Ethics can be dangerous to your career. The danger may come not from your own ethics but from the ethics of people around you and the organization of which you are a part. At work, you may be called upon to do things that turn out to be unethical or even illegal. What should you do if that occurs? According to the old adage, “The best defense is a good offense.” And the best defense against involvement in wrongdoing is being prepared for organizational challenges that will inevitably test your personal values, moral beliefs, and commitment to doing the right thing. I believe that most people use a faulty model of unethical behavior because they think that “bad” people do “bad” things. In many cases, however, wrongdoing is done by people who are viewed as good employees, good managers, and even good leaders. The real challenge is understanding why “good” people do “bad” things. One reason is that they fail to recognize that the problem they are confronting has an ethical component and is not solely a marketing or finance or other kind of problem. As a result, they often lack the ability to analyze the problem from an ethical perspective. Thus, the goal of ethics training is not to change people’s ethics — that is, make bad people good — but, rather, to enhance people’s sensitivity to ethical issues and provide them with tools for resolving ethical dilemmas effectively.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 08:33:34 +0000
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