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Intrapersonal
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The Path to Internalization:
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An ethics code is disengaged and irrelevant, until it focuses and guides our ambitions, thoughts and behaviors.
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This article was authored by John Hawkins, Founder and President of Leadership Edge Incorporated. Mr. Hawkins helps university students and organizational leaders across America wrestle with the issue of developing a leadership lifestyle. He believes that this is essential for effective, long-term leadership of today’s chaotic organizations and corporations. Mr. Hawkins is an author, consultant, speaker, husband, and father. A copy of Enron’s Code of Ethics (July 2000) sits on my desk as a reminder. It reminds me that the easy part of living by ethical standards is adopting a code of ethics and posting it on the wall. The very challenging part is internalizing the code in our hearts, minds and actions. Not only is this the challenging part, it is obviously the most critical part. An ethics code is disengaged and irrelevant, until it focuses and guides our ambitions, thoughts and behaviors. The ethical compromises of Enron’s leaders and those like them in other corporations occurred while their code of ethics hung on their walls and sat on their desks. Sadly, their codes did not live in their hearts and guide their choices. It is at the point of internalization that many leaders recoil. In today’s language, “they don’t want to go there.” They are unwilling to examine the cultural requirements necessary for personal and corporate ethical transformation. This aversion is generally due to fear – fear of interpersonal conflict, fear of confronting their own ethical lapses, fear of loss of productivity and earnings, fear of focusing on the negative, fear of violating personal rights, fear of personal and corporate vulnerability. These leaders understand the challenge of leading their people to internalize the ethics code as being too difficult and risk-averse. And sadly, their ethical compass is held in a gilded frame and quickly forgotten. Leaders who pursue the adventure of building cultures that facilitate the internalization of business ethics realize that internalization is a personal decision. For the leader and those she leads, living out the ethics code is a daily, hourly decision. Each minute of every day the people of the company either heed or ignore the guidance given by the code of ethics. This reality calls one to introduce practices in the corporate culture that support and reinforce living by ethical standards. The question to answer is, “What can we do within the organization to give our people the support needed to make tough ethical decisions?” Answering this question is both challenging and immensely rewarding. It also requires a practical understanding of culture and cultural change. The corporate culture contains the individual, interpersonal and organizational evidences of what is really believed, what is really valued, how people really behave and how people prioritize that which is believed, valued and done. The code of ethics indicates what ought to be believed, valued and done. In every company, there is a gap between what the code says and what people actually believe, value and do. For example with Enron, their code stated the following: We are dedicated to conducting business according to all applicable local and international laws and regulations, including, but not limited to, the U.S. Foreign Corruption Practices Act, and with the highest professional and ethical standards.[1] Sadly, the direction that Enron’s ethical compass conveyed was not believed, valued and followed by a number of their executive leaders. Instead of compellingly leading the employees to follow the code, they nearly destroyed the company through their flagrant violations of the code. The code pointed in one direction, some executive leaders purposefully went in another direction. In so doing, they introduced into the culture a powerful message against believing, valuing and living by the code of ethics. Those leaders who seek to confront and narrow the gap in their culture between what the ethics code prescribes and what the people believe, value and do, must introduce into the culture reinforcements that support the individual, interpersonal and corporate practice of the code. These reinforcements need to flow out of a thoughtful consideration of the following realities. ------------------------------------- [1] Enron Code of Ethics, July 2000, page 5. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ page 1 2 3 © Copyright – John Hawkins – Used with permission |
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