Bus 520

How Personal Can Ethics Get?

Leadership and Organizational Behavior – BUS520

Oct 17, 2011

Personal Differences and Preference

It is said that organizational ethics starts at that top. That means that the leaders of the organization need to set the ethics at a high level so that the rest of the company will know what ethical level they are held to. The leaders need to have high personal ethics in order to personify high organizational ethics. If as a leader your ethics are not high or questionable than you will ultimately personify that. This would not be ideal for an organization.

The consequence of having low personal is evident in cases like Enron and Arthur Anderson. If the leadership in those cases had had high ethical standards than much of the fall could have been avoided. They were considered the “smart guys” at Enron and ultimately brought the company down. What is even more incredible than the fall of those guys was how eagerly everyone else in the company just went along with everything knowing that what they were doing was wrong. It wasn’t until the very end when just one person asked a question did everything start to fall apart. Until then everyone else in the company just went along with everything because that was the ethics that they were held to.

Personal differences can ultimately impact organizational ethics because of the bias opinion of any individual. There are many factors one must consider suck as personal beliefs, culture, the environment, etc. It is also often difficult for any organization to make sure all company policies are not only shown on a book but make sure they are also followed by all employees.

In a situation where a manager has a “personal” difference with another company employee it can ultimately cause that manager to make unethical decisions if a disciplinary action has to take place.

“Although individuals may demonstrate that they have the capability to follow company procedures without showing favoritism,...