Example Answers to Questions on Ethical Behaviour

My view is that, ethical behavior will pay off in long run. Even though it might take few years down the track for the company to pay off. Ethical behavior is basically an individual’s view of what is right or what is wrong. Ethical behavior is used inside and outside of the business environment. We also make ethical decision in our daily life. All human beings are behaving ethically from their own point of view, which also might differ from culture to culture or business environment.

In our daily lifestyle, ethical behavior has passed on in every culture generation by generation, which seems it pays off.

Ethical behaviors in a workplace are based on the combination factor depending on their ideas. The ideas of work environment ethics is related to how people who work for and who run the business applies their perception of right and wrong in a way they conduct the business . It is good for the company and the companies’ product to maintain its value at the same time retain standard. This would happen, if the company stand its foot on the ethical behavior. All the existing companies should choose to behave ethically to keep their relationship between their customers and co workers. This is very important in businesses now days to increase their sales of product and services. All the business should maintain first class service.

Being ethical also refrains from the companies name or by product also being spoiled and it also keeps the customers happy. But if the leader of the company or the manager misleads the employees or the organisation in a wrong direction, than the rewards bad behavior. Some of these unethical behaviors that are done by the leaders in a bad organization could be lying, cheating and stealing. Even though by lying or cheating might not be a loss for the company, but it’s like taking the organization and its products and services to a major risk. To run a good ethical behavior organization one must ensure that the leaders abide by the rules and regulation of the particular organization. And the leaders should have the similar ethical thinking of what the organization has.

The risks of the organization could take place by running businesses by unethical manners are as follows:-

Loss of customers

Bad name of the organization in the existing society.

Prevents the organisation from growing

Bankruptcy

Risk of being sued.

Breach of consumer responsibility.

Loss of good employees.

In an organization, employees should form a system to solve any ethical problem that arises with the help of leaders and the managers. As a leader the first step is to specify the appropriate behaviors not just by words but also by your action.

To prevent unethical dilemma at a workplace the manager or the leader should provide employees with proper training during the orientation.

If you want to make sure your workplace is a good role model of an ethical behavior (doing what is right) the leaders of the organization should ensure the employees continue to follow the rules that are laid out throughout the entity. While it is hard for a company to write some of the simple rules and regulations as long as the general rules are given out, so the company should ask to live by the response of the behavior that they make unethically and hold them accountable for doing so.

According to the workforce in today’s business culture all individuals should be prepared to deal with stressful situation. Such as when employees are caught for doing previous unethical decision they start blaming the victim (“he was stupid enough to fall for it”), and finger pointing (“she does the same thing, and you never call her on it”) will not be tolerated. To make sure that the unethical behaviour does not arise, therefore company’s written rule is compulsory for every individual. Also all the rules should be clear easy to understand, and posted to notice board. Even though it is easy to understand the ethical and unethical behaviour that’s why the rules made for employees should be memorized. This is how your business can find its way through the gray areas, and the way out on the other end of the tunnel.

My past job was also a great experience that the ethical behaviour does pay off in long run. This was when I was back in Sydney. I met Brian Hussain, who was very keen on opening up his own business in a car detailing. He told me that he was going to offer me a job of a manager, since i had two years experience in the detailing of car’s. So i took his offer since the income offered to me was great. Brian Hussain spoke to the owner of Premier Parking, which is well known in Australia, to go partners with him in 1998. They both came to an agreement and decided to open up the detailing shop by the name off Elite Car Care in May 1998. The first Elite Car Care was opened in the parking lot of Leichardt mall, Sydney. So i started working from the first day of the opening, business was running a bit slow since most people were not aware of it that the car wash was in the parking lot. Months went past and the business started to make progress, by the end of 1998. The turnover was almost three times more than what we usually use to make. And the workers were really good but the only issue i had that they had a student work permit with only 20 hours of work availability. Since the Car Wash was open for 7 days, it was important for me to have at least four staffs every day except Mondays. Weekends use to be the most busy days of the week, and in order to get the work done I had to ask the employees to do extra hours, which the student’s 20 hours were exceeded. The immigration was ok with the student’s if they went over the 20 hour to 23 hours, as long as they don’t repeat it often.

Brian Hussain, use to come around the work place almost every afternoon just to check up on the hours of the staffs and the sale we did throughout the day. So what Brian Hussain was, cutting down the hours of work the students did to 20 hours even if they worked till 22 to 23 hours. What was done by Brian Hussain was wrong, but i really couldn’t do much since he was the boss. The actions of Brian Hussian, made the workers leave, which also made us loss some of our really good customers. Because the work was not done properly and the time frame that the customers had to wait for their vehicles to be cleaned was also stretched.

