Ethical Dilemmas in leadership

Should you honor informal agreements of your predecessor? If the previous project director had promised to hire a consultant who helped her write the grant that funds your project, should you hire that person?

What do you do when an influential person, e.g., a tribal council member, demands that you violate a procedure, for example, providing a travel advance to an employee when the policy clearly states no one gets paid until after travel.

It's easy to say that you need to honor procedures and do what is right, but what about if you need that job to support your children?

When do you suspend rules to show compassion, for example, no one is supposed to get more than 15 days leave each year but one of your employees has a child dying of cancer and needs to go to Minneapolis to the hospital.

When do you let employees know about future plans? If your grant does not get re-funded and people will be out of a job in six months, do you let them know now so they can look for work? Then how are you going to get the last six months of work done?

What do you do when you know one of your fellow managers is engaging in unethical behavior, e.g. taking tribal property home for personal use. If a non-employee did this, it would be stealing. So, basically, this person is stealing from the tribe, but they are very highly placed.

When do you decide not to do business with a person or company because they are unethical, e.g. treat their employees unfairly, are abusive, come to work drunk, etc.?

You need to develop principles for dealing with ethical dilemmas before they happen. If possible, find ways to avoid ethical dilemmas, e.g., anti-nepotism policies, external audits of expenses.

It's personal..... Think of a time when you felt you were treated unethically. Please go to the Spirit Lake Forum and give an example of a personal experience with unethical treatment. Give an example of a time you were treated ethically.