Ethical Dilemma in the Workplace: To Disclose or Not to Disclose

This essay discusses an ethical dilemma faced by the author in the workplace, where they overheard a conversation about a colleague's termination. The author explores the conflicting values of fairness, honesty, and caring, and the decision to keep quiet for the time being. The essay also analyzes the ethical dilemma from the perspectives of utilitarianism and Kant's moral theory.

Running head:MANAGEMENT
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Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Part 1
In this essay, I will highlight one of the instances of an ethical dilemma that I have
recently faced at my workplace.
Last week, while I was passing the cafeteria of my workplace during the lunchtime, I
heard my team lead and my manager talking. Initially, I thought it was regarding a specific
client project, the deadline issue, or some other regular issues. However, I overheard Mia’s
name in the conversation and stopped to listen further. Mia and I have been working together
from day one. We joined this organization on the same date and we were given the same role
and designation. Our friendship grew with time and we soon became more than just
colleagues. We began to hang out together after office hours.
Events leading to dilemma - I overheard the conversation of my team lead and my manager
that they are going to initiate termination of Mia. To put it simply, Mia was going to be laid
off at the end of the quarter, which is, within the next two weeks. I was shocked to hear the
news since Mia has been one of the best performers throughout the previous season. I did not
understand why they chose her name for termination.
Honesty, fairness and caring are the values that were in conflict in the given scenario.
The value of fairness was at conflict because it was not fair on part of the manager to plan
Mia’s termination since she has been an excellent performer and there was no justification for
her termination. The personal value of caring in this situation was in conflict because I was in
a dilemma being her friend as to whether let Mia know about this news or wait for the event
to take place and let her know on her own. Honesty as a value was in conflict because the
team lead and manager, both were not being honest to Mia as to why they were terminating
her.

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At first, I did not know what to do – should I go and tell Mia now or should I just
confirm the news further? Ultimately, I decided to stay quiet for the time being and wait for
further confirmation about the news. I thought if I tell Mia, now then she might try to confirm
this by talking to my team lead or my manager, which would not be a good thing for me. On
the scale of 1-10 regarding how happy I am with my decision, I would rate myself 6.
Part 2
Although I had resolved my ethical dilemma by keeping quiet for the time being, I
was not feeling comfortable having to hide this news from Mia’s knowledge. While on one
side, it was my dear friend’s career and breaking the news to her might be helpful to give her
the time to initiate her search for a new and better opportunity within the upcoming two
weeks. On the other side, I knew that overhearing the conversation was unethical on my part
and if Mia exposes my name to the manager then my job might be in danger as well. I kept
mum, decided not to disclose the information to Mia and followed the ethical principles
towards my company. I preferred adhering by the norms of workplace integrity by following
the ethical and moral principles of an honest employee over being a mere friend to Mia.
Out of 10, I rated my decision to keep quiet, six. The reason is I personally feel that
though I kept shut keeping in mind the emotional nature of my friend and to save myself
from being fired from the job, somewhere down the line I feel that I violated the norms of
morality. First, I overheard a conversation that I was not supposed to do and second, I hid the
shocking news from the person who was the topic of the discussion.
In the sections that follow, I will be analyzing my ethical dilemma from the
perspective of two ethical theories that fall under consequentialism and non-consequentialism
theories.

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The ethical theories that come under the consequentialist approach, judge the
rightness or wrongness of an action based on the consequences that the action generally has.
On the other hand, the non –consequentialist ethical theories judge the wrongness and the
rightness of the action based on the properties that are intrinsic to the actions and not the
consequences.
The theory with the consequentialist approach that I will be discussing in this section
is the utilitarian ethical theory.
The utilitarian ethical theory is a consequentialist theory according to which the
morality of the act depends on the consequences rather than on the actions. The ethical
dilemma I faced in Part 1 was that being a close friend of Mia, I needed to break her the news
but I decided not to as it would result in my job being at risk. From the utilitarianism
perspective, I focused on the consequence of breaking the news to Mia rather than on my
actions. Here, Bentham’s utility principle is also at work because I felt pain more than
pleasure after making the decision. Bentham’s principle of utility states, if the consequences
bring pleasure then the actions is undoubtedly good and vice versa. The reason for me feeling
pain rather than pleasure despite knowing that I took the decision to save my own job is that
Mia is very close to me as a friend and I felt like I was being selfish. However, when looked
from personal perspective, my decision to disclose not the news to Mia was fair because I
was following the norms of the organization. From the hedonistic utilitarianism point of
view, my decision to keep quiet is ethical because it focused on the happiness of all rather
than just one person. Here, all means the organization, my team lead, my manager and I and
the one individual is Mia.
In contrast to this, my decision is unethical when I analyze it from the preferentialism,
the contemporary theory of utilitarianism. I made the decision to stay mum and let Mia suffer

