Practicing ethical decision making helps you maintain an honest, supportive, and fair workplace culture, but it’s also necessary to ensure your company doesn’t get into legal trouble or face major losses down the road.
To assist in ethical decision making, leaders should ask themselves and discuss with colleagues:
- What do you know is right in this situation?
- What are the different interests represented here?
- What do you think your client would say?
- What does your gut tell you?
- What does your integrity tell you?
- If you follow the organization’s values, what would the answer be?
- If you followed your values what would the answer be?
- Is there a right answer to this dilemma?
- What are the ramifications of this decision?
- Who are the stakeholders?
- What is the impact on you?
- What is the impact on your team?
- What is the impact on your organization?
- What is the global impact?
- Who has faced this dilemma in the past? What have they done?
- Who are you when faced with this situation – what is your role?
- What does the company stand for?
- What do you stand for?