The world around us is filled with the opposites that are in a never-ending conflict, but that also constantly need each other to continue existing. Leaders and followers are a good example of a pair of opposites that frequently go into a clash. In the world of business, they are referred to as employers and employees or bosses and workers. They also represent the upper and lower classes of society. When one of these sides engages in an unfair action towards the other, this is recognized as unethical behavior at the workplace.
A number of company culture behaviors may push the employers and employees towards the edge and make them commit unethical actions towards each other or their peers. The world has heard of multiple examples of such actions from the cases of such companies as Worldcom, Enron, and Nortel (Joffe-Walt and Spiegel par. 1). In all of these cases, unethical behaviors of employers and employees resulted in severe consequences for the companies. The cost of potential harm that unethical behaviors can inflict is very high (Nisen par. 1).
This is why the companies put so much effort into the creation of strong core values and excellent corporate ethics within the organizations. The mistakes made by the employers and their employees are likely to result in lawsuits, lead to the loss of revenue for the business and also negatively impact its reputation. Such outcomes are extremely hard to handle and to overcome, so they tend to leave an imprint on the public perception of the company.
One of the practices that can end up as a harmful action is over-motivating the employees (Nisen par. 4). One of the main roles of the business leaders is to develop corporate goals, explain them to the workers, and establish the reward for the achievement of these goals.
When a certain achievement becomes the major focus of the employees closing to obsession, and the final reward heats up the motivation, the workers are likely to engage in unlawful or unfair behaviors to achieve the desired result and gain the reward. This corporate goal-setting error can be illustrated with the examples of Enron and the Canadian Nortel. Both of the companies motivated the employees to raise sales and show better results, which led to massive cases of accounting fraud.
One more practice corporate leaders should not forget about is using the proper vocabulary during the communication of corporate ethics and core values for the organizations to the employees. Avoiding actual names of harmful actions and malpractices, the leaders make them sound more insignificant (Nisen par. 8). Speaking about the concepts and behaviors that are unacceptable within the organization, a leader must call them their real names without employing milder euphemisms and comparisons. Referring to malpractices is criminal activities that make the communication more successful as it brings clarity to the employees considering the actions that are strictly forbidden in the workplace.
Besides, engaging in unethical behaviors from time to time is rather typical for all people as it is a part of human nature. In fact, many individuals perceive their behaviors as an accumulation of credit; this way, if they were well-behaved for a long time, they tend to become more likely to do a bad thing.
Moreover, human perception is tricky, so working in an environment where no one breaks the rules, an individual starts to believe that if they do something unethical once, it will not create much harm (Nisen par. 10). At the same time, working in an environment where everyone engages in unethical practices, an individual gets affected by the group tendency and eventually starts to follow the other wrongdoers.
It is also very important to maintain respectable communication between employees and employers. For example, one of the worst things an employer can say or imply to a worker is that the employee should be happy he or she was given this job (Williams par. 5). Such attitude increases the gap between the leaders and the followers, creating bigger misunderstandings and adding to the negativity that already exists between the two sides.
According to Alderfer’s ERG theory of motivation, the employees have three main categories of needs – existent, relatedness, and growth needs (Alderfer’s ERG Theory par. 4). Showing disrespect towards a worker, the leader creates a clash with all of the three categories because such attitude ruins the existent balance, aggravates the misunderstanding between the sides, and deprives the employees of the pleasure of further development as a valued professional.
Finally, fair and equitable compensation is a necessary condition of harmonious collaboration between the leaders and their followers at the workplace. Properly compensated workers have no reason to file lawsuits against the company, engage in workplace theft, or become disloyal to their employers.
In conclusion, order at the workplace dwells on fair and respectable communication, pleasant working conditions, timely promotion of high corporate values, development of strong business ethics, fair compensation, and satisfaction of the needs of both the leaders and the followers. If all of these requirements are met, even the flawed human nature would have a hard time breaking through.
Works Cited
Alderfer’s ERG Theory. Mindtools. 2015. Web.
Joffe-Walt, Chana and Alix Spiegel. Psychology Of Fraud: Why Good People Do Bad Things. 2012. Web.
Nisen, Max. Why Good Employees Do Bad Things. 2012. Web.
Williams, David K. The 10 Worst Things Bosses (And Employees) Can Say. 2013. Web.