CHAPTER 10

Applying a Religious Lens to Ethical Decision-Making: My Ten Commandments of Character for the Workplace Exercise

J. Goosby Smith and Susan Schick Case

Abstract

People in organizations across the globe are struggling to make ethical decisions and avoid corrupt behavior. In an effort to help people develop a “deeper” understanding of their ethical standards for behavior, we introduce an exercise that requires participants to develop, articulate, and utilize their own individualized Ten Commandments of Character drawn from their religious and spiritual teachings, upbringings, and cultures. We draw on Telushkin’s book, The Ten Commandments of Character but, unlike the book, we do not prescribe particular commandments; rather, we facilitate a process enabling the development of personal ethical codes eliciting individually written Ten Commandments of Character for the Workplace. As a result of the exercise, participants will be able to clearly recognize, succinctly articulate, and act upon the foundations of their ethical decision-making choices, decreasing their tendency to act in dishonest ways.

Keywords

ethical decision-making, religious ethics, work-related ethics, anti-corruption, leadership integrity, moral character, exercise for ethical behavior

Introduction

There is an international crisis in ethical decision-making creating cultures of corruption throughout the globe.¹ Both economic and political interests now drive corruption, whereas it was previously the intellectual territory of moralists and ethicists.² Attempts to stem corruption exist everywhere, including Sub-Saharan Africa,³ Thailand,⁴ India,⁵ Lithuania,⁶ Latin America,⁷ China,⁸ Australia,⁹ the United Kingdom,¹⁰ and the United States.¹¹ However, many organizations’ and countries’ efforts to thwart corrupt behavior fail. These failures may stem from the predominantly culture-blind and legalistic focus of most anti-corruption education efforts. After all, big businesses and major world powers try to maximize their trade returns¹² not necessarily develop the character of their employees and citizens.

Current anti-corruption efforts focus on explaining legal requirements rather than connecting to and facilitating the elucidation of individually held ethical standards and tying them to workplace behavior—where much corruption and dishonesty occurs. For example, one national integrity system, described as a “comprehensive method of fighting corruption” comprises eight pillars (public awareness, public anti-corruption strategies, public participation, “watchdog” agencies, the judiciary, the media, the private sector, and international cooperation).¹³

However, none of these pillars address aspects of individual-level character development like being a good person, leading with integrity, practicing honesty, empowering people, sowing seeds of respect, and developing empathy. While explaining existing laws is necessary to stem corrupt behavior, it is insufficient because of desires for competitive advantage, egotism, greed, power, and control. These desires lead individuals to perpetuate grossly corrupt actions like those that led to the collapse of the Lehman Brothers and Enron.

Most ethical transgressions, however, are smaller scale acts of dishonesty such as deception and theft.¹⁴ How individuals behave and where they set boundaries differs based on what they think constitutes dishonest behavior. This depends on their own level of character development, sense of integrity, conscience awareness, and enactment of clear moral standards that they possess.

We tend to think of people as either honest or dishonest. We like to believe that a few bad apples (like Raj Rajaratnam, fallen hedge fund billionaire founder of Galleon group convicted of insider trading; Lance Armstrong, caught in doping scandal in Pro Cycling Tour de France that stripped him of all his wins; James Frey, involved in a scandal exposing his fictionalized account of his best-selling memoir; or Rod Blagojevich, former two-time governor of Illinois, convicted on 18 counts of corruption including trying to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Obama) are exceptions to most of us who consider ourselves virtuous. If this were true, it would be much easier to remedy societal cheating and dishonesty throughout the globe.

All of us face temptations. It is easy to compromise our ethics for personal gain, to dodge embarrassment, to impress our friends, or to save the time and energy needed to think through tough issues. It is easy to dismiss minor ethical compromises like the manager who misses an appointment but, being embarrassed to tell the truth, says that she was sick; or the salesman who inflates a travel voucher because he feels he is underpaid; or the boss who takes credit for the work of subordinates in order to get promoted. Each of these may seem minor, and be rationalized as not really ethical lapses, but as they become a habit, we lose sight of the principles we are violating. These violations compromise our character. In this chapter, we present an exercise designed to elucidate pillars of character by tying them to individuals’ most deeply held beliefs: those derived not only from upbringing and culture, but from their religious and spiritual teachings.

Factors Leading To Honesty and Dishonesty

In a wide variety of experiments, Dan Arieley and colleagues have identified many factors that can lead to people behaving more or less honestly.¹⁵ Some of the conditions increasing dishonesty include organizational cultures with widespread norms that encourage dishonesty, watching others behave dishonestly, benefitting from dishonesty, previously acting dishonestly, conflicts of interest, and ability to rationalize behavior. Surprisingly, the amount of money to be gained or the probability of being caught had no effect. They also showed that everyone has the capacity to be dishonest, and that almost everyone cheats a little, right up to the point where they lose their sense of integrity.¹⁶ It is this type of small-scale mass cheating, not the high-profile cases, that are most corrosive to society. These include things like white lies, secrets, promises not kept, overbilling, and putting others at risk.

In previous work, we defined integrity as “part of one’s character, consisting of discrete virtues, such as behavioral consistency between words and actions and espoused values and enacted values, across time and situations; avoiding hidden agendas and acting morally, transparently, and sincerely from internal values—even in the face of adversity or temptation. Such behavior demonstrates a commitment to principled behavior, standing courageously for religiously-anchored principles, bearing the difficult consequences of convictions and acting ethically and altruistically.”¹⁷

In the experimental research mentioned earlier, reminding people of moral codes, such as the Ten Commandments, had the most significant effect on increasing honesty. A group of 450 participants were split into two groups. They were given a matrix task.¹⁸ Half were told to recall the Ten Commandments; the other half to recall ten books they had read in high school. The group that recalled the books had widespread moderate cheating. The group that recalled the Ten Commandments had none. The experiment was repeated reminding students of their school’s honor code, and again with a group of self-declared atheists, asking them to swear on a Bible. In each of these conditions, the same no-cheating results were obtained.

