Ethical Behaviour Within The Work Place Philosophy Essay

Yes I believe that the use of ethical behavior will pay off in the long run. I believe that the ethical behavior at work place is highly influenced by the leaders at workplace. We human beings are social animals and as a part of one of our basic instincts we like to copy people we admire and respect. So if the leader is transparent, truthful, self-sacrificing and shows the highest standards of ethical and moral conduct his followers eventually develop respect and admiration. If the leader believes that ethical standards and ethical commitment builds customer trust and winning with integrity is the key mantra to business success then his/ her employees will do as well. This is what will attract and keep the best employees in the company. The main proposition for the ethical behavior is that ethical behavior is concerned with “should” and “should not”, and implies that there is required by law or which are commercially a responsibility of, and depends on the leadership in an organization, that the argument has significant implications for corporate governance. There are well known difficulties’ in defining the term leadership and in specifying what is meant by ethics in the context of business behavior, difficulties which have been rehearsed recently in the Journal of business Ethics. 

While business ethics have always been important from a social and moral point of view, they also become a pragmatic requirement in the corporate Olympics. The doing- more- with less strategies place in even greater premiums on trust than did the adversarial protection, business practices of the traditional corporation. Some of the key characteristics of ethical behavior are: try to satisfy all constituencies, dedicated to high and broad purpose and also committed to learning in order to remain current and responsive to change which also tries to be the best at whatever they do. For example I would like to cite a story from my past experience in life. The principal of our school (ARMY SCHOOL) use to receive monthly salary through a cheque from the director general of the school committee. But once the principal received 2 cheques of the same amount for the same month. Being an ethical human being and a man of principles and values he returned the extra cheque back to the director general. Now many of his colleagues said that he should have en cashed the money from the extra cheque and should not have returned it. However the principal replied that it would have been unethical if he would have used it for personal use. A few years later the director general of the school committee had to appoint a secretary for funds department and was looking for a suitable candidate. So all of his colleagues and other principals applied for the vacant position. Out of all the principals of army schools throughout northern India he chose our principal. All his colleagues were amazed as they were more qualified that he was and had much more experience. However when the director general of the school committee asked replied that there wasn’t a better person than him suited for this job. Just because the principal was ethical and had high moral conduct, maybe he wasn’t rewarded at that time but if we look at it, in the long run he outlasted all of his colleagues and was rewarded a much higher position than all of them.

The same can be applied to the business as well. If one wants the business to survive and flourish successful one should have an ethical concern towards the customer, employees, shareholders and community. The customer always wants the quality of the product to be legit and want to be treated fairly while purchasing the product. Expecting the returns from the investments keeping the same standard of the growth within the business and maintaining the standard quality of the ethical behavior for the well beings of entire society. We learn from mistakes and we should be passionate about what we believe and I believe not matter what but we always learn from good ethical environment at workplace. Another advantage of ethical code is protection of company assets. A good example of high ethical standards in a company is when its employees protect the company’s asset and not misuse them.

Manager or the supervisor should take an active role in bringing awareness to all the individuals at the workplace of the responsibilities and expectations of the organization. Also he must set the standards at workplace for ethical code of conduct. He should make clear to the employees what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’. On the other hand the employees should actively be aware and should have knowledge of the ethical code of conduct.” Management must demonstrate through consistent examples their personal alignment with ethical principles’ and values, their expectations that employees will do what is right and fair, their encouragement and support of open communication and candor within the organization”. Responsibility is another element which is combining to the moral ethical value. The sense of responsibility also comes from within. If one feels proud of the company he /she is working and is satisfied from the work condition, then the urge to work ethically for that company comes from within. One feels like taking the initiative to perform task. You don’t make excuses or hide your face when a task is assigned to you instead you make sure that the task is performed in the right way and feel like taking up the whole responsibility for the task. This is what we call as winning with integrity. And when an employee reaches this stage their actions become unrestricted and they perform far better than what is expected out of them. Being ethical is essential when it comes to problem solving and improving processes. In a work place it is always required to establish baseline measures and increase the efficiency. Also one should never be afraid of admitting mistakes. If you cover up your unethical behavior then, firstly its can affect our image and secondly it prevents us from growing as leaders in the long run. For example once a teacher gave an assessment to 2 students which was due in week’s time. Once of the student was hard working and honest and the other one was totally opposite but very clever at copying assessments. So the 1st student worked day and night to make the assessment however the 2nd student copied it from him and submitted it to the teacher before he could. After the assessment the 1st student got a zero and the 2nd one got 85%. When the teacher asked by the teacher for reason by the first student said the assessment was copied from the other student. But the hard working student didn’t give up because deep inside he knew that he was ethically correct and hadn’t cheated. At the end of the year when it came to the final exam the teacher gave a similar case study assessment. But the only difference was that it was to be finished in 3 hrs under his supervision. Now the 2nd student who used to slack of and never did any assessment by himself was dumbstruck and it was like the tip of his pen had almost frozen. He didn’t know what to write and how to conduct the assessment. However the 1st student who always prepared his assessments honestly just knew what to write and how to write. He completed the assessment and cleared the semester with good grades however the copy cat failed the exam and had to re-sit the exam. The moral of the story is again that if you believe what you’ve done is right and complies with your ethical standards then it will always pay you off in the long run. So in all to sum it up the higher the ethical climate the higher the profit of an organization. If one has to be ethical at work then he/she should ask the following 4 basic questions from him/herself which are being practiced at Rotary international: