A lack of ethics always results in disaster for a company. Companies which have a reputation for poor ethics lose clients, employees, and money. The long-term outlook for an ethically corrupt company is bleak. The only path to true success is to have high standards and morals and to demand them from all employees as well.

When companies play games with the rules or the law it always catches up with them. A company is just a big group of people. Once that group realizes their jobs are in danger because an executive is careless about ethics people will flee the company. Everyone likes a feeling of security at work; If the company or leaders are judged to be schemers or cheaters every employee will be job hunting.

Companies play silly games with employees and it often leads to results that would be comic, if not so sad. I was once in a large gathering of employees waiting for a monthly meeting to begin. The executives were late, as usual. One employee started griping about her salary being too low so another asked her what it was. When she announced it another employee said, how can that be your salary when mine is _________? The newer employee with 9 years' less experience had a salary that was almost as high as the long-term employee. This led to poor morale in the department and a rapid exodus of many employees.

If an employer asks you to lie or to cheat in some way you will feel uncomfortable and either get a new job rapidly or report the company. There are many strong people who will become a "whistle blower" if they become aware of corruption in a company. The long term consequences of shoddy ethics is immense.

If all businesses followed the golden rule and treated people the way they wanted to be treated the world would be a better place.

Learn more about this author, Madison.
Click here to send author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Understanding the relationship between business and ethics?
We want to hear your view. Write now!