ETHICS AT THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL

Ethical Behavior at the Workplace

What does it mean to be unethical in the workplace? It may include taking personal phone calls during your duty time; asserting that the "check is in the mail," when it is still in the making; and even stealing office supplies for personal use.

Organizations usually create an ethical standards’ code or a manual is handed over when a new employee joins, which generally lists the rules and guidelines which needs to be adhered at all times.

Many issues prevent business people from being completely ethical, consistent, and fair. Ethics is a dynamic issue and sometimes it is difficult to decide at the specific moment what is considered ethical and what is not.

Ethical Lapses and Organizational Culture

Business ethics includes human qualities of, and it does not provide the angelic qualities. Therefore, if a businessman is overwhelmed, there is a possibility that ethical rules will be twisted. It is known as "ethical lapse," which is a short-term and quite rare occurrence.

Ethics at an individual level may seem to involve only the individual but it is a holistic process. There may be high pressure from co-workers, managers, or any other constituent of business culture to be unethical. Individuals may hate such pressures, and tend to work avoiding the dilemmas.

Basic Attributes of Ethical Workers

To be ethical in the workplace, the workers must have some common attributes. The most influential attributes are the following −

DEDICATION

 

Dedication is one of the most important attributes of an ethical worker. Companies do seek results, but most employers look for an honest effort from employees who can be considered a “natural” at the job. When an employee joins the workforce, he/she is agreeing to offer the best for helping the company to flourish.

INTEGRITY

Integrity, or displaying honest behavior at all times, is a very important attribute. Integrity might mean, being honest in reporting or being transparent while reporting cash transactions.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Accountability means to be responsible towards the time and duty during working hours. It also means accepting responsibility, gathering yourself and willingly working towards an acceptable resolution. Taking initiative and being punctual also comes under this purview.

COLLABORATION

Teamwork and collaboration are valuable attributes. As most companies believe that if morale is high and everyone co-works, success will follow. Therefore, it is important for employees to be team players.

CONDUCT

Employee conduct is a very important value in ethics. Employees must treat others with respect, and show appropriate behavior. Wearing proper attire, using fine language and conducting them with professionalism are part of the job.

BEING A BETTER WORKER

Understanding how to be a better person in the workplace is a good starting point for a commitment to always doing the right thing.

TRUSTING RELATIONSHIPS

It is important to build trust in workplace relationships. By allowing people to open up, share information and feel comfortable in communicating are signs of a trustworthy employee. Honesty, fairness and avoiding rumors are some basic qualities.

TEAM COHESIVENESS

The ethical commitments of employees have a positive effect on team and department performance apart from enhancing individual performance. An ethical employee is a better team player, who always makes positive contributions for teams and never hinders the group progress.

VALUE TO EMPLOYERS

Trust in their employees is a very important quality of companies. An unethical employee can drive entire company in legal trouble, or it can destroy the hard-earned reputation. Ethical employees working for any company are the employees who adhere to ethics policies and use ethical reasoning in making decisions.

PERSONAL WELLNESS

Ethical employees always increase value of an employer in public domain. Unethical acts can weigh people down with guilt and paranoia, making them hostile and fearful. Employees who spread unethical rumors or lies about others can have a paranoia as they try to remember which lies they told to whom and when.

Core Values

According to Martin Seligman, some core virtuous values influence ethical behavior and appear to have universal appeal. These are −

WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE

The talent to gather information and convert it to something useful is a great quality. Wisdom is capitalizing one’s experience to interpret information and being knowledgeable to produce wise decisions. A prerequisite to be knowledgeable is knowing what to do and being able to differentiate between the right and wrong.

SELF-CONTROL

It is important to have the ability to avoid unethical temptations. The decision to take the ethical path needs enough commitment to the value of good ethics. Ethical people usually say “no” to the individual gain if it is irrelevant to institutional benefit and goodwill.

JUSTICE AND FAIR GUIDANCE

Fair treatment of people is important. Justice is served when a fair return is gained in return for the energy and effort expended. Certain individuals give special treatment without regard to objective criteria by which to judge fairness.

TRANSCENDENCE

It is the recognition of something beyond oneself more permanent and powerful than the self. When one lacks transcendence, he may tend towards self-absorption. Leaders motivated by self-interest and the exercise of personal power have limited effectiveness and authenticity.

LOVE AND KINDNESS

The expression of love and kindness is always productive. Research shows that there are different types of “love.” In an organizational context, love means intense positive reaction to co-workers, groups and/or situations. An organization “with heart” allows love, compassion and kindness among and between people.

COURAGE AND INTEGRITY

It is important to have the courage to act ethically and with integrity. These values let us decide right from wrong and acting accordingly. They impel one to act in the right manner without considering personal consequences, even when it is tough and needs benevolence.

