Business Leader Beware: Ethical Drift Make Standard Slip

Sternberg suggests that to behave ethically, you have to first go through a series of stages of reasoning

1) Recognize that there’s an event to react to, that it has an ethical dimension and that it’s serious enough to require an ethical response.
Ethical drift means that questionable behavior is simply the norm and therefore not questioned at all.

2) Take responsibility for generating an ethical solution.
Even if employees recognize there’s a moral issue at stake, the typical response is ‘it’s none of my business’. We assume that if it’s OK with the boss, it’s OK with us.

3) Figure out what ethical rules apply.
Organizations often develop values statements or charters to support leaders in making these decisions.

4) Decide how to apply those abstract rules to the situation in order to suggest a concrete solution.
This is where it gets interesting as it involves managerial judgment. It’s also perhaps the hardest step, as values statements and credos can quickly become inane platitudes plastered on mouse mats and canteen posters. Instead leaders and managers have to judge the dilemma. In one values project I worked on with a global consultancy we set up dilemmas that the leaders had to resolve.

5) Prepare for the repercussions.
There’s no shortage of whistle-blowers who’ve been ostracized, ridiculed or even attacked.

6) Act.
Of course, for all the chaste codes of conduct, being good is a lot harder in practice than in theory.