Business Ethics Should be More Than Business Rules

While Business Ethics is getting much more attention in the press, in the Board room, and in the classroom, I am concerned that our definition of business ethics is sliding into a legalistic world of rules compliance. I was reminded of this today at morning Mass. The priest was talking about the story of Jesus breaking the rules of the scribes about the Sabbath, through his acts of healing and teaching about the greater good.
We have to be careful not to boil morality, whether it be in everyday life or in business, down to a simple list of don’ts that serves as a checklist of how to be ethical.
Business ethics should so much more than a list of rules to follow. It should be a much broader set of standards of how we treat each other. It is the pursuit of being good in how we treat our employees, our customers, our investors, our families, our suppliers, and so forth. That cannot be boiled down to a simple checklist. Being ethical, being good, is having integrity in all that we do. It requires courage to do what is right toward others, no matter how hard it might be at certain times in our lives.