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."

                                                  ----- Harriet Tubman

CUES TO ANGER

CUES TO ANGER...

A very effective way of identifying and preventing anger is to understand and recognize the four cues or hints that we receive from the way our mind and body reacts in a hostile environment or at the initiation of an unfavorable external agent −

Physical Cues − These are the hints our body gives us to tell that anger has started building inside us. They could be increased heart rate, rapid breathing, tensing of muscles, etc.

Behavioral Cues − The way we behave with others when we are angry, or what others observe about us when we are angry such as jaw-clinching, furrowing our brow, and staring.

Emotional Cues − These are some other emotions that accompany anger such as insecurity, helplessness, shame, and guilt.

Thought-related Cues − These are our thoughts when we are angry such as disturbing mental images, imagining punching someone, connecting this incident with some other similar incident.

Try it Yourself

Imagine a scenario that makes you uncomfortable and angry. Notice the changes that are occurring in your body, mind, thoughts, and behavior respectively. Now fill in the following table.

Your namePhysical cuesEmotional cuesCognitive cuesBehavioral cues   

Download Try-it yourself sheet.

COMMUNICATION AND ANGER...

COMMUNICATION AND ANGER...

Angry people tend to interpret things personally and jump to irrational conclusions. Improving communication skills reduces misunderstandings that lead to anger.

Tips to Improve Communication Skills

Here are a few tips that you can apply to improve your communication skills.

Listening to Others − Listen to what others are saying rather than speaking first.

Not Jumping to Conclusions − Avoid mind-reading. Give a chance to the other person to put his point-of-view clearly and comprehensively.

Not Fighting Back Immediately − Keep calm and find out what the other person’s real feelings are behind his saying what he has said.

Expressing Your Real Feelings − You need to be clear about what is the driving emotion behind your anger. The most common emotions behind anger are fear, shame, guilt, or frustration.

Long-term Beliefs

Sometimes people hold extremely negative views about themselves that they arrive at on their own or have been drilled into them, for example − "I’m not very smart.", or "I’m dull at studies."

You need to remind yourself that everyone has lived through unhappy times in their past. It’s best to let go of any negative self-critical analyses.

GOAL SETTING..

GOAL SETTING FOR ENTREPRENEUR.....

Goal setting is directly related with entrepreneurship. To get success, proper goal setting in personal and professional level is important. An entrepreneur does this by following proper strategy and implementation and not just by listing down what he wants to do. It demands an emotional and intellectual balance to be achieved successfully.

Listening to Your Emotions

It is very important to understand the emotional aspect of goal setting to achieve it. Emotions make a person who they are. Emotions affect a person’s health and work as well. Personal vision is important to achieve what you aim for. This can be done by the following ways −

Vision − A clear vision helps people have a goal and connect them with their convictions and emotions.

Recognize your values − Values show what you have learnt and those lessons will shape your future.

Consider your goals − Understand your goals and how you wish to achieve it.

Write it down − Note down your vision statement and visit it occasionally to check if some changes are to be made.

These simple habits can change the way you want to write your destiny and achieve what your goals are. It is important to understand your emotions and have a clear idea about them before explaining others what you actually want to others to see.

Prioritizing Goals based on Re-Gating

Sensory Gating is a process that the brain uses to adjust to stimuli. Our brain has a direct connection to filter out distracting stimuli and performance. Negative emotions like stress, anxiety and depression can switch the chemistry of the brain and limit the effectiveness of sensory gating.

It is very important to set priorities. All your goals should be prioritized, so that you can focus on them accordingly. You should learn to maintain a proper balance in your life through personal values, visions and professional goals.

So, to prevent this imbalance, Re-Gating is important. This can be done by using some relaxing techniques like meditation which calms the mind and body and filter out distractions. It is better to try some relaxation techniques before goal setting to have a clear mind, so that it becomes easier to fulfill certain goals and objectives.

SMART Goals

Goals and objectives motivate people and help them to work in the right direction. This helps them to focus on short term goals by giving them enough time to achieve them. In other words, the strategy for your goals should be SMART, which when elaborated in this context means −

Specific − The first thing is to be sure about your goals. Like imagining your goal for 10 minutes every day.

Measurable − Set a time by which you should probably reach your goal. Like becoming more productive and increasing some percent of productivity is not specific.

Attainable − Make goals that you can achieve within the given timeframe. For example, if you are thinking of doubling your salary within a month, it is not possible.

Relevant − The goals you aim should be like your situation. For example, a goal to increase production is not relevant for a person in sales.

Timely − Your goals should have a timeframe.

SMART is the best strategy one can plan to achieve goals and focus on the right direction. It is better to have short goals and work on them rather than having long term goals which cannot be attained in the upcoming future.