Analyzing Unethical Behaviors and Leadership Practices

This essay delves into the pervasive issue of unethical behaviors within organizations, emphasizing the critical role of leadership in either fostering or mitigating such conduct. It begins by highlighting how leaders, often unintentionally, can create environments that encourage unethical actions by setting unrealistic goals, suppressing employee voices, and failing to address the consequences of misconduct. The essay then explores how organizational culture, including the presence or absence of clear ethical codes, protocols for reporting unethical behavior, and employee empowerment, significantly influences employee behavior. It also discusses the importance of establishing formal and informal systems to address unethical conduct, such as creating and regularly reviewing a code of ethics, showing employee appreciation, and welcoming ethics speakers. Furthermore, the essay outlines the benefits of such systems, including improved communication, enhanced public trust, and a stronger organizational reputation. The essay concludes by emphasizing the significance of consistent implementation of ethical policies and training programs to create a workplace that values ethical conduct and employee well-being.

Running Head: UNETHICAL BEHAVIOURS 1
UNETHICAL BEHAVIOURS
AUTHORS NAME
UNIVERSITY OF AFFILIATION

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Leaders always claim to want the utmost ethical standards upheld by the people they lead.
However, leaders fail to understand that with the good intentions they have, their own leadership
style could be corrupting the choices of the people they lead (Joseph, 2018).But is not easy to
think of how a leader of a company could encourage the workforce to resort to unethical business
tactics. However many times, leaders are usually not aware of the effects of their actions.
Through pushing this issue under the rug constantly, they nature a company policy that gives
employees an understanding of anything goes as long as they reach their target and receive
positive annual reviews.
The organization could be fostering these unethical behaviors by employees through the
following practices. Employees are not given the freedom to speak out. Many staff feels the urge
to adhere to the culture of silence that exists in many organization due to lack of ethics
(Rodriguez, 2018). This is due to the managers promoting an environment whereby the
employees are not allowed to speak out their mind, so as to survive in the company. Employees
do pick this attitude from the internal meetings, whereby an attempt to raise an issue is normally
met by the change of topic.
Leaders set unrealistic goals to be attained by the employees. In a case of a marketing firm or
any firm that deals with sales, there is competition to close more sales and grow the organization
market share. When leaders set goals such as attaining more sales overnight, something is bound
to give.Probabaly it will be the staff, they will try to attain u unrealistic goals sets and keep their
jobs at any cost. This will likely involve malicious ways such as involving themselves in fraud.
Lastly, the leader failure to talk about the harm caused by the unethical behavior. Majority of
employees have no extensive knowledge about the magnitude of a fraud case. All they

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understand is that some people will be answerable but fail to understand the impact it has on the
organization reputation, which can be ruined beyond repair. Leaders should not only highlight
that common phrase that unethical behaviors are not tolerated in the organization, but they
should elaborate to the employees about what it Is involved and the impact it can have both on
their lives and professional reputation.
Organization culture and ethics play a significant role in the ethical behavior of employees. First,
organization culture builds a positive corporate culture. An organization that has devoted its
resources in the development of policies and procedures which encourage ethical actions builds a
corporate culture that is positive (Leonard, 2014). Morale of the team members improves
whenever the employees feel protected against the personal beliefs retaliation. Some of this
policy include the open door policy and equal growth openings. Whenever the workforces
atmosphere at work, the overall feeling in the business is more positive.
The negative reputation can make an organization lose the consumer loyalty and confidence very
fast. For an organization to retain its customer's confidence, it has to ensure that all the activities
are conducted in an ethical way which starts with honesty and fairness advertising method and is
seen through the entire sales process (Ventimiglio, 2014). The organization can lose consumer
confidence through neglecting or negatively handling consumer’s complaints. That is the reason
why continuous employee training and constant policies are crucial. The organization should
train the employee on how to treat the customers. Lastly, reduced financial liabilities, an
organization which does not develop policies on the ethical standard risk financial liabilities. The
topmost liability is the sales reduction. Potential lawsuits financial liabilities are also avoided.
Negligence of unethical behavior claims, cost organization a lot of money (Juneja, 2013).

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Therefore it's of significance for organizations to maintain policies and procedure addressing
various harassment types and discrimination. The organization should, however, remain
consistent in the policies implementation and dealing with accusation. This aids in the reducing
the frivolous lawsuits which render upcoming organization bankrupt.
Organization practices may influence the employee unethical behavior in the following ways.
First lack of a clear code of ethics. The failure to set the behavior tone in the place of work
through constructing the code of ethics (FMLink, 2010). Organization code of ethics launches
the values that are significant to the corporate and forms a similar context for the understanding
of the boundaries of the organization. Organization failure to write the code of ethics that is
broadly written in a way that communicates the organization ethical vision. Secondly, the
organization failed to establish a protocol. the organization should set a protocol of how the
issues of unethical behaviors can be escalated .lack of an internal human resource to ensure the
matter reported are addressed in a fair manner. Lastly, failure to empower employees could result
in unethical behaviors. The failure to employ the use of the ethics training programs for all the
employees could result to ineffectiveness increase of the code.
Unethical behavior in an organization can be dealt with in a formal or informal way. Formula
way comprises of written down procedures that have to be followed in order to solve any
unethical behavior. Informal systems comprise of the rules and policies that are not written down
but require the employee or the staff to use their common sense and think critically before
indulging in any behavior that would lead to unethical behavior.
Formal system solution to address any unethical behavior comprises of the leader taking the
following steps in order to address any unethical behavior. Leaders should create the code of

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ethics. Code of ethics helps in the creation of a tone of behavior in the workplace. Code of ethics
does establish values which are imperative to any corporate and forms a common outline for
understanding the limits that exist within the business. Leaders should continuously review code
of ethics. The code of ethics should continuously be updated. Employees should have new copies
of the code of ethics on the yearly basis that is updated. Policies that are not user-friendly should
be reviewed. Leaders should show employee appreciation. This will help in reducing the
unethical behavior at workplace.Loyals employees always feel that a company values hard work
they put into accomplishing a task on daily basis. Therefore loyal workers are less likely to act
unethically at any point. The leader should welcome ethic speaker to brief the employees so s to
discuss ethical behavior and explain the significance of ethics in any organization.
Systems used in reducing unethical behaviors have a lot of benefits to the organization. Code of
ethics helps the organization communicate its expectation to the staff to suppliers and clients.
Through solicitation feedback from the staff, an organization can use the policies to encourage
an open door policy and honest communication among the employees. lastly, it helps the
organization build public trust and enhance its business reputation.it also aid in demonstrating
the organization values to investors who are socially responsible. The organization benefits such
that it can create a social change through creating consciousness of the public needs and
inspiring employees and other stallholders to help.

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