Professional Ethics
We’ve heard it all before, right? When it comes down to it – when you’re really faced with the tough decisions things just aren’t as cut and dry as those role playing training courses make them out to be. It’s easy to let yourself off the hook if you’re willing to chalk up questionable decisions or behavior to a “greater good” or doing what you “had to do.” Don’t worry, I’m not being naïve. I live in the real world too and I acknowledge that someone has painted shades of gray throughout even my limited professional life, but we each have a responsibility to ourselves and to our employers to dispatch our professional obligations according to basic legal and ethical guidelines as well as any specific corporate ethics standards with which we may be faced.
Practically speaking, why when faced with a question of professional ethics should you opt for the ethical choice over the unethical choice? Of course there are issues where the question is a matter of law and making an unethical choice introduces legal liability, but what of the dilemmas that present no obvious legal complications? To my mind, this is the point where your personal analysis of a decision or situation should begin – and that analysis should begin with a review of your professional responsibilities.
It’s important to understand that professionals carry additional moral responsibilities than those shouldered by the general public. Professionals by definition possess some knowledge or privilege skill that the general public (specifically everyone outside of that professional class) does not possess. In fact, it is the public’s reliance on these professional’s skills and information that set the stage for the ethical responsibilities of professionals. When you go to the dentist with a toothache, you expect that given his/her particular expertise he/she will be equipped to handle your dental care. This is a professional that you entrust with informing you of and caring for your dental situation. It would obviously be unethical for the dentist to convince you with his/her expertise that certain unnecessary procedures were in fact necessary – but it would likewise be unethical for a dentist to treat you for conditions of whose presence you were not aware without your prior knowledge and approval.
Professionals in general bear a responsibility to safeguard individuals or businesses with whom they work as those individuals or businesses would safeguard themselves if they were professionals. You will do well to keep this in mind as you navigate the professional world. Know the resources you have at your disposal with whom you can raise questions or conflicts of your professional responsibilities and don’t hesitate to exercise them when appropriate – your next business decision should not contribute to your company’s ENRON, Madoff or Office of Legal Counsel situation.
Although the article nicely sums up what ethics are and that they should be followed, it fails to address the issue of why people stray from them. Making the argument that Enron happened due to moral “shades of gray” is in fact naïve.
Three factors have to be present in order for one to commit an unethical act: Pressure, Opportunity, and Rationalization. This is more commonly referred to as “The Fraud Triangle”. The necessary presence of these three factors do not coincide with the article’s arguments of professional responsibilities analysis. More often than not, the person committing the unethical act is fully aware of the professional responsibilities they are forsaking. But when the potential benefit is great than the professional obligation, the act is committed.
This by no means is an avocation to commit unethical acts at one’s leisure. It is just hard to believe that the decision to commit them can be summed up in three paragraphs.