Internet in the next few years as a prescription for what is wrong with our current state of top management. Corporate leadership has failed its character test in the last few years and has some ground to make up in the future. Character is not just a manager's psychological profile carried to an extreme. It is, to use an old phrase, doing the right things, not just doing things right. To learn about character, young executives should go through self-awareness training, study, and, most importantly, experiential training with respect to character issues.

As plebes in the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, "new" managers of men and women are taught eleven principles of leadership from the Army's manual, Principles of Leadership. The principles (summated) are as follows: (1) Know yourself and seek self-improvement; (2) Be technically and tactically proficient; (3) Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions; (4) Make sound and timely decisions; (5) Set the example; (6) Know your subordinates and look out for their well-being; (7) Keep your subordinates informed; (8) Develop a sense of responsibility in your subordinates; (9) Ensure that the task is understood, supervised, and accomplished; (10) Train your personnel as a team; and (11) Employ your wit in accordance with its capabilities. Following these principles can certainly improve one's character.

Share your thoughts.

1. Explain your views on the importance of character in effective leadership.

2. Using the eleven principles of leadership (highlighted above), list which principles would be most instrumental in developing character in a leader with reasoning.

3.Which theory of leadership do you feel is most meaningful and applicable to effective leadership and why?