Home Add to Favorite Contact Submit  
             29 March, 2024
 

    
Category:  Articles » Business » Ethics

 

Leadership and Ethics: Teach It

Popularity:
         Views: 2103
2007-01-19 22:21:58     
Article by James Gehrke

I do not believe that unethical behavior can unknowingly occur if a leader has proper values and intentions. A leader who is ethically based will not knowingly break laws, deny rights, endanger lives or deceive or exploit employees, customers, stake holders or society.

However, I do believe that an ethically based leader may find him or herself in situations where they have discovered that they have acted inappropriately due to others in power who have deceived others in order to take advantage of the situation. For example, if a leader discovers funds have been misused, or expenses exaggerated, or discrimination or other unethical behavior has occurred in a department or company, this becomes the moment of truth for any ethical leader. At that moment, an ethically based leader will make a decision to fight to correct the problem within the company, notify authorities or leave the company. This may seem simplistic, but I believe that if more leaders stood up against unethical behavior, there would be less of it.

In my opinion, the problem of corporate scandals relates to a general decline of ethical standards within society as a whole. An employee who cheats on an expense account, or takes supplies from the supply room, is as guilty of stealing as the corporate executive who cheats employees, customers or stockholders. While, one may be more costly, and has greater negative impact than the other, they are both ethically incorrect. For this reason, more time and energy needs to be spent teaching general ethics to employees and executives. With communication and training, it is clear to all involved what is ethical, and how to address problems when they are discovered.

I believe that a true leader must not only drive results for a company, but must also realize their social contract they have with employees, customers, the community, etc… When profits, career advancement, and greed are not balanced with a social conscious, then grey areas between right and wrong become more difficult to distinguish. When misuse of funds, or misappropriate use of employees, discrimination, etc., occur all of us have a choice. We can ignore it, and become accomplices to the problem. We can fight to improve the situation in order to be leaders in improving the situation. Or, if we cannot improve the situation internally, we can leave to find a better ethical match somewhere else.

James Gehrke is the founder and President of Magnify Leadership and Development Magnify Leadership and Development, LLC.

James has had various promotions in Sales, Sales Operations, Training & Development, and Sales Management and Training. He headed Pfizer’s Learning & Development for all of Europe, Canada, Africa, & the Middle East; he was instrumental in the development of a global management curriculum and other training initiatives to enhance organizational effectiveness for over 30,000 employees. He has worked on many high levels, cross functional teams addressing issues such as Field Force Effectiveness, Change Leadership, Leader Behavior Development, Executive Coaching and many others.

Since starting his own training company, James has developed and trained public and private team effectiveness, leadership, coaching, strategic thinking, targeting and territory management sessions for hundreds of participants in various industries in over 30 countries. James is bilingual and can teach in both English and Spanish.

Specialized in: Leadership - Ethics - Teach It
Print article      Bookmark this page
Related Articles 
Fraudulent House Flippers Finding, Forgetting and Hiding Flaws (Popularity: ): Many house flippers at the top of the market bought homes waving their right to inspections, some of these homes actually did have flaws, or real problems. Of course, if these house flippers were caught with these homes as the market fell many of them did whatever they could to hide the flaws that they later discovered. Hiding flaws or failing to disclose them to the buyers is fraud.Sure they ...
Sales Incentives Are Unethical (Popularity: ): Free trips to Cancun. Week-long company 'retreats' in Hawai'i. Company-sponsored conventions in Vegas that just happen to take place over a four-day weekend. We've all heard of business perks like these, and likely know the type that regularly attends such lavish functions. They're typically the ones who are getting the top sales numbers at their companies, who sold more of Product A during Quarter 3 than any one has ever ...
Punishing Those Who Commit Fraud (Popularity: ): It is a rare occurrence that someone who commits fraud on a business owner gets punished for their actions. Why? Because 90% of the fraud perpetrated on a small business owner is done so by a close friend, relative, or trusted employee. The small business owner entrusts them with what they appear to know, accounting. Many times the fraud occurs over years of time leading to the statistic which shows ...
How to Practice Business Etiquette In United States (Popularity: ): Before we even begin to discuss some of the general business practices in the United States, there are two key points in American culture that we need to understand. Individualism and egalitarianism are two important elements in American culture that have significant effects on their business etiquettes.According to the research and studies of Geert Hofstede, a Professor of International Management at the University of Limburg at Maastricht, the Netherlands and ...
Life: Money, Balance - Both (Popularity: ): So how do we differentiate between making money to live and living to make money? First let me say I am your regular workaholic. I spend hours working on my business and can get very obsessive about it sometimes. Is this healthy? Well that depend on where you draw the line. There are two types of people that I like to talk about. Those who work for a living, and ...


Related Business 
The Soderquist Center for Leadership and Ethics (Popularity: ): Leadership development programs for corporate and non-profit clients with the goal of returning America to more ethical business practices.
The W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics (Popularity: ): An interdisciplinary research institute, doing work in bioethics, business ethics, professional ethics, environmental ethics, and animal welfare and the ethics of animal use.
Center for Leadership, Ethics and Public Service (Popularity: ): Maintains a list of service projects and leadership forums for campus organizations.
Teaching Ethics (Popularity: ): Teaching Ethics is dedicated to the free exchange of ideas among secondary school teachers. The Ethics Workbook presents ways to embed ethics into a typical world history program.
Dodson Training Resources Inc. (TX) (Popularity: ): Police leadership, integrity, ethics training and business management from a Texas based company: we provide quality, principle based leadership and integrity training to public safety agencies and others.
Christian Business and Professional Ministry (Popularity: ): Christian businessmen who teach other professionals Biblical ethics and other topics; site includes articles, resources and life stories.
The Canadian Centre for Ethics & Corporate Policy (Popularity: ): An independent ethics centre, working with businesses and with other organizations involved in business ethics, building programs and addressing current issues
Heartwood Institute (Popularity: ): Creates ethics curricula for grades K-6 that teach a set of seven core values, through discussion of children's stories from around the world. Includes book list, ideas for implementation, and sample lesson plans.
Howard D. Putnam (Popularity: ): Author, consultant, mentor and motivational speaker on leadership, customer service, change, ethics and strategic thinking.
Summit Consulting Group, Inc. (Popularity: ): A firm specializing in management and organization development strategy, innovation, leadership, ethics, diversity, and interpersonal relations.