Workplace Values

This week’s blog is to discuss the following: “...discuss how your organization portrays its values. Share any examples where behaviors were portrayed positively by your leaders or an instance where someone was unethical in your work environment.”



Normally I would link to a website that portrays my organization’s ethics statement. We have one! However, these blogs are published openly and while some may know for whom I work I prefer to keep my workplace somewhat private. That in and of itself can provide some insight into what values I see portrayed where I work. To be clear, I work for an organization that does amazing work and, quite literally changes lives and saves lives. However, they are very image conscious. One of the things I hope to teach my clients is that one does not stop representing an organization just because you are “off the clock.”

I do work in healthcare and healthcare has many ethical conundrums that crop up nearly every day. Do we let a patient die that voiced a desire to sign a “do not resuscitate” order but became unconscious before it was signed? Do we let a patient become homeless in order to gain them access to better medical care? Or even on a simpler level…in my line of work I am required to be available in blizzards and other types of inclement weather should a need arise to bring patients in from the elements. At what point should my boss order me out? What ethical obligations does my boss have to protect my safety balanced against the needs of the patients? It could be argued that I signed up for the job so my boss’ obligations should lean towards the patient (a stance with which I agree) but my boss still has to make a judgement call.

Recently the office was contaminated by bedbugs. For those that don’t know, bedbugs are a serious concern for medical facilities. And while my office is not the hospital many patients that are served at the hospital also utilize our services. Bedbugs reproduce rapidly, and they can be carried home by workers without knowing it. They are very pervasive if left unchecked. So it happened that a client brought bedbugs into our office. My boss had to make a choice over closing the office or risking the staff bringing infestations home with them. In the end my boss chose to close the office and incurred some displeasure from higher management. However, higher management was dragging their feet in giving an answer.

My boss made a decision on the side of safety for her workers. This is an ethical decision. It isn’t a great leap of philosophy to state that making a choice to keep people safe is ethical unless we are discussing a situation where others could be hurt through the act of making one person safe. Our particular work can be time-sensitive but largely isn’t. No patient safety was compromised by our office closing for a day (actually two as one day was when pest control was fumigating the building). However, the upper levels of management were upset that they were not the ones making the decision. Policy-wise only upper management can close a facility so they were correct in reminding my boss of that fact. However, she still had to make a timely call to protect her workers. Was upper-management being unethical in their delay?

I would argue no they were not but they may have forgotten a leadership concept. Workers become unsure of leadership when leadership cannot make a decision. Workers also do not always have access to the same information leadership can access. Nor are workers aware of the daily schedules of some leaders. In essence, they are working in a partial vacuum when situations arise that require some degree of timeliness. What is important to the workers who are attempting to plan their week or arrange childcare is that they have an answer on what direction to go. If this information is not forthcoming they begin to lose faith.



Ethical leadership is more than just trying to make ethical decisions. One can be an ethical leader and still be a bad leader. Good, ethical leadership seeks to understand under what conditions the people that look to you for guidance are laboring under. While this situation was relatively benign the lesson is that one must take a look at how you look from the other end of decision chain.