This week’s MSLD 634
blog topic is about the idea and importance of providing a sound ethical
framework from which to govern your professional and private life. LaFollette (2007)
describes this as everyday morality (Chapter 13) and points out that everyday
morality “seems morally more significant than the larger social issues we
discussed.” (p. 199). Two videos (Keynote Speech Excerpts from
the Ethics Guy and Straight Talk About
Ethics!) and the LaFollette (2007) text helped me formulate my ideas and
come to an opinion about the importance of framing ethical behavior, both
personally and professionally.
Do Not Assume Everyone Will Behave Like You
Weinstien (2012) opened
the door for this thought process of the need to provide a framework of ethics
by using a simple example of waking up with the flu. He asks if you would go to
work, and if you did, who would you avoid or who would you purposely contact.
This line of questioning makes it clear that just because my preference would
be to stay home to avoid getting others sick, some people might go to work
hoping not to get others sick, and still others might go as far as going to
work to purposely get a rival sick. This simple exercise brought into focus
that what seems like a no-brainier decision, is really not so cut and dry with
everyone. As a leader, remaining cognizant of this fact is critically important
to reduce the blind spots that can knock you off balance.
Framing Ethical Behavior
My workplaces have all
had formal and informal policies of ethical behavior. These policies form a
starting point of what is expected behavior of all employees and forms a companies
espoused values. Creating espoused values is the first step to framing ethical
behavior. Making them operational values can prove to be a little more
difficult. “It’s easy to fall into the trap of espousing values that never
become operational. Espoused values are ones that we think we should have.
Operational values are the ones actually working in our lives. Sometimes there’s
a huge gap between the two.” (Denning, 2012, p. 136).
Let us examine the example
of deciding whether or not to stay home with the flu as described in Weinstien
(2012). None of the companies that I have ever worked for had an official
policy of staying home when having the flu or any other contagious illness. I
have had some bosses that have instructed us to stay home if sick and not to ‘share’
the illness with the work group. You have probably worked under similar guidance
from one or two of your bosses. The tough question is if the command to stay
home when feeling ill is merely window dressing (espoused value) or is it an
operational value (one that actually works in our daily lives)?
Imagine what would
happen if a critical task needed to be done on a day that happened to be the
day you woke up with a fever and feeling like crap? Ah a utilitarian view of
measuring consequences begins to invade the strict deontological rule based proposition
of ‘you must stay home if ill’. Perhaps
this is why companies stay away from making an official policy of staying home
when ill; because it is just too big of a challenge to precisely cover all of
the possible scenarios and behaviors (stay home or come into work) that would
have the best ethical result.
To illustrate, sometimes
my bosses stay home when sick and sometimes they are visibly sick at work. The
times they have been visibly sick seems to coincide with important deadlines
that needed to be met. Similarly, my behavior when sick has followed this same
pattern. While most probably would weigh the consequences of coming to work
ill, some might only consider the consequences as it applies to them and them
only. This week’s lesson on ethical egoism can explain the latter behavior “…ethical
egoism: the claim that people out to always and only act to promote their own
self-interest.” (LaFollette, 2007, p. 272). People who come to work to just ‘earn
the paycheck’ irrespective of spreading their illness to others would support
an ethical egoism viewpoint.
The Unethical Continuum – Sliding Down the Slippery Slope
For me, Weinstein (2012)
and Gallagher (2013) highlighted the need to provide a strong ethical framework,
supported by operational values, and by what is deemed as the “five principles
of ethics” by Gallagher (2013). The five principle of ethics provide simple framework
that is needed to work with complex situations that many ethical dilemmas represent.
Weinstein (2012) uses examples
of people gradually capitulating to personal desires that lead to unethical
behavior and that presumably led to his eventual incarceration (in portions of
the video he spoke of this experience). Gradually following the slippery slope is
shown to be easy by Weinstein. Easy if a strong ethical framework is not in
place, and leaders or coworkers are not providing “ethically intelligent
criticism” (Gallagher, 2013) to provide safe guards. Without some safe guards in
place one’s fall could continue to slip down the path that eventually leads to
illegal behavior (Weinstein, 2012). Having strong operational values and people
who will step in a provide ethically intelligent criticism can keep people from
this scenario of using slippery slope justifications from acting unethically,
and potentially illegally.
Summary
My key two takeaways
from this week’s blog: #1 – Do not assume even simple ethical scenarios are
viewed the same by other people; #2 – Provide a strong ethical framework with
simple rules, supported by operational values, and provide ethically
intelligent criticism when people to do not adhere to the values, whether they
are at the workplace or at home.
References:
Denning, S. (2011). The leader's guide to storytelling:
Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. San Francisco, CA:
Josey-Bass.
Gallagher, C.
(2013). Straight talk about ethics! [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUJ00vNGCPE#t=142
LaFollette, H. (2007). The practice of ethics. Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishing.
Weinstein, B.
(2012). Keynote speech excerpts from the
ethics guy. [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLxbHBpilJQ
