Ethics and Behaviors

A634.7.4.RB

Watch the two videos from business ethics speakers and discuss how your organization portrays its values. Share any examples where behaviors were portrayed positively by your leaders or an instance where someone was unethical in your work environment.

Organizational values are an important element to establishing desired behaviors and expectations. Values are traits or qualities that are considered worthwhile; they represent priorities and held driving forces for behavior(s) (Heathfield, 2016). These behaviors ultimately contribute to the organization’s culture and brand. Thus, it is no wonder that many organizational leaders apply significant time and energy towards identifying and promoting their organizational values.

There have been many high-profile companies that have demonstrated that establishing organizational values is one thing and living up to them is an entirely different thing. Take Enron for example or even the recent Volkswagen emission scandal. According to Patrick Lencioni (2016), “If you’re not willing to accept the pain real values incur, don’t bother going to the trouble of formulating a values statement. You’ll be better off without one” (para, 6). Indeed, it almost seems pointless to create a measuring stick and through it out the window as soon as the work begins.

A values based organization I had the honor and pleasure to a part of was the U.S. Army. The military culture is hierarchal in nature and places a premium on initiative and leadership. In fact, the 7 Army values include: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage (Army.mil, n.d.). These values served as an expectation for all, regardless of position or rank. Furthermore, as service members, we were expected to live by these values on and off duty.

In the profession of arms, leaders were highly encouraged to seek personal and professional development opportunity beyond unit level leadership professional development events. In fact, I have had supervisors that actively supported me in such cases. For example, as a military police officer, I took every opportunity to advance my knowledge and skills by attending civilian law enforcement training and certification courses. In the majority of these cases, I came out of my own pocket because the military has its own training and certification courses. Nevertheless, I had two very influential supervisors that supported my personal and professional development by authorizing me to either take leave from work or do so in a permissive TDY (temporary duty) status, which had to do mainly with administrative and accountability purposes.

These two supervisors backed the organizational values with action by allowing me to take time off work to participate in law enforcement related training. While this training and certification had little direct benefit to the organization, they were highly encouraged to support the initiative to grow. Instead of seeing this a way to take time off, which some may consider unethical. These two supervisors viewed the specialized training as a way to support the organization’s and Army’s vision of having better trained and well-round leaders throughout the ranks.

This had a major impact on me in that, I too, went out of my way as a supervisor to promote designated and uninterrupted time for schooling or external training for those seeking their own personal and professional development. I even went so far as to identify certain weeks that were less hectic according to our training calendar or known scheduled events. This sent a strong signal that continued growth was a priority and that organizational leaders would go out of their way to supply the action necessary to live up to the organizational values.

Indeed, recognizing others desires to improve and grow is an ethical quality not many others value. It is important for organizational leaders to only see the short-term benefit of having an employee at work than view the long-term benefit of supporting growth and demonstrating compassion for the employee’s efforts and provide actionable support. Doing so has the potential to make for a more capable, better trained, and happier workforce.

References

Army.mil (n.d.). Army Values. Retrieved from https://www.army.mil/values/

Heathfield, S. (2016, November 07). Build an Organization Based on Values. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.thebalance.com/build-an-organization-based-on-values-1919185

Lencioni, P. (2002, July). Make Your Values Mean Something. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2002/07/make-your-values-mean-something