Challenges of Employing Business Ethics and Values

Justify the Value's Position in the List. Include any challenges to employing these values consistently when making personal and organizational decisions.

Integrity

I have experienced the benefit of having integrity at my workplace. I was given the task of training a difficult new employee and reporting back to management with daily assessments. My manager trusted that I would keep all of our meetings and correspondence confidential. She also expected that I would be honest in my assessments of the employee's progress and she relied on me to provide adequate training. Even though we had huge personality differences and different work styles, I treated her like any new trainee. By acting with integrity, I gained the respect and confidence from management which resulted in a promotion.

I placed integrity at the top of my list because I believe that acting with integrity is a fundamental value in any ethical decision. To me, integrity means holding myself to a high set of moral values and standards. I could have treated our new hire badly or unfairly, or talked to my team members about her progress, but that would mean stooping below my beliefs. Acting with integrity isn't easy. It means adhering to a high set of values, even if my friends are doing something wrong. It means looking at a situation objectively and making a conscious decision everyday to hold myself to that higher standard.

Accountability

I have seen accountability play an important role in the work place. My mentor taught me to take responsibility for my mistakes and to not point fingers. One of her accounts had a mistake on their pricing and we over-charged them $50,000. It came down to an oversight that she had made. Instead of pointing fingers ...

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...dition, the members of our department rallied together to support her. As a department we raised over $400 to donate to a charity in her brother's name.

I have chosen compassion as my fifth value because I believe compassion develops relationships with people and shows concern for the well being of others. This value is the last on my list because I believe that the other values play a larger part in ethical decisions, although compassion is no less important. Having compassion for others demonstrates an investment in the relationship and that decisions aren't based entirely on the business aspect, but also on the welfare of others. Compassion can be difficult and exhausting. When a decision influences the lives of many, it can be hard to think about the feelings of those impacted. Without compassion, a decision may be more black and white and easier to make.