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Sunday, February 27, 2011

How Leaders Influence Ethical Decision-Making

Ethical decision-making is, of course, a personal choice. Influencing employees to make every-day decisions that are consistent with organizational values and purpose means getting personal with them – getting into their heads and hearts – so their choices are more likely to be consistent with yours.

In our work with leaders over the past 17 years, we’ve identified a few practices from those leaders who have most successfully affected the way their employees think and act. Here are some recommendations based on what we’ve learned from them.

1) Be clear about your organization's values and purpose and set high expectations for ethical decision-making.

2) Make your own decisions based on a strong set of internal guidelines and business considerations. Weigh alternatives thoughtfully and talk openly about how you came to your decisions. Whether your decisions are right or wrong, you will show employees the process and considerations you used for getting there.

3) Pay close attention to and ask questions about the ethical issues present in everyday decision-making. Your employees will learn to expect these questions and, as a result, begin to see potential ethical issues for themselves.

4) Recover with grace when you find you haven’t made the best decision. Don’t deny, defend, justify, or shift blame. Instead, take ownership and talk openly about what can be learned from the situation.

The toughest ethical issues are not those that are black and white, but instead are shades of gray. The frequency and nature of the conversations you have about ethical issues will shape your employees' ability to see them, think about them, and resolve them.

What are you doing to raise your own awareness of ethical issues, both obvious and subtle? What are you doing to "institutionalize" ethical decision-making? We’d like to hear from you.