Relationship between Ethical Decision Making and Effective Managerial Practice
Discuss About The Antecedents Ethical Decision Making In Sales.
Ethical decision making is the ability of a manager to make right choices which are within the law and does not break any organizational policies (Lehnert, Park & Singh, (2015). Making ethical decision is significant in an organization because it allows for delivery of quality services and getting good sales in return (Delgado, 2014)). Ethical decision making relates to an effective managerial practice because when the managers make ethical decisions, the decisions leads to effective managerial practices (Thome & Ferrell, (2015). The herein essay reviews the importance of ethical decision making in effective management. The analysis will focus on the following managerial skills; ability to lead by example, ability to hire competent workers and education of employees. On the other hand the personalities that the analysis will majorly focus on are trust, courage, loyalty, and independence. The analysis also looks at my capacities and skills as a manager by evaluating them. I have used self-assessment method to evaluate myself and find the capabilities I own. I have also developed a plan that will help in the future to improve on my skills in ethical decision making which will in turn help me make an effective and a good manager.
According to Goodall (2014), ethical decision making is the process where managers choose alternatives which concur with ethical principles of the affected field. Business managers should always remove all unethical activities and try to make decisions according to the best ethical practices available (Bazerman & Sezer, 2016). Albert, Reynolds and Turan (2015) concluded that when making ethical decisions, a manager should have the following characteristics; one, commitment- a leader should always yearn to make the right choices regardless of the consequence. Second, a manager should have conscience and always apply humane and moral behaviours in decision making. Lastly, a manager should be competent in his/her work. Which means that he/she has the ability access, evaluate data before making decisions and have alternatives whenever problem arises (Cianci et al., 2014). Ethical decision making shows that the manager has respect for his/her profession. Therefore, he/she will earn respect, trust and loyalty from the employees (Curtis et al., 2017).
Holtzhausen (2015) suggested that effective managerial practices are the activities by the manager which ensure that he/she meet the objectives that he/she desired for his/her business or organization. According to Stazyk and Davis (2015), not every person who is excellent at his/her job can be a manager because management is an art that needs to be learnt either in school or though experience. For a manager to ensure that his/her managerial practices are effective, he/she should first, be able to choose the right people who will help him/her accomplish the practices. Second, the manager should be ready to listen to people problems and show empathy. Third, have good communication skills and lastly should be leading by example.
Capabilities and Skills Necessary to Promote Good Ethical Decision Making
Ethical decision making and effective managerial practice relate in that for a leader to accomplish his/her desired want, the manager should be able to make ethical decisions. Beattie et al. (2014) conclude that ethical decisions are key to effective managerial practices.
Managers need skills and capabilities so that they can use the skills to promote good ethical decision making in the organization (Voinea et al., 2015). The first skill is the ability to employ and hire competent persons. To promote ethical decisions in the firm, a manager should know how to choose people who work with him/her in achieving the company’s goals (Baldwin, 2016). For, example a manager should select board members of influence, affluence, and integrity who will promote ethical decisions. Furthermore, the managers should frequently supervise the workers to see if they are following the organization’s policies which are part of ethical decisions. Another capability and skill according to Baldwin (2016), is the ability to lead by example. Managers can promote ethical decisions in a firm by leading as an example. For example, a manager should follow protocol when offering jobs, he/she should employ workers based on their qualifications not anything else which is unethical.
The third skill is educating the employees on what is at risk when they do not follow ethical protocols at work. The manager should tell the employees who will suffer if they do not behave ethically. When workers are educated, they can improve on their ethical behaviour. Fourth, delegating time for work-A day has long hours therefore, a manager should plan how he/she and their employees will spend the day. The work should be divided equally to all workers to promote ethics in the firm. A manager should also be transparent with matters of finance. According to Soomro, Shah and Ahmed (2016), money is the main factor that encourages unethical behaviour in the firms if not handled well. Therefore, a manager should be transparent with other board members in matters of money. Other capabilities and skills in which managers can promote ethical decision making in a firm include truth, flexibility, good communication skills and motivating staff.
