As election fever grips the nation one of the silent questions stalking both political parties is just how far ethics and integrity concerns will influence voters’ decisions. In the last few days we’ve seen ugly exchanges in Parliament about so-called “dirt files” on Shadow Ministers, allegations in weekend papers about visits to gay bathhouses by a married member of the government benches; the commencement of civil proceedings against AWB that threatens to re-open this particular wound in time for the Federal election and the almost daily scrutiny of the ethics behind the current Work Choices advertising campaign.

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Myth 1 You can’t teach ethics

Reality: People learn both ethical and unethical behaviours in the workplace. Unethical behaviour is as much created and promoted by the type of organisational culture that is allowed to emerge as by any rogue individuals. Typically unethical behaviour emerges where the pressure to perform outweighs the need to behave appropriately.

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It is notoriously difficult to gain insight into the motivations behind white-collar crime since most cases remain unreported. Instead, the perpetrators are paid to slink away quietly in the interests of corporate reputation. Recently, global attention focused on the case of then World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and his actions in awarding a highly paid job to his girlfriend. Looking behind the protestations of innocence, or ignorance or some combination of both we might ask: how could someone in such a powerful position have been so naïve, or is there, perhaps a more complex but ultimately more believable explanation? A recent research study from the U.S. into the “honesty quotient” of business and community leaders may provide some clues to this socially aberrant behaviour.

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In each issue, we will pose a common workplace dilemma. You will have four choices and each choice will have a consequence for you and your organisation. We will post the consequences on our website a week after the newsletter has gone out. Here’s your first dilemma!

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ONE of the many contradictions in modern Australian society is the tension between the increasing focus on individualism and the higher-order need for society to pull together as one.

The past 10 years have seen a steady move towards the US presidential style of politics, with executive government the central theme and ministers emphasising the “I” of their policies. The Westminster system of executive responsibility and collective authority has given way to the “Washminster” system — as many public servants scathingly refer to it — where the leader increasingly sets the pattern for public policy and public servants become the instruments of executive authority rather than the protectors of public interest.

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There is a mood sweeping through Australian business and government, a mood to clean up our act and move to the higher ground in terms of how people behave.  Spurred on by the new business philosophies of good Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), business managers are now scrambling to put their houses in order.

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Is the public sector a good place to work if you want to satisfy your personal values?  The answer, of course, is it depends on your values but certainly, in terms of raising values to a conscious level in the way people are expected to work, the public sector is a good place to be.  And increasing numbers of young people are seeing the government sector as the sector of choice.  A research study conducted late last year amongst final year business students at universities across the country found that, after the Big Four accounting firms, government was the employer of choice.  Given that the Big Four expend an inordinate amount on feting young people and are themselves battling hard to keep graduates, it would seem to indicate that so-called Gen Y do have a greater sense of public conscience and are seeking greater meaning from the employment choices they make.

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Behind every major Australian corporate scandal of late, can be found an organisational culture where unethical practices went unchecked.  Yet, how cultures become the systemic source of unethical practices is perhaps the least explored area by compliance professionals.

So much compliance today essentially looks for ethics in the breach not the practice. Opportunities to hone ethical competence in the workplace is essential because when it comes to human behaviour, there is no standing still.  If employees don’t continuously work on their ethical competencies, they lose moral competence.  Ignoring culture as a key critical risk area is akin to not seeing the woods for the trees.  As demonstrated by recent case histories from Visy and Amcor, setting standards was the easy part, managing day to day behaviour requires a lot more effort.

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Amoral leadership rather than unethical leadership was found to be more common among senior executives in an American study of executives and ethics professionals.

Executive ethical leaders (EL) were perceived to be first and foremost people oriented – care about people, respect people, develop people and treat people right.

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As more and more people – especially but not exclusively Gen Ys – use social networks and virtual communities to conduct their social lives and gather information on life, the universe and spirituality, it seems that big business is determined to gatecrash these closed communities.  Many of these ultra-consumers have shut themselves off from conventional advertising and are refusing to participate in the consumer society and so big advertisers such as, allegedly, Big Tobacco and Warner Bros. have infiltrated networking sites such as YouTube and MySpace with supposedly innocent clips that seem to support a particular film or push a particular point of view. These “amateur” videos purport to come from fans of the particular product or feature and extol the virtues of the product.

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