Ethics and leadership principles in organizational decision-making

Ethics: Take it From the Top

Ethics take it from the Top

The essay "Ethics: Take It from the Top" is written by Maynard Dolecheck and Carolyn Dolecheck, who discussed the problem of unethical business practices and suggested some solutions to eliminate it. As the name indicates, the authors suggested that ethics must be followed by the top-level management so that the low level employees follow them without any fear. According to them, unethical business practices are quite common all around U.S. And organizations do not consider the limits of unethical and illegal actions. Also, the violations of client's rights are common because of the absence of some pre-defined rules which are obligatory in order to safeguard consumer's rights. Hence according to authors, there always remain an invisible boundary between ethical and unethical practices and everyone treats it in his own way. They rightly provided the example of Best Western Hotel, Florida's uninformed overcharging on long distances in this regard.

The authors stated that usually illegal activities are noticed as there are law enforced cases in such situations, but unethical activities never came in front and remain hidden due to absence of proper rules or law. This is quite true and realistic as this usually happens around us. The main contributors in such unethical business practices are changing environmental conditions, such as digital technology and communications, mergers, change in rules and increased international trade due to which several misunderstanding arise and the organizations violate ethics intentionally or unintentionally in order to achieve their goals efficiently. Privatization, lessened government intervention in business and dismantling of regulatory authorities are also a main cause of changing regulations and eventually unethical operations. When the organizations are provided maximum authority, they take full advantage of it and try to compete their rivals and to achieve their goals by all means, ethically or unethically. Such pressures upon the managers compel them to even bribe the clients for profit making purposes which is totally unethical in the world of business. The authors have stated this fact in an explanatory way by providing the example of airline industry. They also blamed U.S. government to be involved in unethical activities like dirty politics and conspiracies amongst each other and abuses or mis-uses of government's funds and properties.

After stating all these problems in unethical business practices, the authors proposed solutions to such situations. They said that the organizations must hire honest personnel which do not account for dishonesty and false means at any cost, and promotes such persons as an example for others. For this purpose, the top-level management must focus upon the commitment to the goal of ethical conduct and serve as a role model to the lower level employees. Several researches have indicated that behavior of superiors and bosses is ranked first amongst important factors contributing to unethical behavior. Also, while setting organizational goals, it is important to set the mission statement which embrace ethical behaviors and to demand the same from the employees at any cost. However, as there are as many different situations in businesses hence the universality of ethics must be promised so that it would be beneficial for everyone who follows them.