I recently received a heart wrenching response to a recent ethics post of mine to my Linkedin in groups. Thought I’d share a few of excerpts of this response for your ethical reflection.
“I was a whistleblower up against one of the biggest sharks out there. I’m still in the process of writing a book educating people NOT TO BLOW THE WHISTLE. It entirely ruined my life and I lost everything .It is not worth losing your job, your home, your car, etc. I would never again in life speak up in fear of retaliation and go this all over again.”
What would you say to this person?
How does ethics make a difference here?
Research shows us that ethical behavior should be rewarded and unethical behavior be punished . What went wrong here?
What message has this sent to the rest of the employees? Don’t the leaders “get it?”
This puts into question the theory that doing the right thing, for the right reason, is a good thing , doesn’t it?
This “punishing the whistleblower” solution forces the all the employees to develop a “CYA” mentality which affects the workplace morale, customer service, etc.
Why don’t executives in this case” get it?” Do they really think “works?”
Just thought I’d share some of this person’s pain. Maybe we, in our organizations, can learn from this example, work to stop this type of reaction that clearly goes against any ethics training that I’m aware of, that’s for sure.
fbucaro
Like you, business ethics and ethical leadership expert, Frank Bucaro has seen the challenges and problems of corporate leadership, particularly over the past few years in regards to poor decision-making, SEC violations, and record breaking financial settlements in a number of different industries.
With over two decades of executive training, speaking, writing and with real life experiences, his view and approach to ethics in the workplace is uniquely different. He emphasizes that ethics is a moment-to-moment choice and has little to do with position, titles, personalities or education. Ethics is everybody’s responsibility from the top down.
His goal is to help organizations to:
a. Strengthen their ethics training initiatives in order to significantly decrease the odds of an ethical/compliance violation.
b. Energize, train and motivate employees to understand the value of consistent “high road” behavior as a business advantage.
c. Support individuals and thereby the organization by contributing to its success by quality, ongoing values based leadership development.
Frank is known for his very practical, slightly irreverent, yet somewhat humorous approach to ethics and leadership development. His conversational style and real life stories connect with his audience in a personal, intense and practical level.
Companies such as Bayer Healthcare, BP, ReMax International, EnMax Energy, Danone, etc. have partnered with Frank when they want to proactively stress the message, tools, insights and practical applications that good ethics IS good for business!
