By Linda Fisher Thornton
Last week I blogged about 40 Ethical Culture Gaps to Avoid. This week, I’m sharing a ‘What To Do” list of 40 Ways to Build an Ethical Culture. This list includes many ways to incorporate ethical values into daily organizational leadership.
Each one of these 40 Ways to Build an Ethical Culture can improve an organization. Leaders paying attention to all of these factors will reap rewards that include improved employee engagement, better financial performance, increased productivity and job satisfaction, improved competitive position and more.
Use this “ethical to do list” to assess your culture. Put a check mark beside the positive ethical actions that you have observed in your organization. Any that you leave unchecked are opportunities for improvement.
40 Ways to Build an Ethical Culture
- ___Avoid Harm To a Wide Variety of Constituents
- ___Balance Ethics With Profitability and Results
- ___Carefully Build and Protect Trust
- ___Choose the Ethical Path, Even if Competitors Aren’t
- ___Clarify What “Ethical” Means in the Organization
- ___Clear Code of Ethics
- ___Clear Messages About Ethics and Values
- ___Commitment to Protecting the Planet
- ___Consistently Demonstrate Care and Respect for People
- ___Decision-Making Carefully Incorporates Ethics
- ___Develop Leaders in How To Implement Proactive Ethical Leadership
- ___Do Business Sustainably
- ___Enforce Ethical Expectations
- ___Embrace Corporate Social Responsibility
- ___Engaging and Relevant Ethics Training and Messages (Not The Same Old Boring Stuff)
- ___Ethical Actions Match Ethical Marketing
- ___Frequent Conversations About Ethics (That Honor Work Complexity)
- ___Full Accountability for Ethics At Every Level Including the C-Suite
- ___High Degree of Transparency
- ___Leaders Aware of Increasing Ethical Expectations
- ___Leaders Stay Competent as Times Change
- ___Open Leadership Communication and Invitation to Participate in Decisions
- ___Open, Supportive Leadership
- ___Performance Guidelines and Boundaries For Behavior
- ___Performance System Fully Integrated With Ethical Expectations
- ___Positive Ethical Role Models
- ___Recognize and Praise Ethical Actions
- ___Recognize and Punish Unethical Actions
- ___Safe Space to Discuss Ethical Grey Areas
- ___Set Ethical Boundaries
- ___Strong Commitment to Improving Leadership and Culture
- ___Take Broad Responsibility For Actions
- ___Think Long Term About Our Impact
- ___Treat Ethics as an Ongoing Priority
- ___Treat People With Care
- ___Use the Precautionary Principle
- ___Use Systems Thinking to See the Big Picture
- ___Values Mindset (Not A Compliance Mindset)
- ___Welcome and Act on Feedback From Constituents
- ___Willing to Do What it Takes to Become an Ethical Organization
When ethical culture is carefully tended, we are poised to meet the increasing expectations of our many stakeholders. Use this checklist of 40 Ways to Build an Ethical Culture to identify your organization’s current strengths and opportunities for improvement.
Linda Fisher Thornton’s Award-Winning Book 7 Lenses Stimulates Powerful Conversations
LeadinginContext.com Unleash the Positive Power of Ethical Leadership™
©2015 Leading in Context LLC
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Linda,
Wow! Looks like you really covered everything in your list! I like the part where you put having a safe space to discuss ethical grey areas! All great points though!
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Reblogged this on Gr8fullsoul.
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Thanks so much for your feedback, Niccole. I’m delighted that you’re finding the checklist helpful!
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Niccole Henderson says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
June 12, 2015 at 2:24 am
HI Linda,
This is a fantastic detailed list of positive ethical ways to enhance our overall ethical culture. As our society is increasingly becoming more technologically advanced we are losing our ethical standpoints in many areas of our lives. We need more organizational leadership through out our organizations. With organizational leadership the right set of ethical standards would naturally be promoted and companies would began to learn that employee retention, tasks, and overall performance would increase. As humans we thrive off of praise and support more so than negative demands and threats. Aristotle’s viewpoint “The ethics of communication are judged by the interrelated criteria of (1) communicator intent, (2) nature if the means employed, and (3) accompanying circumstances, as these three factors combine to enhance or undermine human rationality and choice-making ability” (Johannesen & Valde, 2008). From these three, employees would decide if their managers are portraying the positive ethical image that they deserve. Many organizations need to learn the leadership ways and discard all the managerial micro-managing ways. Great post and will take this checklist to my own work to encourage positive ethically ways.
Niccole Henderson
Drury University
References:
Johannesen, R., & Valde, K. (2008). Ethics in human communication (6th ed.). Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press.
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HI Linda,
This is a fantastic detailed list of positive ethical ways to enhance our overall ethical culture. As our society is increasingly becoming more technologically advanced we are losing our ethical standpoints in many areas of our lives. We need more organizational leadership through out our organizations. With organizational leadership the right set of ethical standards would naturally be promoted and companies would began to learn that employee retention, tasks, and overall performance would increase. As humans we thrive off of praise and support more so than negative demands and threats. Aristotle’s viewpoint “The ethics of communication are judged by the interrelated criteria of (1) communicator intent, (2) nature if the means employed, and (3) accompanying circumstances, as these three factors combine to enhance or undermine human rationality and choice-making ability” (Johannesen & Valde, 2008). From these three, employees would decide if their managers are portraying the positive ethical image that they deserve. Many organizations need to learn the leadership ways and discard all the managerial micro-managing ways. Great post and will take this checklist to my own work to encourage positive ethically ways.
References:
Johannesen, R., & Valde, K. (2008). Ethics in human communication (6th ed.). Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press.
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