Hello readers, and welcome back to another week at The Educated Leadership Blog.
This week we’ll be looking at ethical, and possibly unethical, behavior in the workplace. As part of our assignment this we were to review videos of two keynote speeches about ethics. One speaker, Chuck Gallagher, talked about the pathway from treating customers unethically to eventually acting in a manner that broke laws. The other speaker, Dr. Bruce Weinstein, discussed the reasons we should act ethically. Both gentlemen made good points on ethics and had polished deliveries. The difference in the perspective of discussing the subject was notable in that one, Weinstein, looked at the positive side while Gallagher approached from the perspective of being a warning sign. The links to each will be cited below if you wish to watch. Total running time for both is approximately 20 minutes.
We are going to look at some examples of which I am familiar where people acted in ethical and unethical manners in the workplace. After over 20 years of being employed, there are plenty of examples upon which I can draw. The first example is an employee I had that worked as a line technician at a small airport services operation. Our business was where private and corporate pilots would park to get fuel, drop off or pick up passengers, get rent cars, and park the aircraft for the night. Our customers ranged from student pilots to aviation hobbyists to senior executives of major corporations. One afternoon, a regular customer from out of town flew in with his family. They were always friendly and, given the value of the plane they flew and the style they traveled, very well off. On this visit, their car, which they normally left at our place of business, had been in the shop. My employee put the family in our ‘courtesy car’ and took them to the auto shop so they could go on their way. That was a standard practice for us. After he returned from dropping them off, he noticed an unsealed envelope in the back seat. Upon opening it, he found ten $100 bills. He immediately brought it to me and we called the customer. They hadn’t noticed the missing envelope yet and were deeply gratified we had found it. They drove back out to the airport to get it and, as a gesture of gratitude to my employee, left him a $100 tip. I was very proud of him.
I was privileged to watch one of my leaders while dealing with a customer in a situation that less than optimum news had to be presented. It would have been easy to tell the customer what they wanted to hear and there were some on our team that wanted my supervisor to do just that. The problem was that my boss and I knew that we couldn’t meet that deadline the customer was demanding. Instead of taking the low road, my boss laid out the issues for the customer and presented them with a timeline we felt while challenging, to which we could adhere. Because of his forthrightness, the customer allowed that they had been worried about the previously agreed to date and were glad to adjust with us. By the end of the meeting, the room was full of smiles and another level of trust had been built.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, I recall an employee that was using company assets to run a small business of their own while at work. The employee was confronted and denied they were acting unethically. It didn’t take long to audit their computer usage and interview co-workers to gather the evidence needed to bring about their dismissal from a very well-paying job. It was disappointing to see, but the unethical practice had to be dealt with swiftly. The message to other employees, if it had been handled in any other way, would have been contrary to standard ethical practice and expectation.
Ethical habits and practice are not just a good idea. They are a necessary and POSITIVE part of everyday life. As you go through this week, I challenge you to look for examples that have occurred close to you that define both sides of acting ethically.
See you next week!
Gallagher, C. (Producer). (2013). Business Ethics Keynote Speaker - Chuck Gallager - shares Straight Talk about Ethics. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUJ00vNGCPE
Weinstein, D. B. (Producer). (2012). Keynote Speech Excerpts from The Ethics Guy. TheEthicsGuy. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLxbHBpilJQ
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