Ethics could be said to be very much like the weather, in the sense that everybody talks about it but nobody does much about it! This presentation provides an insight into Ethical leadership and suggests ways in which you can safeguard your organisation’s ethics.

1. Business Ethical Leadership in Asian Century
Dr Attracta Lagan

2. Today’s Focus
Talk about business ethics & promote shared
understanding of the term West & East
Provide opportunity reflect on your own ethical
stance – personal, organisational & societal
Look at some of the challenges in
understanding Asian perspectives
Talk about ethical leadership
Suggest ways of safeguarding your
organisation’ ethics & responding to times

3. Business Ethics vs Individual Morality
Ethics is examining moral
standards of a person, a
company or a society to
decide whether these
standards are reasonable
and to apply them to
contexts and issues.
Morality refers to how
individuals make
judgments about right
& wrong.
Who
decides what’s ethical?

4. Society Decides
What’s Ethical  (CSR) Corporate Social
Responsibility Sustainability ( with
formally endorsed Chinese
Government
 Institutional integrity - do
organisational systems support
stated values?
 Do employees understand values
/codes and when to apply them?
 Is the common good protected?

5. Where are you starting from?
An organization can only be as ethical as it’s employees
Leaders can have different personal and work standards
Every employee possesses ethical leadership qualities
Organizational culture is the lengthened shadow of the people
at the top
Ethical people will behave unethically
Success without ethics... is failure
True or False
True or False
True or False
True or False
True or False
True or False

6. Bad Apple/Bad Barrel Cultural Checklist
Personal Level
Pressure to conform
Compliance Priority
Blame cultures
Ignorance of Ethical Implications
Self Interest
Psychological Disengagement
Systems Level
Lack of ethical leadership – do as I
say not as I do; expediency rules
Unprofessional managers
Diffusion of responsibility
Group Commitment
Poor underperformance
management
Lack of Consequences
Sense of Entitlement

7. Ethical Conduct
in the
Information Age
Sexual
Harassment &
Family Issues
Worker’s
Rights (Unjust
Dismissal)
15
Ethical Behaviour at Work
Privacy
Protection Discrimination
Occupational
Health &
Safety
Whistle-Blowing
Corporate
Governance &
CSR
Ethical
Conduct in
Marketing &
Advertising
Trade secrets
and Conflict of
Interest
Product
Safety
Ethics in
Finance
Environmental
Protection
International
Business
Ethics
Ethical
Behaviour

8. Business Ethics @ Work
How organisational culture corrupts
‘What is right in the corporation is not what is right in a
man’s home or in his church.
What is right in the corporation is what the guy above you
wants from you.
That’s what morality is in the corporation.’
- Robert Jackall, Moral Mazes

9. Models of Ethics Management
Unethical/Immoral
Management
Circumvent the law; absence of ethical
Principles and accountabilities
Ethical/Moral
Management
Conforms to high standards
of ethical behavior
Amoral
Management
Intentional: does not consider
ethical factors
Unintentional: casual or careless
about ethical factors

10. Conflict of Interest
• Conflicts of interest are inevitable as leaders have have wide
personal networks and can encounter situations where
loyalty might conflict the integrity of their position.
• Leaders need hone skills not to avoid conflicts of interest,
but to manage values tensions to minimise harm.
• The last person to spot a conflict of interest is the person
engaged in it. Conflicts that are obvious to others often
blindside the person concerned
• Conflicts of interest are actual and perceived. The perception
of self-dealing can be just as damaging as the real thing.

11. Know your time Western Perspective
In interconnected world anything you do in private can find
its way into the public domain
Legislators around the world insist business leaders accept
accountabilities for the types of organisational cultures and
ethical risks that emerge under their stewardship
People listen with their eyes and take their lead from what
gets rewarded
Newly enacted US and UK legislation makes business leaders
(not employees) accountable for corrupt corporate
behaviour
2011 research amongst 144 global organizations found the
top 3 challenges:
•Getting employees to speak up about ongoing concerns
•Getting leaders to demonstrate ethical leadership
•Establishing an ethical culture

12. Learning from current reputational crisis –
BP, Rio Tinto, Citibank, Siemens, HSB, Federal Reserve Bank;
AWB, Goldman Sachs…
• It can no longer be assumed that people know the right thing to
do; a company’s reputation is too valuable to be left to chance
• Strengthening your ethics infrastructure is an essential part of
modern business success and is the collective responsibility of all
leaders
• Your brand value is as strong as the weakest link within your
operations
• What’s legal often falls short of what’s ethical and leaves
reputations vulnerable

