Inspire to be ethical

I certainly agree with the other posts that leading by example is a good approach for inspiring others to act ethically. However, as leaders, I believe we are responsible for doing more than that. I believe that we should speak up about ethical violations more often. According to the Harvard Business Review January 8, 2014 article by Joseph Granny that summarizes his latest research, two-thirds of respondents to his survey reported regularly witnessing ethical infractions, yet only half did anything about it. To be sure, these infractions were relatively minor in nature (taking credit for someone else’s work, taking extra long breaks, and calling in sick when actually well). However, research also informs us that minor ethical infractions lead to major ethical issues in organizations with a permissive culture. I see this as an excellent opportunity for us to speak up every time we see or learn about a minor ethical infraction. In fact, according to the mandatory standard in the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct section 2.3.2 "we report unethical or illegal conduct."

I know some people will hate what I will write. Here is the problem with ethics. Things like the PMI Code of Ethics has no sence. Why? Because, between other things, there is no possibility for an organization to act legally against somebody who has not follow it. The reason is simple: project management is not a profession formally definied as you can find with medicine or other professions. On the other side, once again, ethic is a hugh topic to discuss from other point of view. But I could understand that PMI´s Code of Ethics could be taken as a reference point. The problem, once again, is that with a reasonable criteria companies around the world have created their own code of ethics because the nature of ethic itself.