Ethical Dilemmas
Unethical behaviors have the potential of destroying the image of a workplace if not adequately moderated by organizational leaders. Unethical behavior damages the credibility of a company man make a business lose customers and eventually close down its operations. Actions that qualify to be unethical in nature range from embezzlement of money by company executives down to victimization of employees. Chief Executive Officers, managers, and other leaders in an organization ought to work in collaboration with employees to prevent unethical behaviors in their organization. It is common for managers to bump into unethical practices as they go about their duties (Treviño, Weaver & Reynolds, 2016). The courage to unveil, condemn and correct individuals involved in unethical practices determines the way forward when an organization suffers from hostile acts.
Upon discovering of unethical practices in an organization, managers should begin addressing and correcting the problem from all dimensions. Unethical issues can be discussed depending on the severity of the organization. Managers may require redefining good conduct but posting clear guidelines for outlining the expected behaviors in the organization. For instance, a manager may set guidelines that ban harassment and discrimination of any form in the organization. Managers responsible may issue warning to employees not to tale supplies of the company for personal gain. In this case, the manager concerned or the human resource manager may set it clear of the consequences of violating the ethical guidelines.
Creating an ethics panel can serve best to investigate and warrant measures of dealing with unethical issues in the organization. The panes should consist of members who are highly reputable in the respective organization because they should serve as an example of instilling discipline and punishing irate employees. Managers are supposed to ask the panel to investigate a particular unethical occurrence; especially, it is unclear whether a worker crossed ethical boundaries (Treviño, Weaver & Reynolds, 2016). Sometimes dealing with ethical issues in an organization would require the creation of a position such as the ethics compliance officer. The appointee can be used to serve the organization in settling minor unethical matters as they arise and even pass punishment where necessary.
Potential unethical practices in an organization include an action such as abusive language. When employees call each other names, despise or backbite another employee, they are regarded to have crossed the ethical boundaries of the organization. Unethical behaviors also consist of ethnicity and racist ideologies that undermine the dignity of employees in an organization. This means using racist remarks to describe another employee or using the remarks to underpin members of their ethnic or racial group. Sometimes such unethical conducts go unaddressed by organizational leaders because victims decide not to report (Tenbrunsel & Smith‐Crowe, 2018). Perhaps this trend is because society has been made to believe that racism or ethnicity is real, and people have to cope with the situation.
People tend to tolerate some unethical practices while refuse to accept other practices because of the way the society portrayed virtues. Going by the utilitarian ideology, an action is wrong if its consequences are harmful. This implies unethical practices whose results are good tend to be accepted by people. For instance, bribing the HR manager to secure a job promotion is unethical, but because the results are a job promotion and a token for the HR manager, the “evil” continues to eat up the society. When actions produce bad results, people tend to condemn such actions and call for action. In an organizational setting, unethical behaviors are weighed similarly, and the ones that have adverse consequences to the performance or reputation of an organization receive great attention.
Ethical standards begin at the top of an organization and then down to the employees who emulate the behaviors. The top managers and other executives have a significant role to play in ensuring that ethical actions they undertake to create a good image for the entire organization. Junior employees work by observing their superiors, creating a real perception that leaders are the people to shape ethical behaviors in their organization by being the first to act in the right direction (Tenbrunsel & Smith‐Crowe, 2018). Ethics can be used by leaders to empower their employees because if ethical leaders model or instill ethical behaviors and decisions in their organization; employees become part of workplace ethics building.
Organizational leaders can also choose to set ethical standards that are believed to “pay dividends” to the organization. Ethical behavior research indicated that CEO’s whose employees rated their character as excellent enjoyed an average return on their assets amounting to 9.4% in two years. This percentage was found to be nearly five times more when compared to CEO’s who scored a low rate of their character and behavior (Treviño, Weaver & Reynolds, 2016). Employees that work for ethical leaders are more likely to report unethical behaviors in the workplace as compared to those working for ill-mannered leaders. Organizations should structure their ethical models from the top by making nurturing leaders become the epicenter of ethical behaviors.
Organizational leaders must till ethical grounds for modeling good behavior right from the time of recruitment by screening candidates to ascertain their etiquette and determine if they can be tamed to become good leaders in ethical matters. Even after getting the desirable qualities from candidates and enroll them to work in the organization, annual ethics training sessions are necessary for employees to learn ways of responding to ethical dilemmas. In fostering ethics in one’s organization, leaders move ahead to establish a whistleblower hotline for receiving complaints of unethical behaviors. Furthermore, organizational leaders may also introduce a reward system for rewarding whistleblowers who inform managers of employees that act unethically and also notifies the managers on employees who act ethically even at their own expense. However, managers who chose to adopt this system should ensure the privacy of the whistleblowers and individuals who file complaints regarding unethical behaviors in their organization.
This systematic model to addressing unethical behavior in the workplace is effective because it involves many individuals, and action is undertaken after enough evidence has been gathered regarding the situation. The guidance to establishing an effective form of ethical guidelines is one that incorporates many aspects and involves many people to ensure that action or punishment being issued against gross misconduct is measurable and bearable concerning the ethical offense committed. Every organization is advised to form a set of ethical guidelines that give managers an easy time to deal or cope with unethical issues in their organization and continue driving the organization towards achieving its objectives. Business leaders should set up ethical standards in their organization because they serve as an added advantage to revenue generation and growth.
References
Treviño, L. K., Weaver, G. R., & Reynolds, S. J. (2016). Behavioral ethics in organizations: A
review. Journal of management, 32(6), 951-990.
Tenbrunsel, A. E., & Smith‐Crowe, K. (2018). 13 ethical decision making: Where we’ve been
and where we’re going. The Academy of Management Annals, 2(1), 545-607.