Often I am asked if there is a way to categorize an individual’s natural thought process when it comes to making ethical choices. The idea is that we all have a predisposition toward how we approach or deal with ethical situations. So the first question that many organizations need to consider is how do you deal with ethical situations?
Recently I discovered an interesting article by Mark Pastin, CEO of the Council of Ethical Organizations. Pastin defines a person’s “ethical type” as a way to help predict how someone will react to situations requiring ethical judgment. Below is a synopsis of Pastin’s four ethical types. His full article is found here.
In summary Pastin proposes the following for review:
Here’s the ethical challenge:
“Just after your current employer promoted you and gave you a substantial raise, you receive an attractive job offer from another company. When you got your promotion, you told your boss you were “in it for the long haul,” but now you’re not so sure. Should you tell your boss about the outside offer?”
Ethical Type One – ‘the Stickler’: Ethical situations are considered in terms of following the rules. Rigid, ‘Sticklers’ prosper in bureaucratic organizations with stable rules. Outcome: Honor your word and report the outside offer even there is no intent to take it.
Ethical Type Two – ‘the Negotiators’: Rules are fluid and can be created, as the need requires. Show a ‘Negotiator’ how they benefit and you’ll have their attention. Prospering best in sales organizations or lightly regulated industries, ‘Negotiators’ will likely take the outside offer and use it as a negotiation opportunity playing one organization against the other for best gain.
Ethical Type Three – ‘the Navigator’: A rule follower that will compromise to resolve conflicts that might arise defines the ‘Navigator’. Preferring to find middle ground, a ‘Navigator’ will try to find a position that is agreeable to many stakeholders. ‘Navigators’ are fluid and find ease in working in many organizations. Likely, the Navigator would tell his/her boss, but recognizes the negative consequences associated with doing so.
Ethical Type Four – ‘the Wiggler’: Good at following ethical rules, the ‘Wiggler’ is good at finding exceptions to fit their interests. ‘Wigglers’ do best in organizations in which strict compliance with rules is not required. As an example the ‘Wiggler’ may not tell the boss about the outside offer since the boss was really promised nothing.
Which response sits best with you in this situation?
That’s a question to which there is no right answer. Rarely are we one exclusively. Rather, we tend to find individuals have a dominant type followed by one that is sub dominant. And, what fits for one individual may be impossible for another. That’s the challenge when it comes to ethics and ethical choices. One size doesn’t fit all. So how do you deal with ethical situations?
Most importantly, the measure of ethical success (especially of an employee) is how his/her ethical temperament is compatible with that of his/her supervisor’s ethical type. How you deal with ethical situations may fit you perfectly, but if that choice is in opposition to your supervisors or senior management, then you choice might be wrong for your overall well being in that company.
For example – my son found himself on the wrong side of an employment political battle and he lost. Not because he was bad or not doing a good job, but because he was not a good navigator – to him the choices were black and white while his superiors didn’t want to make the hard choices necessary to change the business.
How do you deal with ethical situations?
Pastin has given us a nice framework for evaluating our own temperament. The question now is what to do with what is shared. If you’d like more information on how you can put this information to work for good in your organization contact me at chuck@gallagher.pcgdev.com – we’d be happy to help you and your organization.