In 1999 i arranged a meeting with Brian Hussain and his partner in the business, who was the owner of premier car park. I told him that the decisions that Brain Hussian made was not ethical and it also affected our business in a great loss. I also suggested that on the busy days of the week if the workers work really hard and skip there lunch to get the work done we should give them a bonus or reward for their effort contributed to the car wash. They knew it will be some extra expenses for the business, but they agreed to do as i suggested.

After these changes were made there was a great progress and growth in the business environment, even the workers were satisfied to what the rules that was laid by the organization. By the mid 1999 the turnover was so good that Brian Hussain and his partner decided to open another car wash in Double Bay, which i know was a great idea, because the people that lived there are rich and drive expensive cars.

And by the end of 1999 Elite Car Care had a great name in the market of car wash, which made the old customer that we lost in Leichardt to come back to us. This is why i strongly suggest that ethical behaviour pay off in long run and also maintains a healthy relationship with the customers and employees. It is also said “what goes around comes back around” this is a true saying and I believe to stand by it.

References

http://www.suite101.com/content/ethics-in-the-modern-workplace-a32979

http://www.asla.org/nonmembers/publicrelations/pressreleases/press071801.htm

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2001_July_20/ai_76649894/

Question 2

Society’s impact will be reflected by the ethical leaders, how the decisions are made and they need to be people oriented. Leaders are there to set an example in an organisation and by doing that they resolve the negative impact on the society. Leaders show ethical behaviour by doing right thing and at the same time they help to motivate the followers. They also help the followers achieve the moral knowledge to its highest peak. In reality ethical leaders cover more encouragement of ethical behaviour. For example, repeating the ethical behaviour programs in their daily life. By being ethical the society helps the base of the business environment to be strong and steady. Right condition should be created by ethical leaders and also organisational culture to encourage the development of ethical behaviour. With a good ethics a leader can convince the world.

Society has been represented by a leader or leaders at different levels for e.g can be city, town, village, industry, club, association, country, etc. Such as USA is well known of its power and ethical behaviour, which is unmatchable leader in the world. Another example would be an American leader sent the USA army to Iraq to resolve the conflict they had in Iraq.

The lack of corporation and support by the leaders can have a great negative impact on the society and the environment both. This could also result in the rise of crime, corruption, pollution, and social conflict. Today’s people blame the leaders for things they have negative impact on the society reason being lack of faith on the leader. For example the voters of Canada no longer believe that their leaders are honest. More than half the people have researched by the British Columbia, which said the government is making their life worst.

Being an ethical leader it’s not just making, doing the jobs that makes the business benefit, but it also must be equally benefit for the people and the society. To complete accurate information through channel leaders need to suggest on professional, personal and legal grounds. By doing this you will have a peace of mind and have no guilt as well as having a respect for the administration of employees. A leader being unethical doesn’t just have a impact on the employees but also on the society. If this happens, it could result in a big collapse. One of the great examples that was using a unethical behaviour and then collapsed, is Enron.

We can also describe ethical leadership as an trustworthy also describe ethical leaders transparent, honest and trustworthy culture that would later on help them achieve long lasting position of leaders in their groups, nations and organisations. Great example would be a well known person from India his name is Mahatma Gandhi for his great leadership style.

In today’s generation everybody expects the leaders to have the ethical behaviour and values in the society. By having such a large number of population its hard to separate the evil ones from the good ones. That’s why it gets hard to stay ethical and honest in the world of competition. To improve the ethical leadership in the business environment it is important to introduce ethical from the top first.

A leader with ethical behaviour is also a part of social responsible organisation at different levels, which includes legal, economic, and ethical. If a company cannot look after its legal and economics responsibilities then it is not socially responsible. Sometimes company need to do more than it is required to have good impact on the business and in society too. To become more socially responsible a company needs to examine its ethical actions. Apparently company should strives in order to provide ethical treatment to all stakeholders away from shareholders. If the organisation allows their employees and the community in the decision making process as stakeholders then this will have a great impact to reduce negative and at the same time improve the positive outcome for each group. By doing this it also improves the companies’ action becomes more and more socially responsible.

For a leader to have a ethical behaviour in a business organisation, his own thoughts and ethical behaviour should match with the business and society. In today’s society leaders should know what kind of behaviour either positive or negative impact on others and the people around them. An ethical leader also helps the business to have a better and healthy communication between the business and society.

Some of the good examples of how ethical leaders or an organisation helps the society are as follows:-

Disaster Relief whereby for example telecom provide a support to society by proving resources and working twenty four hours , seven days to restore communication to homes and businesses. While working to restore the communication, telecom also provide free calls diverts to all customers and also a free wireless broadband in society.

It is also a good thing that a society benefits from ethical behaviour of an organisation because the employees are part of the society.