Ethics and building trust
The change process, as we’ve seen, may not be positively perceived by everyone. In fact, there may be some difficult decisions that have to be communicated which have direct effects on individuals – for example redundancies or job relocations.
It’s also important to bear in mind that employees who may be unaffected by the change are also important to this process as they will have responses of their own to what is happening to colleagues. Care needs to be taken to ensure business decisions are made in a way that supports, rather than undermines, the messages of the change process and the role-modelling of behaviours that leaders and managers want employees to adopt.
In this video we will also consider how we could, as managers and leaders, respond to change situations in a way that is authentic and ethical in outlook and as such, helps build trust.
Further reading
If you are interested in exploring ethical responses in more detail, the following books are recommended:
Ciulla, J. B. (ed.) (2014) Ethics, the heart of leadership, (3rd edition), California: ABC-CLIO. Kitson, A. and Campbell, R. (2008) The Ethical Organisation, London: Palgrave McMillan.
And also this article in The Times (UK), which is subscription-based.
Chynoweth, C. (2015) ‘Ethics v profit: the fight goes on’, The Times, 25 January 2015.
Leading and Managing People-Centred Change
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