13. $ Image
You are a senior manager with a reputation for fairness and being open minded.
In amongst the dozens of emails you receive daily, you receive some that are
humorous, which of course you ignore most of the time. However, you have just
received an email that has pornographic images in it, albeit intended to be funny.
You find this one offensive; you also know that the sender has a reputation for
crude language and using inappropriate nicknames for his female colleagues.
What do you do?
What would you do?
 Delete the email. You are too busy and you expect these things in an
industrial environment.
 Ring the individual and tell him you don’t appreciate receiving material
of this nature and to stop sending this stuff.
 Go to the individual’s manager, a peer of yours, and tell him that he
should speak to him.
 Forward the email to the Director HR and make a formal complaint.

14. • Where is your company’s line in the sand?
• How do your leaders model ethical behaviour and set the ethical
tone?
• Why might good people in your company do unethical things?
• What do existing ethical challenges look like?
• How do you protect the values associated with your company?
• How are your values promoted, measured and rewarded?
How do you currently rate in managing the ethical dimension?

15. Business Ethics
Business Ethics involves learning what is right or wrong as defined by the
organisation and then doing the right thing even when the ‘right thing’ costs.
How to justify the
decision taken?
How to resolve
the issue / case?
How to identify
what is important?

16. Doing the right thing?
The ‘Western’ way is individualistic and results-oriented. From
this perspective individuals are responsible for what happens in
their lives and organizations.
The ‘Eastern’ way accepts reality the way it is. This is ‘Tao’:
observe nature and see that change is inherent in everything.
Individuals change in response to other changes nothing is black
and white rather it is relative to the context.
There is an external locus of control and the collective is more
important than the individual and social etiquette can trump
business loyalties/ interests
.

17. Know your time Eastern Perspective
East knows more about the West than West does about the
East. West is seen as arrogant and judgmental. Younger
generations educated in the west and fluent in English
Social order is respected and governments have more
legitimacy and authority than in the West
Giving and receiving “Face” and family obligations are
critically important
Both Chinese & Indonesian governments have signaled they
are clamping down on black corruption
Solid business relationships can only be build on solid social
relationships first.

18. Heidenheimer
Class A Black Corruption
• bribe, fraud, embezzlement, extortion, tax evasion, smuggling
‘economic crimes’
Class B Grey Corruption
• abuse of institutional power to further self interests; extravagance or
waste public purse
Class C White Corruption
• ‘common practice’ of social life including nepotism, favouritism,
preferential treatment. Creating & maintaining networks of personal
relations to seek and give favourable treatments

19. Global Standards and Accountabilities
 The 1991 U. S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Corporations
 UK Bribery Act
 Companies signed to the UN Global Compact (over 3,700) Commits
participating businesses of the Global Compact to “avoid bribery,
extortion and other forms of corruption” and to “develop policies and
concrete programs to address corruption”.
 Australian Criminal Code 2004 states that a corporation can be held
criminally responsible if it is established that "a corporate culture
existed within the body corporate that directed, encouraged,
tolerated or led to non-compliance with the relevant provision" or by
showing that "the body corporate failed to create and maintain a
corporate culture that required compliance with the relevant
provision"

20. Beyond Leadership-
Ethical Leadership
Leaders find ways to talk about ethics ofte
• Connecting what is right & wrong with goals, purpose & direction
The How is as important as the what
• How business is pursued is not left to chance & managed rigorously
People Matter
• Trust, respect, dignity, reciprocity
Inspiration & engagement
• Ethical leaders get others to lift their standards so the whole
becomes more than the sum of its parts an ethical climate prevails

21. Ethics at Work – The Reality
The ethical side of workplace decisions do
not take care of themselves
Ethical issues need to be anticipated,
confronted, discussed and managed
Organisational values need to guide our
ethical decisions at work
Accept you have a choice & personal
accountability
Make informed choices
Be prepared to stand up and be counted
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22. Evaluating the Right Thing to Do
Individual
Perception
Time
Dimension
Context
Dimension
Stakeholder
Dimension
©Managing Values

23. Ethical Decision Making Model
Step 1. Define the problem
Step 2. Identify and consider
stakeholders
Step 3. Identify relevant legislation,
underlying values and policies
Step 4. Specify and evaluate alternatives
Step 5. Get another opinion from an
informed person
Step 6. Make a decision and act

24. Thankyou
Dr Attracta Lagan
www.values.com.au
Attracta@values.com.au