Page 227 - (DK) The Business Book

WORKING WITH A VISION 225

See also: Leading well 68–69 ■ Effective leadership 78–79 ■ Organizational culture 104–09 ■ Avoid groupthink 114 ■ Profit
before perks 124–25 ■ Morality in business 222 ■ The appeal of ethics 268

The company
The company’s recruits new The company The company The company
leader people for orients new publishes and recognizes
demonstrates their values people to its communicates and rewards
ethical ethical its code of
behavior. as well as culture. conduct. ethical behavior.
their skills.

A company must be proactive across its entire operation in order to make it
easier to do the right thing and harder to do the wrong thing.

the basis for ethical conduct today. very important. The Institute for
Aquinas also asserted the first Ethical Leadership, based in Stephen Covey
principles for the marketplace, Canada, defines an ethical business
pointing out that the price set as “a community of people working Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in
1932, Dr. Stephen Covey was
for a product is a moral issue. together in an environment of
an internationally respected
mutual respect, where they grow leadership authority, teacher,
A more moral world personally, feel fulfilled, contribute to
organizational consultant, and
The notion of what is acceptable a common good, and share in the
author. He grew up on a farm
in the business world today has personal, emotional, and financial in Utah and was bound for an
changed radically from earlier rewards of a job well done.” There is athletic career, but in his late
centuries. Slave labor was a shared understanding that success teens he was struck by a
the norm for cotton and sugar depends on a myriad of relationships degenerative disease that led
plantations in the US until —both internal and external—not all him to require crutches while
the mid-19th century. At the of which are under the organization’s walking for several years. He
same time, workers (including control, but which it can influence studied business administration
children) were exploited during through the ethical way it operates. at the University of Utah, then
the industrial revolution in Europe, An ethical business that employs spent two years as a Mormon
being forced to work long hours, people from diverse backgrounds missionary in Britain before
earning an MBA at Harvard
at low wages, in unhealthy starts by agreeing and documenting
and then a PhD at Brigham
conditions. A pioneer in showing its own principles or standards,
Young University. In 1983 he
that business could make a profit which are often termed the
opened the Covey Leadership
while pursuing an ethical path company’s “charter” or “code of
Center in Provo, Utah, which
was Welsh social reformer Robert conduct.” These standards become
later became the Franklin
Owen, whose New Lanark Mill, the reference point for decision Covey Company. Covey died
near Glasgow, Scotland, became making in the working environment, in 2012, at 79.
world famous for its moral rather particularly when employees are
than commercial values. faced with difficult decisions. Key works
Today, companies have to However, it takes more than a
consider every aspect of their written pledge to ensure an ethical 1989 The 7 Habits of Highly
operation—from sourcing business. Organizations have to Effective People
ingredients to marketing policies— foster a culture in which it is far 1991 Principle-Centered
in order to be judged ethical by their easier for people “to do the right Leadership
consumers. Employment policies are thing and much harder to do the ❯❯