Question

dentify an article in a popular, business-oriented publication (e.g. Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Fortune, Wired, etc.) that illustrates a current or past ethical dilemma experienced by a corporate business executive. What innovative strategies are corporations using to make sure that senior leaders make sound and ethical decisions?

Answer 1

Personally speaking, the recent article about Equifax facing ethical issues caught my attention.

Equifax is a credit rating firm. The ethical issue faced by the company is that the company makes profit by selling personal and sensitive information to financial institutions and to other parties. One of the worst data breaches by Equifax is when the company sold information of 145 million people which is approximately about half of the U.S population.

Richard Smith, CEO of Equifax, Chief information officer and the Chief Security Officer stepped down from the position stating that they were aware of the system flaw and how hackers are making use of the information breach.

Innovative strategies are corporations using to make sure that senior leaders make sound and ethical decisions are:

• Lead by example- this is the most traditional method. However, in today’s fast paced working atmosphere, this has become the best innovative strategy for leaders. A leader should adhere to high ethical standards and code of conduct. The leader should be willing to talk openly about any ethical issues and discuss on solutions to resolve them.
• Ethical conduct is an on-going journey and not once a year training. Every activity and task in the daily operations of the business should be based on maintaining high standards on ethics.
• Insisting everyone on meeting the ethical expectations is a very effective innovative strategy for the leaders. The leader ensures that he/she maintains the ethics at a higher level and then insists others to follow the game.
• Transparency in decision-making and clear-cut communication by top business executives will reduce ethical dilemmas considerably.

Conclusion- Thus, it is pertinent that all the business leaders maintain high standards in ethics and code of conduct and guide their employees in the same path for the success of the company.