Although as Canadians we sit on the sidelines of the U.S. presidential election primaries, it is interesting nonetheless to see how things unfold. One of the dynamics occurring is how contenders and news leaders alike are continually exposing the personal frailties of Newt Gingrich by raising the issue of his personal ethics and reputation for off the job behaviour. While the question recently posed by CNN threw Gingrich a little off balance, he quickly lashed back by saying his personal life is no one else's business. And now that the North Carolina primaries have put Gingrich in the lead, some voters might suggest this proves ethics indeed don't matter.

Yet, I believe if you ask any employee, supervisor, manager or shareholder, ethics do matter and how this is dealt with in the workplace also matters. It matters for the recruitment of new employees and especially new leaders, it matters for promotion and it matters for the general treatment of your employees. Finally, it matters for the type of organizational culture that you are able to build.

What are some of the ethical issues that arise in the workplace? The more common accusations attributed to senior management and executives include falsifying financial data, misrepresenting financial assets, taking bribes or kickbacks, and/or lying to shareholders. Currently, for instance, three senior executives from the now defunct multinational telecommunications company, Nortel Networks Corp. are being charged with "cooking the books" in order to make the company financial position look more positive.

Front-line employees themselves are not immune to unethical behaviour in the workplace. Employees have been found to lie to their employer or their customers, they've been known to falsify data in their reports, misreport their time worked, or pad expense accounts. Employees have been found to take credit for another employee's work, violate company policy, fail to report a conflict of interest and/or accept gifts and bribes. And this just represents a short list of the many examples out there in the workplace.

While it's one thing to read about a local volunteer stealing money from a community club, it's another to learn about allegations of spying against a Canadian naval officer working in Halifax. This extreme high risk ethical behaviour in an agency we have been taught to trust is truly shocking. Yet, at least one study suggests that up to 73 per cent of workers annually encounter ethical lapses in the workplace but are uncomfortable reporting their experience. And as can be expected, these workers became distracted and not as productive sometimes for months at a time.

How then do we inspire individuals to apply higher levels of standards for their behaviour? Then again, how can we protect our organizations from individuals who have the tendency to engage in unethical behaviour? While we have no control over someone's personal life, organizational leaders need to develop principled corporate cultures that create and maintain high levels of employee productivity and ethical behaviour. How can this be accomplished?

First is the development and implementation of effective policies and procedures that outline organizational expectations for employees. Secondly, training needs to be provided so that employees understand the expectations, the policies and procedures as well as the potential consequences for their behaviour. The approach to this culture building needs to focus on empowering employees rather than simply monitoring for non-compliance.

Some organizations begin to develop the framework by conducting a culture survey. Employees are asked to rate a number of cultural elements such as the openness and trust of management, respect in the workplace, rewards and recognition, opportunities for growth and the value of training and development. Once the results are in, a gap analysis is conducted, a roadmap for improvement designed and a new framework is implemented throughout the organization.

However, another strategy organizations focus on is to ensure they recruit and select people who have high ethical values and behaviour prior to being employed. This is accomplished through the application of psychometric assessments such as the MERIT profile. The Merit profile instrument assesses 10 elements of an individual's character.

For instance, a potential candidate with a low score for personal discipline will have difficulty recognizing what's important in making choices especially when the subject involves more complex processes and/or people management. On the other hand, a candidate who does not display a healthy self-attitude will find it difficult to handle those increasingly difficult challenges that are part of personal and professional growth. In other words, they may not be able to weather those tough times in the workplace and will soon go "off the rails."

Candidates who do not have a consistent and integrated set of personal values may find themselves unable to adjust to the rules in the workplace as in their view there is only "one right way." They cannot cope well where differences of opinion are abound. Then again, individuals without a clear personal purpose in life are not good at making the right choices.

While Gingrich lashed back at his CNN interviewers that his personal life is no one else's business, more and more organizations are recognizing a direct connection between one's personal and professional life. This has led many managers to explore the Internet in an attempt to determine if a contrary public image of their potential candidate exists. If there is a serious disconnect between the one side of a person's life being presented in candidate interviews and the public image found on the Internet, then the chances of this individual being successful in the organization are slim. Companies just don't want to take a chance.

All of these strategies need to be integrated as no one strategy alone will create an ethical workplace. However, the personal influence of organizational leaders in building a highly ethical culture is critical. Effective leaders need to have the ability to create a vision and mission and inspire others to follow it. Next, they must be able to operationalize their vision by building specific goals, ensuring followup, and monitoring milestones and accountability. They need to have strong self-assurance and deliberately build a highly competent team to support them by overseeing the implementation of various goals.

Ethics is a complicated issue and a grey area for business. However, I can assure you that trust for a candidate is not easily achieved when one's off-work personal ethics and behaviour so sharply contradicts the values and beliefs of your organization.

Source: LRN Ethics Study: Workplace productivity: A report on how ethical lapses and questionable behaviors distract U.S. workers, 2008