Difficult to Respond Well to Unethical Behavior

Idealism is the belief that all businesses and their people ethically operate. This isn’t the reality. Unsavory people and practices do happen and much more often than assumed.

Such behavior unfortunately pays off for a long while. That means people on the wrong end of power suffer. The legal system may not be able to help everyone or at times, want to help.

Unethical people or organizational practices or both, whether on a small or large scale, can end up being enabled.

“It’s up to leadership to build an organization founded on solid ethical behavior,” says Marc Snyderman, a former C-level executive and now a lawyer and partner at OGC Solutions.

“Having a code of ethics and living up to that code is critical to success and building the right kind of organization,” he stresses, advising that “Companies must be willing to part ways with individuals that won’t adhere to the standards no matter how high-flying that person may be (value wise for the organization).”

The reason he adds, is that “Otherwise, you just erode the ethical foundations and things that shouldn’t happen will happen.”

Successfully responding to professional misbehavior can be extremely difficult.

“I really think that it is very difficult to effectively respond to unethical behavior,” says Paul A. Dillon — a certified management consultant serving veterans at Dillon Consulting Services — and an adjunct instructor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

“You can’t teach ethical behavior nor can you really enforce it,” he’s come to believe. “Ethical behavior is really up to the individual employee. If a person hasn’t learned to be ethical by the time that they get to your company, it’s too late.”

Instead, he advises, it is far more effective and smarter to use it as a must-have checkpoint when looking to add to your team.

“You try to determine if people will practice good ethics as a part of your hiring process,” Dillon says.

From a personal standpoint, he says that there is a mindset of character that leads to ethical behavior. “It is by having integrity that we can reinforce our moral courage to do the right thing, even in the face of overwhelming opposition or even ostracism from our social or business milieu,” Dillon states.

He points to a quote from the late Warren G. Bennis, a management specialist, as to what should be the goal. “By integrity, I mean those standards of moral and intellectual honesty on which we base our conduct and from which we cannot swerve without cheapening our better selves,” Bennis said.

Reality is opportunities to be ethical are continually present. Some people choose “yes” to operating above the line, as the saying goes and too many people and organizations say “yes” to operating below the line — unethically.

“If you haven’t experienced it already, most of us in the business community will find ourselves placed in situations where doing what is right puts the interests of our business and consequently our own personal interests at stake,” Dillon says.

Business can be more than black and white. There is the in-between. Just not with ethics, Dillon says.

“The choice is simple: Either we do the right thing or we don’t; often, no one is the wiser. It is merely a matter of being able to look at ourselves unflinchingly in the mirror and have the peace of mind — hopefully leading to a long and fruitful life — that comes from that,” he says.

The benefits are legitimate, Dillon suggests.

“Good customer relations and good and profitable business practices will surely follow.”