Ethics are at the forefront of all relationships when managing and directing staff. Through day-to-day interactions, ethical decision making guides behavior.
In addition, the way you obtain, serve and retain clients involves ethics. Their willingness to work with you is guided by your ethical decision making regarding the customer experience. Equally important, determining whether you are keeping a customer is guided by ethical customer behavior.
And your willingness to remain ethical, when the person is not present, is a true litmus test of your ethical decision making.
In today’s workplace, ethical decision making is critical to leading and managing. On reflection, in recent months, where have you been challenged in your ethical decision-making?
In today’s workplace, where judgment is rendered in social media court, it’s smart to upgrade your moral compass to an ethical gyro.
Ethics explained
Ethics is about what “we” collectively value in our relationships with each other. The ethics we identify as “we” take into consideration the best of what it means to be human together. Therefore, you can say: “I am a moral person and I act ethically with others.”
Ethics is a guide in which we ‘agree’ on how I will behave with you and how you will behave with me. Morality is what we personally believe, it guides our action towards ethics and it exists up to the skin. What we value with others through our action, from the skin, is ethics.
Ethics guides the consideration of personal / collective motivation on the ideas of good and evil in relation to legal, moral and useful actions or illegal, immoral and / or harmful actions.
They guide the interpretation of a situation from the perspective of ethical dilemmas such as those identified below.
Ethical dilemmas
An ethical dilemma is a situation in which making a decision involves choosing between two or more ethical courses of action. Examples of each dilemma are shared.
1. Between good and evil. For example, the customer has not paid his bill for six months. gold The staff member has arrived late and left early
2. Between two rights. For example, deciding between two new customers: who to add first gold Hire New Staff – Decide Between Two Qualified Candidates
3. Between two unacceptable alternatives. For example, the contracts necessary to meet financial requirements are available from two new sources: a cigarette company and an arms distribution factory. gold Low cash flow means that two out of four employees with similar qualifications and performance levels should be laid off.
4. Conflict of interest. For example, a new customer has been saying derogatory things about a vendor they support gold One of your current staff has bought shares from a competitor, in a different country where you work
5. Hospitality re: welcoming those who are to come and how to help their commitment. For example, incorporation of new clients from different national cultures. gold Through M&A, you are reassigning existing staff while hiring new staff
Ethical decision making
In your workplace, “Which of the five ethical dilemmas have you encountered?” Plus,
1. What is the situation about in the words of those involved?
2. Which of these six ethical values is affected by the dilemma: responsibility, caring, community, fairness, respect, and trustworthiness?
3. What options are available to address the dilemma in light of the fundamental ethical value identified in n. 2?
4. What priority option seems feasible?
5. What is the likely outcome of taking action?
In formulating your answers to these questions, and before acting on your decision, can you describe and explain the dilemma, the ethical value involved, and the path of your decision to the desired outcome to a twelve-year-old? More importantly, would the twelve-year-old understand and agree to the proposed action?
If so, you seem to be on the right track.
If not, go back and ask the questions again.
Ethical Decision Making and Your Healthy Workplace
Consider the following ideas on how to improve, focus, and strengthen ethical decision-making in your work organization.
As you establish and maintain a workplace where people work well together (i.e. create a healthy workplace), your allocation of time, effort and money to support ‘good to great’ work means that excellence and ethics meet.
A well-living workplace allows for the full expression of what is best in people as they articulate clear goals, receive immediate feedback, and accept demanding challenges. In their contribution, they seek an authentic alignment.
Commitment to ethical decision making, authenticity and alignment is scattered.
In addition, the workplace for living well involves working according to a creed, a code of ethics, statements of business principles that bind the organization to its clients and clients. The creed serves as a constant reminder to those involved, to be ethically responsible and accountable through daily business and social decisions.
Compromising ethical decision making, brand loyalty falters, customers move on.
