Ethical behavior and professional conduct - are they different or the same?

Ethics is an umbrella term. Ethics encompasses the personal as well as professional conduct.

If I an Ethical project manager, then I am in accordance with the rules or standards for right conduct or practice, especially the codes set up by PMI. The codes assist me in making right decisions especially when I am faces with difficult situations.

How I can decide that I am being lured to compromise my integrity and values. The codes of PMI help me with that.

I claim that I am an Ethical Project Manager. John challenges my claim.

Now to prove my claim I need to depend on the 4 core values of project Managers - Responsibility, Respect, Fairness, and Honesty.

In sum, Ethics is the destination and professional conduct is milestones. Destination can't exist without milestones.

Hello Raj,
I appriciate your summary in the last paragraph. I agree with all the other answers/replies, but this is, from my perspective, short and to the point.

Ethics itself cannot be measured: we cannot measure moral principles. We can state them and expect to be valued and respected. As humans, we are different, we have different perspectives and therefore different understandings of these moral principles. This is why we have translated them in code of conduct which defines the behaviors we expect from those who adhere to the stated moral principles. It is our 'baseline' to which we can compare and measure the way someone value and respect them.