


Saturday, July 23, 2016

Four Ways Your Leadership May Be Encouraging Unethical Behavior

Ron Carucci
Originally published June 14, 2016

Most leaders would claim they want the utmost ethical standards upheld by those they lead. But they might be shocked to discover that, even with the best of intentions, their own leadership may be corrupting the choices of those they lead.


1. You are making it psychologically unsafe to speak up. Despite saying things like, “I have an open door policy,” where employees can express even controversial issues, some leadership actions may dissuade the courage needed to raise ethical concerns . Creating a culture in which people freely speak up is vital to ensuring people don’t collude with, or incite misconduct.


2. You are applying excessive pressure to reach unrealistic performance targets. Significant research suggests that unfettered goal setting can encourage people to make compromising choices in order to reach targets, especially if those targets seem unrealistic. Leaders may be inviting people to cheat in two ways. They will cut corners on the way they reach a goal, or they will lie when reporting how much of the goal they actually achieved.

The article is here.

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