Soomro, Shah and Ahmed (2016) defined personality as the patterns in characteristics of feelings, thoughts and behaviors that make a person different from other people. A decision can be made according to the personality of the individual in charge of making the respective decision. Therefore, () conclude that personality relate s with ethical decision making because it predict how the manager will make his/her decisions. Personality characters are just how a person behaves, acts, and his/her attitude towards something (Inkinen, 2016). The example of personalities that can affect how a manager makes decisions are honesty, patience, courage, loyalty, trusting and many other traits.
How Personality Relates to Ethical Decision Making
Ethical decisions cannot be made without good personality of the manager (Soto, 2015). For example, honesty can make a manager decide ethically. The manager will be able to give true accounts of events and he/she will not go against any protocol because he/she is honest. When a manager is loyal to his/her country, all the decisions he will make will for the good of the country (Mabbe et al., 2016). Making ethical decisions means following the rules and regulations set by the government to check and balance a certain field and if the manager is loyal to the country he/she cannot go against the rules (Bègue et al., 2015). Courage personality can help a leader go against all odds and make decisions which is ethical even if the cost will be heavy. If a manager is patience in hiring employees, he/she can get good workers who will support ethical decision making in the firm. Independent personality determines how a leader makes decisions. If a leader is independent, when he/she makes the right call like not engaging in corruption, nobody will challenge the manager to change the stand hence improving integrity in organizations. No leader can make decision without depending on his/her personality (Hall et al., 2017).
In summary ethical decisions making is the process where leaders make decisions based on the ethics that are in place. The good ethical decisions lead to effective managerial practices that help the organization meet its objectives. The skill and capabilities that help in promoting good ethical decision making include leading by example, being honest, ability to select qualified staff, motivating and developing the workers. The ethical decisions that managers make every day are as a result of their personality like loyalty and honesty.
As discussed in the literature review personality determines how a leader can make his or her own ethical decision. As a manager in the in a bank I have learnt that my personality at many times have determined my decisions. I am an honest person. I do not keep secretes from my employees and board of directors. The honesty personality has been helping me in making financial decisions. I follow the organization guidelines and my profession’s ethical rules when reporting on financial matters. Honesty is a good virtue and has earned me respect among the board and my employees. All of them respect me because of honesty. The other personality that has helped in making ethical decisions is independence. My independence was tested when one of my seniors came to me and asked me to help him still company money at my work station. Corruption is unethical decision and is against the law and regulations polies for managers.
Summary of the review
The regulations state that a manager should not misuse the office for personal gain. Due to my courage and independence in making decisions, I turned him down and reported him to his fellow board members. That day I knew that I am capable for managerial position. The third personality that has made me a good manager in making ethical decision is loyalty to my country. I never do anything that can jeopardize the work that was entrusted to me by my country. As a bank manager my work is to serve my citizens thus all the decisions should not harm them but increase the services for them loyalty to my company helped me make a good ethical decision of not engaging in corruption. Lastly, fairness has been helping when employing workers on behalf of my firm. I do not employ persons because they are my friends or relatives but because they are fit for the job. Fairness is the personality that helps me achieve that.
As a manager I have obligation of ensuring the good ethical decision making has been promoted in my company through the capabilities and skills. I have done many activities that ensure good ethical decisions are promoted in the firm. First, I have educated by employees on the benefit of good ethical decisions and their implications. My workers know that in the bank, they need to follow the rules and regulations in place to ensure that customer get the best service. However, if the customer does not get the services and leave then their jobs will be at stake. Second, I hire and recruit competent employees who can make good decisions. Incompetent workers make unethical decisions which affect the performance of the organization. Competent workers know all he regulations of their profession and they cannot go against them.
