If you work at a large corporation, two things are likely:
- You have an ethics & compliance department, and
- You never took a business ethics class in school.
If that’s your situation, you’re in luck. Your company is keeping people on the payroll to educate you about business ethics and to answer any question you might have. Take advantage of it.
If you pay attention to what’s going on around you, you should be able to come up with a business ethics question every day. Listen to the news, listen to your colleagues, think of a friend’s situation at work, and you’ll soon find a question to ask, like:
- What are we doing to fight racism within our company?
- What measures do we need to take before employees can safely return to work post-COVID?
- Can we work a second job to make up for furlough days?
In fact, even if you don’t feel the need to ask a question of your compliance guru, you should come up with one – every day. Write them down in your Notes app or on a piece of paper. Just one, but every day. Let them pile up until you have dozens or hundreds. Develop the skill to see what could be better, safer, more just. This will build in you an urge to do something.
If everyone imagined a better world, it would come faster.
The Ethical Leader 