Ethics in Action

Ethics in Action

Decision making is part of every individual’s daily life. Individuals start making decisions at an early stage of life and as they get older poor decision making can come with serious consequences. Ethical decision making allows individuals to evaluate all possible alternatives and end results before making a final decision. The problem with decision making is that there are several factors that deter a person from making the right decision. The purpose of this paper is to identify three of the common characteristics that contribute to an individual’s poor decision making. I will also address three ways an individual can resist a request to act unethical as well as three ways to lead ethically.

Common Characteristic of Poor Decision Making

The three common characteristics of decision making are failing to remember goals, over confidence, and complexity of the issues. Goals are an important in every business, which is why it is crucial to remember business goals when making decisions. Every decision made needs to bring the business closer to achieving important goals and the decision also need to produce positive outcomes. When an individual or business fails to remember goals, they fail to reach their objective. Being overconfidence also affects one’s ability to make good decision. When an individual believe that everything will turn out okay without carefully analyzing everything to make sure it will work, they are being overconfident (Mallor, Langvardt, Bowers, & Barnes, 2010). Overconfident individuals believe that their actions are better than others, which affects their ability to explore alternative possibilities and outcomes.

Confirmation bias is also a form of overconfidence, when an individual is inclined towards a particular perspective and wants others to support him for that, without giving much thought to the perspective that might be the right one (Sonkushre, 2011). Overconfident individuals tend to make decisions that can...