Civil, public and private sector workers have been urged to uphold high ethical standards to promote the growth of their organisations in particular and the country as at large.
Professor Margaret Ivy Gyan, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana, who gave the advice during the 48th Mandatory Continuing Professional Education (MCPE) of the Chartered Institute of Administrators and Management Consultants – Ghana (CIAMC) in Accra at the weekend, said to be ethical was not easy, stressing that “it is difficult to be ethical.”
The day’s programme, on the theme “Ethical discipline in the practice of administration consultancy,” was also used to induct new members into the organisation.
According to Prof. Gyan, individuals who wanted to keep to high ethical standards were often taunted and vilified but that should not deter workers to keep to high ethical standards.
“Being ethical has short term difficulties but long term advantages,” she said.
Prof. Gyan who is the Vice Board Chairman of CIAMC, said workers who kept to high ethical standards in the short term would suffer, but in the long term would benefit from their attitude.
A corporate leader, strategy and leadership consultant, Dr Victor Abbey, who spoke on the theme of the programme, explained that ethical discipline was basically about a certain mind-set that workers needed to inculcate in everything that they did.
“Ethical discipline has to do with the choice between what is right and what is wrong. And making sure that at all times we do what is right,” he stated.
Dr Abbey noted that as a worker, one would face a dilemma in one situation or the other.
“At the workplace, on daily basis, we face the dilemma of choosing between what is right and what is wrong. But for me, I believe that in all situations we should ask the question, what would be the impact if I don’t do the right thing? If I do the right thing as well, what would be the impact? Obviously, to me, the answer would be the choice of doing the right thing,” he stressed.
Dr Abbey encouraged workers to be ethical in order to accelerate the development of the country.
“If we all begin to even be the change agents in our individual spaces, we begin to see changes across the nation. So at the workplace, when the right thing is being done by everybody, the culture of the organisation will change towards the point of change,” he stated.
Dr Abbey said the country’s current economic woes and socio-economic challenges could partly be blamed on ethical indiscipline.
He said ethical discipline would help address the socio-economic challenges facing the country and accelerate national development.