Ethics in conflict: what will you do?

An ethical dilemma is a conflict situation in which what’s “right” isn’t always clear cut or obvious. Therefore here’s a process to consider in resolving an ethical dilemma. 1. The leader attempts to clarify any ambiguous facts in the dilemma. 2. The leader encourages a broad reaction to the dilemma by asking open –ended questions…

Do you have “ethics risks?”

  What would be “ethics risks” in organizations? How would you respond to these statements? An ethics risk could be: • In not being proactive in helping employees understand the differences and likenesses of compliance and ethics. • In not providing ongoing, quality ethics training by professionals trained in ethics. • In not understanding that…

It’s all about ethical leadership…Yeah, yeah we know, now what?

  I can’t tell you the number of articles I’ve read and studies that are now out, that state, in any number of ways, how crucial ethical leadership is in the business world. So what are organizations/companies doing about their leaders’ ethics education and promoting it in their organizations? For example, when people are promoted…

Trust me….. Why should I?

  “Two findings stand out. First, trust in governments and public institutions remains very low overall and the majority now believe that business should lead. Second, while trust in business has improved, trust in executives remains low. Peers and employees are now seen as more credible than business leaders and often employees don’t trust the…

Train or educate?—part 2

I decided to write a part 2 to my last post, due to an interesting comment someone made regarding the question on the possible difference between training and education. One response was likening the difference between training and education to this analogy. “Would you rather have sex training or sex education?” This comment really made…

“True education only happens when learning links up to peoples’ experience.”

I embraced this statement as a teacher many years ago and still embrace it as a speaker and educator. My question is which do you do more of Training or Educating? They are not the same, right? Training focuses on instruction, preparation, schooling, etc. Education focuses on learning, tutoring, coaching, a process by which a…

How can you improve your ethics training in 2016?

Here’s a check list to help you evaluate how your ethics training has gone this year to help you plan your ethics training and values based leadership development in 2016. Consider these 10 questions as part of your annual ethics training evaluation. 1. Is there ethics training for employees on all levels? 2. How is…

Fraud, power, deceit, Oh my!

  I went to see the new movie, The Big Short, this weekend and what a profound movie! This movie focuses on the background to the housing bubble based on subprime mortgages and who knew what, when, why and what these men did about it.Ethics was lacking! Some of the great comments in this movie…

How to make the “right” decision?

  When we’re faced with those ambiguous choices where the “right” path is unclear or will produce some painful consequences, where do we turn? If our company has a code of conduct or mission statement, we can look at that and ask, “If I am living up to this credo, what will I do?” But…

The ROI on your compliance and ethics training would be …………

difficult to ascertain. Why? Because no matter the type, the format, the theories, the law, its interpretation, etc. it’s all about decreasing the odds of something happening, with no guarantees. All the compliance training a company provides, can’t guarantee obedience , proper behavior or full understanding of all that is law. It’s all about odds.…