What Is Loyalty? Essay Example

Loyalty can be a difficult term to define. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines loyalty as “the quality of being loyal to someone or something,” and loyal as “giving or showing firm and constant support or allegiance to a person or institution.” There are three main types of loyalty, institutional loyalty (loyalty to a county, monarch or government), personal loyalty (loyalty to a friend, family member or colleague), and idealistic loyalty (loyalty to a type of idea or a cause). Loyalty is crucial to the success in any person’s personal life, as well as their business life as well.

Why is corporate loyalty so important? A corporation can not survive if they can not trust the employees within their workforce. Corporate loyalty is crucial to the success of any company, small or large. There is a strong relationship between productivity, loyalty, employee satisfaction, customer loyalty, and profitability. Sometimes however, loyalty to a company can be detrimental to the customers and the community as a whole. If a corporation is corrupt, loyalty to that company is unethical and can be causing more harm than good.

In the criminal justice system, criminal justice agencies do not want to hire people with questionable morals, ethics and a lack of loyalty. This is why thorough background checks are conducted in order to determine whether or not a candidate is a good fit for a position within the criminal justice system. Paradoxes involving personal loyalty of criminal justice superiors involves bribery within the court system, “shakedowns” and accepting large gratuities from others within the judicial system, as well as politicians.

Resources

Peak, K. J. (2010). Justice administration: Police, courts, and corrections management (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.