Success of Business Ethics - Essay Example

Business Ethics-Book Review In current times, a success of an organization is not only judged based on their financial profits, but also based on whether they achieve those profits through ethical means. Thus, ethics has become a crucial part of any organizations’ success, brand image, etc, and so it needs to be incorporated into every aspect of its internal functioning as well as in organization’s external environment. Most organizations only follow ethics in their external environment, thereby fulfilling their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). However, it is of utmost importance to include ethical aspects in the internal functioning as well, particularly in relation to gender equation between the male and female employees. Although, women in current times, are playing key, optimum and leading roles in various ‘spheres’ of life including business organizations, there is still some ethical issues relating to them in the form of gender discrimination. The book, GenderTalk Works: 7 Steps for Cracking the Gender Code at Work written by Connie Glaser focuses on these gender issues and the related ethical aspects. With certain gender-specific impediments blocking smooth communication between the male and the female employees, and also preventing women from reaching the top levels in the hierarchy, this book provides practical advices on how to bridge the gender gap at work and also how to provide a conducive environment, for the development of women leaders. Glaser focuses on how gender discrimination will be visible in every stage or hierarchy of organization’s functioning resulting in ethical problems, and importantly how the gender gap can be bridged. She puts the onus mainly on the female employees to bridge the gap in every stage, even while providing various situations, where the males have to take the initiative. Glaser suggests that male employees should ‘invest’ their time in establishing good rapport with the female co-workers. Females for their part should need to be decisive and this aspect has to be incorporated in every aspect of cross-gender communication including interviews. Females could face ethical issues or gender gaps in communication during the interview stage, particularly when the interviewer is male. In the book, Glaser provides valuable tips on how a woman candidate should approach and act during an interview. One of the important approaches women candidates should take is, taking due credit for anything they achieved in their previous workplace or as part of their academics. According to Glaser, in interviews, women mainly tend to speak more about how they achieved success mainly as part of a team, while men would take individual ownership to the achievements, even without boasting. “Because men and women lead and communicate in different ways, gender tension is inevitable. And, it can be expensive.” (Glaser). This is a key communication trait, because organizations will not hire teams of employees but a single prospective employee for a particular position. Although, speaking about their team work is good, female candidates need to put their individual contribution even more prominently. “Men and women lead and communicate in different ways, gender tension is inevitable. And, it can be expensive." (Glaser). According to Glaser, the other thing that needs to be taken care by the female candidates (and sometimes even by male candidates), in order to avoid gender discrimination and thereby ethical issues, is smiling at the interviewers and other personnel in an apt way. Apt way in the sense, although smiling creates good impression and exhibits one’s comfort levels, there should not be over the top smiling and excessive head bobbing. In those cases, the female candidates could be viewed as being immature and even ‘little girlish’, and not professional enough. Although, sounding “girlish” may not be deterrent to selecting a qualified female employee, it could sometimes have a slight negative connotation. This approach may not constitute unethical behaviour, however, according to Glaser it is up to the female candidates or any female employee not to exhibit such a type of behaviour, and instead project themselves, as strong and at the same time understanding professionals. Glaser throughout the book points how female employees’ use of certain phrases or statements could lead to gender discrimination and could also create gender gaps, using which the male employees could subjugate the female employees. That is, Glaser spells out few ‘disqualifiers’, which the female employees could tend to use in an organizational environment and which could make them inferior. They are, “This might be a stupid question...”, “I am not really versed about this ...,” or “You might already know this ... " (Glaser). If the female employees utter these sentences, it could mainly exhibit their lack of confidence and inferiority, and this could be aptly used by the male employees to subjugate them. They could be subjugated during decision making processes, during promotion opportunities, etc. Another widely used disqualifier by the female employees and noted by Glaser is their tendency to apologize quite often to all the employees in the hierarchy. Although, apologizing is a good trait when one intentionally commits an error and also to avoid conflicts, however, if one repeatedly does that, she may be viewed as error-prone. This negative image could also lead to subjugation of those female employees and could also result in gender discrimination, and thereby various ethical issues. Thus, the onus is on the female employees to aptly use the words “sorry” and “I apologise”. This will make them a kind of equal in the organization and will lead to bridging of the gender gap. Apart from pointing how ethical issues could arise in communication due to gender gaps, Glaser also focuses on how ethical issues could also be visible in the leadership roles due to gender gaps. As mentioned above, women are making giant strides in the business field and are occupying top level positions in many successful organizations, including Fortune 500 companies. The best example is Indra Nooyi, the Chairman and the CEO of the leading food and beverage company, PepsiCo. Glaser points out this fact of how women are rising optimally in the organization’s hierarchy despite ethical issues relating to gender in the book, GenderTalk, “Women hold half the management positions and their numbers at the executive level are rising.” (Glaser). However, at the same time, she also points out how women are still lagging behind when compared with the numbers of males in the top levels positions. This fact of higher number of males occupying top level positions could be due to natural, historical and social reasons, and also importantly due to organizational reasons. Although, most of the time, the above reasons could be true, in some cases, men could be in top positions ignoring or pushing away qualified women employees, and that leads to ethical issues. This fact was brought out by Glaser very well and she also offers steps that could be taken by the women employees to overcome this pushing down. That is, Glaser states that women employees, particularly those in the middle level management should not just do good work and wait for their superiors to recognise their achievements and promote them to top levels. Instead, apart from doing good work, they need to ‘sell’ themselves to their superiors about their abilities, achievements and how they can contribute optimally in the leadership positions. This is what men will do, if they want leadership positions, or even when they want to be part of some thing big in the organization or when key decision making processes is initiated. “Men don’t ask to be invited. If they want in, they jump in.” (Glaser) In the above review of the book, GenderTalks by Connie Glaser from the perspective of ethics and leadership, it is clear that the author has provided key insights into how organizations work regarding ethical issues. Also, she provides how certain subtle codes or words or phrases could lead to misunderstandings and gender gaps between the male and female employees. The leadership issue was also discussed by Glaser in an in-depth manner, and how it could lead to costly compensations. Importantly Glaser offers clear, real and practical solutions or corrective strategies to these gender and ethical issues, thereby making the book, GenderTalks an interesting, informative and thought provoking read. Works Cited Glaser, Connie. GenderTalk Works - If You Do It Right: Seven Steps to Cracking the Gender Code at Work. Atlanta: Windsor Hall Press, 2007. Read More