Dealing with Ethical Challenges in Leadership

The perception of a company’s ethics starts with an examination of personal and organizational values. Successful managers have to be conversant with their company’s values and morals; with the company’s ethics and ethical decision-making. [inaudible] , reliability, and good character define good leaders. People influence and are influenced by the ethical atmosphere in which they work. There has to be a link between a solid value system and a leader’s skills to apply these values in decision-making. Let’s look at this topic in more detail now. There are six ethical principles supporting a business; trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. If managers obey them in their everyday decision-making, an ethical atmosphere can emerge which staff follow.

In an ethical environment, staff and management develop to trust each other. This generates an openness which is vital in the running of a successful business. Ethical dilemmas arise in business when essential values clash and the person making a decision has to decide which values are the most important. A familiar instance in business is the temptation to employ corrupt practices to obtain greater profit. Ethical dilemmas usually impact more than one person and the result is tainted by ambiguity. The aim for those working in business should be to make decisions which are both ethically correct and economically sound. These are two categories of ethical dilemma. In the first category, ethical issues arise when a primary moral value has been breached or overlooked.

In the second category, ethical issues appear when two basic values clash with each other. Generally speaking, four patterns of dilemma can be identified; truth versus loyalty, justice versus mercy, individual versus community, and short versus the long-term. Moral courage is needed when taking tough moral decisions. Moral courage is the connection between implementing values, identifying risks, and the hardship endured. A manager has to be ready to persist and stand behind the right choice and disregard interruptions, false reasoning, and excuses. In many cases, to clarify an organization’s position, a code of conduct is developed for managers and employees to reference. A code is an open declaration for the way an organization works.

Ethics training for businesses is an alternative solution that has been used widely and successfully. Ethics training can be based on the company’s mission statement and code of ethics, but aught to be a contributory in character. Now let’s summarize what we’ve learned. Following your own ethical standard helps to stimulate that of the staff. It signifies the company supports some principle values. To provide clarity, clear policies are written in the form of a mission statement, guidelines, rules, and practices. Work ethos and work environment can also be an obstacle to ethical leadership. In autocratic settings, staff who may have observe serious ethical problems might be afraid to be frank in case they’re outed as whistleblowers.

Ethical leadership can be exceptionally problematic when confronted with modal gray areas. In these instances, doing the right thing might be less advantageous to the business as a whole. Now let’s take a look at the five key points of learning. One, there are six ethical principles supporting a business. Two, ethical dilemmas typically impact many different people and the result is often ambiguous. Three, there are two categories of ethical dilemma. Four, four patterns of dilemmas

can be identified: truth versus loyalty, justice versus mercy, individual versus community, and the short versus the long-term. Five, a code is an open declaration for the way an organization works.