One way to develop your ethical “muscles” is to exercise them. Using an ethics work-out gives you a routine to follow until you naturally follow your moral instincts in every instance. The “Principled Leaders” diagram below provides a quick reference for how to build an ethical habit. A principled leader is a person who puts…

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Imagine a workplace where people of all colors and races are able to climb every rung of the corporate ladder — and where the lessons we learn about diversity at work actually transform the things we do, think and say outside the office. How do we get there? In this candid talk, inclusion advocate Janet…

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What message is being sent by the recruitment tactics you use? For instance, is it okay to exaggerate claims about what the job candidate will get if he or she accepts the job? This video from Gregg Learning discusses how over-promoting a job can have bad outcomes for the business, including lawsuits from disappointed hires.…

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Dr. Kenneth Goodpaster, Ph.D., professor emeritus at the University of St. Thomas One way to think through a decision is to use the “four avenues.” Each “avenue” provides a different way to think about an issue. By working through all avenues, the final outcome is more likely to be ethically strong. The four avenues are:…

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Do you have an ethics problem in your organization? Or maybe the ethics of your workers is acceptable but you want to improve them? Perhaps your organization only has a few areas that need to be targeted. The reasons that leaders of an organization would choose to implement ethics training are varied. The best reason is that good ethics is…

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Successful businesses need to foster ethics and performance. Have you ever taken the high road and ended up looking down on someone who didn’t? That feeling of moral superiority is easy to latch onto and is a more common trait than most of us would like to believe. In a study performed at the University…

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Talking about ethics early and often is key to establishing a culture of integrity at your company. Every company has some sort of on-boarding process for new employees, whether in formalized sessions or more relaxed introductions. New employees have to learn about key colleagues, the management chain, clients, rules and regulations, new technology and systems…the…

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Businesses can take a few simple steps to create an environment where employees feel more comfortable raising critical ethics concerns. Every businessperson would like to believe that their employees would readily approach them with any ethics concerns in the workplace. But the reality is that many ethics concerns go unreported until it’s too late. To…

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The wrong vendor or business partner can harm your business and reputation. Here’s how to find the right ones. To paraphrase John Donne, no business is an island. Every enterprise, from a self-employed consultant who works from home to a company with a few hundred employees, requires the services of other third-party businesses in order…

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Your small business is always vulnerable to financial mismanagement ranging from employees “skimming” money occasionally, to serious, long-term embezzlement. But there are many steps you can take to mitigate your vulnerabilities. In our survey of small business owners and managers on protecting one’s business, nearly two-thirds reported being “somewhat concerned” or “very concerned” about ethics…

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