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the shock after two weeks and hence, I overlooked the larger personal interests involved and
focused on my own interest. Preferentialism is the utilitarianism ethical theory, which gives
value to the consequences that fulfill the larger personal interests rather than the
consequences that produce only the largest amount of pleasure. The larger personal interests
would have involved the interests of Mia, the team lead and manager including me. I focused
on self-interest mostly and neglected Mia’s interest. Hence, this analysis shows that my
decision to keep quiet is unethical.
The overall analysis of the ethical dilemma described in Part one from the
utilitarianism perspective revealed both ethical and unethical side of my decision. The
hedonistic utilitarianism theory revealed that, my decision was right because it included the
happiness of the majority rather than an individual. While analyzing through the
Preferentialism ethical theory, I found that my decision was unethical because it did not take
in the interests of all.
From the non - consequentialist context, I feel that Kant’s moral theory shall be the
most appropriate to analyze my ethical dilemma. According to this theory, the right actions
have the moral value only in case of they are done with good will for the sake of the duty
alone. My actions as described in Part 1 are ethical as per the Kantian theory of ethics. I say
this because Kant stated that the rightness and wrongness of any situation depends on
whether the actions are done in a good will. I overheard the conversation of my team lead and
manager with the good will to know about the situation my close friend Mia was about to
face. However, a deeper analysis of my actions reveals that my actions that followed
afterwards were unethical because I disregarded the categorical imperative. According to the
Kantian deontological theory of ethics, any action that fulfills the categorical imperative is
ethical. In my situation, the categorical imperative was to help my friend prepare for the
shocking news by letting her know about her possible termination. To let the readers know,

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categorical imperative refers to the commands that are unconditional and that must be
followed. For instance, “Do not hurt your parents” is a categorical imperative that must
reflect in our actions. Hence, as per the non-consequentialism theory of ethics, my decision to
hide the information of Mia’s termination from her was ethical in one sense and unethical in
the other.
Therefore, this section summarized the three approaches that include my personal
ethical dilemma, the explanation from the utilitarian ethical theory and Kant’s moral theory.
Both the theories have provided a better explanation of my ethical dilemma.
Part 3
The complexity of ethical dilemma tends to arise out of the situational conflict where
accepting one or obeying one would result in the transgressing of the other. The discussion in
Part 2 regarding the ethical theories has helped me understand that I was not completely
wrong. The Kantian theory has made me feel good about my decision regarding not
disclosing the news of termination to Mia. This is because I do not want her to suffer from
the break down, knowing her that she is an emotional person. In addition, I do not want to
risk my job since I am doing really well in this organization and my promotion is due within
a couple of months.
Furthermore, if I had been in the same scenario, I would have done the similar thing.
However, I must say that it actually depends on the persona and the relationship with that
person. In case where there was any other colleague of my office with whom I do not have a
close friendship, I would have told him or her not directly, but indirectly. In the current
situation I have decided to tell Mia to look for some other options and influence her to look
for new opportunities and better options via the job portals so that when she gets the news of

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her termination she will not be that much broken. This is because she might already have
another job in her hand.
This it can be concluded from the above discussion that though I am facing some of
the major ethical dilemma regarding the disclosure of information related to Mia’s
termination, I believe that I have done the right thing keeping in mind her emotional and
sentimental nature. In addition, in the fear or the threat of losing my job if anyone in the
office gets to know that I have overheard the conversation of the manager and the team lead
and disclosed the confidential information, thus violating the norms of the office, I decided to
keep mum.

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