Poor Decision Making Somewhere along your career line, you will have to make ethical decisions whether it is on your own conduct or someone else’s. The way you react could have significant implications for your reputation and your career. Recognizing the risks early on can potentially prevent many ethical problems from escalating. The purpose of this paper is to describe the common characteristics of poor decision-making with key examples of poor decisions made within businesses.Also to determine the how to resist unethical acts, and lastly to describe ways in which one can choose to lead ethically.
The three common characteristics of poor decision-making are failing to remember goals, overconfidence, and complexity of issues. Failing to remember goals, goals are the behind every great business and losing sight of goals that you once had could run your business into the ground and can be the reason for bad decision-making. Goals should be in place at all times and even revised as the business grows.According to Mike Dennis, setting business goals is a process that should be revised at least once or twice a year.
He also states that everyone within the business should have open communication to see others points of views about the businesses goals, that way you have a broad perspective on how the business is and can improve internally. Overconfidence is another common characteristic of poor decision-making because it can cause you to overlook important aspects of the company and its goals.Also at times people can become “Big Headed”, meaning they feel fearless and overconfident in the fact that if they make a mistake and they will not be caught. According to our readings it states that common verbiage such as, “Don’t worry, everything will work out OK. ” Is a likely a consequence of overconfidence and not of careful analysis that is necessary to make sure everything will work out as planned. Closely positioned and motivated by overconfidence is the malfunction of decision makers to realize the complexity of issues.Sometimes decision makers may recognize that certain information is less complicated when in reality it is much more complex than it might appear. Decision makers have to see the broad spectrum.
Also according to Mallor, Barnes, Browers and Langvardt fatigue, laziness, overconfidence and forgetting goals play a major part in promoting ignorance of critical facts. Sometimes when things become complex it can cause you or the company you work for to become unethical or you might even be approached to do something unethical.In situations where you are approached or feel the pressure of needing to be unethical there are several things to consider helping you fight the temptation or request, but first you must recognize the unethical request and then use the following methods: Buy Time- If you are uncertain you are being asked to act unethically first you must buy time to research the request, then if you found yourself in an unethical situation you must then go and research the reasons for the request and to seek advice.
Best services for writing your paper according to Trustpilot
Find a Mentor and/or Peer Support- have a support system in place to help back you up in your decision. Find Win-Win Solutions- researching the unethical request could help you in researching an alternative solution. Once you have tried these methods and you see there is no alternative to the request then you should go back, gather your peer, support group, and go consult the firm’s ethics officer to stop the unethical act. In doing so be prepared to lose your job. Organizations should encourage ethical behaviors of not only themselves but also their employees.Three ways to lead ethically are to be ethical, to communicate the firm’s core ethical values and to reinforce ethical behavior.
Ethical behaviors by managers and organizational leaders promotes ethical conduct by subordinates because creating a ethical atmosphere it rubs off on all personnel. Ethical behaviors should be recognized and rewarded. Should there be someone who was to act unethically, they should be held 100% accountable and possibly result in some type of punishment or termination.Together, strengthening the methods should implement ethical behaviors that not only reinforce ethical behaviors but also allows room to prevent unethical situations from arising in the future. References Mallor, J. P.
, Barnes, A. J. , Browers, T.
, & Langvardt, A. W. (2010). Business Law: The Ethical Global, and Ecommerce Environment (14th Edition). New York: Irwin/McGraw Hill.
Dennis, M. (2010) Setting Business Goals: An on-going process, Retrieved on 6/21/2011 from http://www. business-coaching-insights. com/setting-business-goals. html
