Reputation risk expert Michael Toebe explores two recent high-profile cases of ethical oversights that have produced very real consequences in terms of social backlash, eroded public trust and harm to the companies’ internal reputations.
Ethics are not intended to be fluid, yet it’s transparent that for some leaders and organizations that end up in the news, situational ethics are more common than uncommon.
That low-quality commitment to practice ethics is often accompanied by shaky or missing governance and compliance. The results are not without consequences, as whistleblowers do step forward and employees feel more empowered and are increasingly assertive — and the media is an experienced, aggressive watchdog.
Problematic absence of ethics or selective practice of them reflects a compromised mindset and accompanying dangerous attitudes and business practices, elevating risk not only external to the organization, but internal as well.
This is something executives, managers and boards of directors don’t often consider: the internal reputation damage and thus, the negative emotions, lower morale and, these days, higher probability of blowback.
Not-so-surprising outcomes include eroded or forfeited trust capital and reputation capital concerning leadership credibility and thus diminished effectiveness in…