The third skill I use to promote good ethical behavior is by leading as an example. All the decisions I make for the company are within the law and the policies of the company, which means they are good ethical decisions. Therefore, all other employees in the firm follow my lead by doing exactly what I am doing. That is making good ethical decisions. The fourth capability I apply in promoting good ethical decisions in the bank is delegating time by drawing timetable so that everyone knows what they are doing at what time. Giving each and every employee task to do improve ethical decisions because when anything happens the person in charge will be responsible, therefore, nobody would want make a mistake. Flexibility and motivation are other capabilities and skill I use to promote good ethical behaviors in my place of work.
Every manager should have goals which give them the purpose to wake up and go to the office and ensure that the goals are reached. Managers should also ensure that their goals are follow the S.M.A.R.T approach (Kaufman et al., 2016). As a manager at my bank, I have objectives which I have obligations as a leader to ensure that they are reached. The first goal I have for my company is to increase the trust our customers have on us and our services. Customer trust is important for any business because it ensure that the customers come back after the first service. Furthermore, we are a banking institution and we deal with money transactions. Our business depends on the trust of our clients have on us. Nobody can seek financial services from an institution that they do not trust. Therefore, trust of customers is significant for our business.
Another objective or goal I am going to focus on as a manager is to attract our customers’ loyalty. Companies should strive to get their customers’ loyalty. Loyal customers will come back and seek services and they will also lure other people to come and seek your firm’s services. Loyal clients advertise your firm for you. Trust and loyalty from my customers are the goals I want to achieve.
Gaining the customers’ trust and loyalty is difficult and many businesses have not been able to achieve it (Miller & Lynam, 2015). However, after a lot of study I have discovered that I can achieve my goals through making good ethical decisions through my activities as the management of the bank. I will devote some time and go for leadership training to learn more about good ethical decision making. As per now I have made some pretty good decisions but there still some challenges I am encountering when delivering my duties. The leadership training on ethical decision making will help me understand more about making good ethical decisions. My objectives relate with ethics. In every profession, there are ethical regulations that guide and protect both clients and business people. Therefore by learning more on ethical decision making, I will be equipped with skills that will help me in accomplishing my goals. There are many workplace issues that can make a leader lose focus in achieving his or her goals. In my workplace, some of the employees are not competent enough hence they are obstacles towards my goals.
I will also learn how to accomplish my goals by attending leadership seminars where the leaders will be taught on how to fulfil their goals. The leadership seminars also educate leaders on the managerial skills and decision making skills. Good ethical decisions that I will make will determine if our customers will trust us and be loyal or the vice versa. The time I will take in learning how to achieve the goals I have for my bank is six months. I will allocate the first four months to leadership training lessons where I will be taught more about leadership skills. The last two months will be for attending leadership seminars and conferences in improve my managerial skills in ethical decision making and goals achieving skills. The rest of my time will be working and monitoring to check if my goals are being achieved.
I will know that I have learnt the skills that I require to achieve my goals by first, seeing the increase of my organization’s net profit. When the profit of the bank increase, it will mean that my goal of winning the trust of the clients was achieved. When the clients are loyal and trust you, they will keep coming to your frim hence increasing your sales and profit. The other indicator is the increase in sales and products of my bank. The last indicator that I have learnt my skills is when my bank wins awards for being the best service delivery bank.
Conclusion
The above analysis was taken to make managers aware of the importance of making good ethical decisions. Ethical decisions determine the prosperity of a frim. The decisions are against corruption, biasness, and unfairness in the organization. The analysis also talks about the relationships between ethical decision making and effective management skills. Some of the management skills have been discussed in the essay. The data for the analysis was extracted from the internet specifically the journals published at the Google Scholar. The key word used to find data for the analysis are “ethical decision making, effective managerial skills”. I have learned a lot from the literature review. I have learnt the importance of making good ethical decisions and I have also learned that all the professions have ethics which guide them. What has surprised me is that personality determines how a manager can make his/her decisions. The knowledge I have gathered in the analysis will be very helpful for my managerial skills. The analysis has expanded my managerial knowledge and I will use the knowledge to grow my firm.
Reference
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