Every average adult person has a steady system of priorities that are the core of his/her social behavior. These beliefs are called personal values that are the concepts with a hardly underestimated role in humans life since matching or ignoring them determines your level of happiness or satisfaction you get from your job. The aim of this essay is to determine the connection between my values and ethical decision making in the workplace, especially in terms of possible whistleblowing.
First of all, it is important to define core values before trying to predict possible ethical dilemmas that occur almost every working day. It was quite challenging for me to decide which things I appreciate the most since there are many adjacent and conflicting concepts but my list of values includes the following:
- Worthiness.
- Comfort.
- Satisfaction.
- Loyalty.
- Involvement.
- Partnership.
- Assurance.
- Pragmatism.
- Optimism.
- Reputation.
- Honesty.
- Balance.
In fact, I originally considered wealth to be my highest priority, but few minutes later I understood that money cannot substitute satisfaction you get from the real worthiness of your decisions and actions, thus, I can claim that I have reconsidered my values while preparing the given list which suits the features of the Utilitarian ethical approach. One of the main principles of this theory lies in the search for the best possible proportion of benefits and harms (Meeler, n.d.). The Utilitarian approach is the closest to my list of values since I try to assess the possible options in any situation according to whether they are worth of the consequences. Perhaps, following such pattern is not very useful while making an on-the-spot decision but every cleverly calculated action requires a previous reasonable considering.
Of course, one cannot make up an ideal list with no values capable of creating ethical dilemmas since it might be possible only in case of totally similar priorities among all people. Analyzing my list, I have come to a conclusion that there are some values that are the most productive in terms of formation of the ethical dilemmas. Honesty seems to be the most problematic priority from this perspective since sometimes it is hard to be an honest and an efficient employee simultaneously. For example, if your boss does not want you to report something, you should remain silent in order to save your job anyway, even though such behavior contradicts to your highest value (Marshall, 2014). Nevertheless, such sacrificing would protect other priorities such as worthiness or loyalty as soon as you get a promotion for a strict following companys interests. My personal experience has shown that an average employee has no constant possibility to match all his values, but once you start considering their occasional neglecting as the way of getting a personal benefit, it will become harder for you to save your remaining priorities rather than start ignoring all of the others. I see the best possible option of resolving the revealed ethical dilemma in keeping in mind the future benefits that I and my surrounding would get. In my opinion, constant matching of ones values is impossible because the working process often requires mind flexibility which is significantly restricted by the priorities. Nevertheless, everyone needs core values to be the basis for motivation and an approximate behavioral pattern since clarifying the values is the first step to the discovery of the global life goals (Pavlina, n.d.).
The most spread of the existent ethical dilemmas is whistleblowing. This phenomenon often forces a person to choose between being a law-abiding citizen and a loyal friend or employee. On many occasions, employees are encouraged to blow a whistle by either a reward or the absent fear of the possible retaliation (Tugend, 2013). These factors make a person forget about considering the intangible consequences of the whistleblowing decision such as the loss of trust and respect among colleagues. From the perspective of the ethical approaches, the issue of whistleblowing may have diametrically opposite interpretations. For example, refusing to blow a whistle might be a rude encroachment to the values of the employee supporting the Virtue ethical approach since this person cannot ignore his/her natural honesty while making an ethical decision (Meeler, n.d.). On the contrary, the Utilitarian ethical approach provides an employee with a bigger freedom in his ethical behavior. It means that a utilitarian can easily deny the option of becoming a whistle-blower as a result of considering the possible benefit to be worth of ignoring some conflicting values such as honesty. Moreover, it is quite paradoxical that a person following the Utilitarian ethical approach might automatically match some highly prioritized values such as worthiness, loyalty, and partnership by sacrificing the less important one. Of course, remaining silent might do harm to ones reputation but I would consider the reached comfort and satisfaction as the best possible result of making an ethical decision.
To sum up, I must admit that having a steady list of values is a solid foundation for a person to define his/her goals and behavior while solving ethical dilemmas that occur in the working place. In many cases, the attitude to the priorities depends on individuals preferred ethical approach and may vary from firm to flexible. I consider the Utilitarian theory as the most efficient and profitable in terms of whistleblowing since the final result would sometimes be an excuse for ignoring some lower priorities for the sake of top listed values.
References
Marshall, T. (2014). Re: Do The Right Thing: Making Ethical Decisions in Everyday Life [Blog post]. Web.
Meeler, D. (n.d.). Five Basic Approaches to Ethical Decision-Making. Web.
Pavlina, S. (n.d.). Living Your Values, Part II. Web.
Tugend, A. (2013). Opting to Blow the Whistle or Choosing to Walk Away. The New York Times.