Gray area, maintaining your ethics at work

What are your strategies for maintaining your ethics at work?

Your Rant: My boss has asked me to do something that feels a little shady. A friend who works with me thinks what he’s asked is OK. My wife doesn’t. I can’t tell if I’m overreacting, or if this is really sleazy. I can’t exactly tell my boss that I think what he’s asked me to do is sleazy.

911 Repair,

Maybe Lee Hosken can help you. He’s not an author or an executive. He’s a car thief, and he was so proud of his last heist that when he found a camera in the car, he had his girlfriend take his picture. Which probably would have been fine-if he hadn’t left the camera in the car when he abandoned it. You guessed it. It didn’t take long for the police to find him. They used the photo to put Hosken into a different picture-the slammer.

Now, Hosken was framed by his failure to think through the consequences, but you don’t have to be. The questions below will help you make some decisions about the ethics of your boss’s request and about how you want to respond. For more, check out Jeff Seglin’s book, “The Good, the Bad and Your Business” (Wiley, 2000).

Is what he asked legal? Many companies allow their people to telecommute, but I’ve yet to hear of one that will let you work from jail. Unemployment always beats the “big house.” So as a first step find out if what the boss is asking is legal.

If someone did this to you, how would you feel? Imagine you were at the receiving end of the action your boss is requesting. Would you feel hurt? Undermined? Treated unprofessionally? Take a walk in the shoes of the action’s “target” and you might decide to go down a different path.

Could you explain your decision to your mom or your CEO? Assume you do what the boss asks; now imagine your decision on the front-page of the local newspaper. Or imagine facing yourself in the mirror after doing what he asks. If those “tests” make you feel uncomfortable, you probably need to: a. find another way to proceed; b. talk to your boss; c. update your resume; d. all of the above. (Personally, I’d choose “d.”)

How will your decision feel over time? Don’t just think about how this action would feel today. Try looking ahead a couple of years. What will be its ramifications? How will you feel about it then?

Who will benefit from this action? Will this action genuinely serve the company? Or will it serve your boss? Or will it serve you? If the honest answer isn’t “the company,” it’s probably a questionable move.

Are you tough enough to do the right thing? Standing up for what’s right is seldom easy. But never underestimate the value of sleeping well at night.

Get the picture? You CAN avoid getting framed, but you’ll have to ask yourself some tough questions first.

911 Repair:

How do you deal with ethical dilemmas at work?

• I have no ethics at work, 8.4%
• Ethical issues aren’t a problem where I work, 44.6%
• I work hard to resolve them, 46.6%

User strategy:

I’ve put the sleazy direction in an email back to the person who’s giving it to me with the comment that I’m wondering if the action could be misinterpreted by the customer, the boss, or someone whose opinion counts and offer an alternative action that might achieve the same goal without the ethical ramifications. This email serves above all to document the situation. If pushed to the wall, I’ve refused pointblank to carry out instructions that I consider unethical or dishonest and I have quit a job over such issues. I realize that your correspondent may not be in a position to do so but anyone faced with dishonesty in the workplace has to be prepared to move on or be implicated when it comes out. And it will.