These research implications are important for increasing anti-corruption behavior. Reminders of morality, at the point where people are making decisions, have a large effect on behavior, reigning in the vast majority of people who cheat just a little. This could include fibbing to round up billable hours, claiming higher losses on insurance claims, submitting mileage estimates above what was driven, recommending unnecessary medical treatments, creating unnecessary revenue enhancements with hidden fees and penalties, slowing down check processing to hold money for an extra few days, or charging exorbitant fees for overdraft protection and ATM use. Ethical transgressions tend to fall into three categories: forms of deception¹⁹ including lying²⁰ and cheating, stealing,²¹ and harming another or putting them in harm’s way.²²

These are the smaller and more ubiquitous forms of dishonesty that affect all of us. Cheating is contagious.²³ In studies of thousands of students by the Center for Academic Integrity, over 70% admitted to one or more instances of cheating and over 40% to some form of plagiarism.²⁴ These incidents involve contagion and acceptance because of felt pressure to perform. In 2006, a Harris interactive survey showed that more than half of office workers pilfered supplies, with 1 in 20 taking home plants, paintings, and furniture.²⁵

In order to effectively control corruption, strategies need to transcend the current technocratic approaches.²⁶ One alternative strategy is to focus education at the individual level so that leaders can more confidently make a morally correct decision when faced with an ethical dilemma. Leadership decision-making has been found to be important in fighting corruption.²⁷

Religion as a Source for Ethical Guidance

For many people, the most prominent strains of ethical guidance come from religion. We propose that the sacred texts of the Abrahamic religions can be used to remind us of the values and virtues we draw from them, forming the foundation for our moral character, including integrity. Whether a “believer” or not, we soak up ethical principles from scriptures, parables, and stories from the prophets and other disciples. Even atheists pick these up since they are woven into the social and cultural fabric of society.

Throughout the “Old Testament“ there are many narratives of disobedient heroes and heroines who maintain a capacity for independent thought and action. Unlike Richard Dawkins’s view in his bestseller, The God Delusion (2006), that religious belief discourages questioning by its very nature, the Hebrew Bible is radical in its endorsement of human questioning, seeking, and arguing. It allows for personal conscience, action with courage, and speech with candor.

In developing our own moral compasses, we can look to the major heroes and heroines in the Bible, all depicted as independent minded, disobedient, and even contentious.²⁸ Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Joseph’s brothers, Moses and Aaron, Gideon and Samuel, prophets like Elijah and Elisha, and biblical figures such as Esther, Mordechai, Mahlah, and Daniel are all portrayed as confronting authority and breaking laws and demands of kings. For this behavior, all of them are praised. They each initiate their own disobedience without any divine command, each standing entirely on their own authority. Thus the Egyptian midwives Puah and Shiphrah resist Pharaoh’s order to murder Israelites boy babies in the Exodus narrative. Similarly, Jochebed and Miriam, Moses’s mother and sister, hid him as an infant, knowing they were breaking the law.

Biblical figures provide even more background for moral courage since they also dared to argue with and criticize God. Abraham challenged God over the fate of Sodom: “Will not the judge of all the earth do justice?” Moses repeatedly argues against God’s intention to destroy Israel. Similar arguments with God appear in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jonah, and Job. Not only do these biblical figures argue with God, but they also disobey. Abel disregards God’s instructions to work the soil. Moses disobeys God’s command to lead the people of Canaan after the sin of the golden calf. The daughters of Tzelofhad demand Moses alter God’s law because it is unjust. Throughout the narratives of the Bible such resistance is endorsed and independent-minded men and women are held in esteem. The Bible explicitly acknowledges this pattern when God gives the name “Israel” to Jacob and his descendants, saying: “Your name will no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have contended with God and with men and have prevailed.”

Pillars of character are developed when individuals freely determine the kind of person they want to be and how they will live in and engage with the world. Virtues in Jewish ethics include making the world a better place, as well as questioning and challenging what is not understood, just, or ethically wrong. Strict obedience too is not a virtue. The importance of questioning and challenging based on conscience is developed from embedded Jewish religious values. In Christian ethics, virtues include following the example of the life of Jesus who also challenged current views of his time. For example, in Mark 3:1-6 Jesus met with resistance from the Pharisees for healing a man’s shriveled hand on the Sabbath. Working on the Sabbath was against the law. In sum, all of these heroes broke laws to bring about a more just society.

Religious and spiritual teachings help followers of those traditions clarify their most deeply held beliefs for acting with integrity and moral responsibility within the workplace, the community and the world. This clarity avoids moral relativity in actions where nothing is absolute and everything is subjective often based on obedience to authority and fear of repercussions. When people have clarity and moral mindfulness of their deeply held values and virtues that form their pillars of character, they are more grounded and consistent in their behavior over time and situations. Being in touch with one’s Ten Commandments of Character, drawn from values and virtues illuminated in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is one way to discourage small transgressions that can lead to larger ones over time. In his Farewell Sermon, the Prophet Muhammad warned his followers: “Beware of Satan … He has lost all hope that he will be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.”²⁹

Within organizations, this connection with deeply held values enables individuals to dialogue across their differences, check and correct assumptions, and find commonalities of vision and purpose. Groups of individuals who are clear about their boundaries for ethical action serve as checks and balances within organizations that can help eliminate many forms of wrongdoing. Such individuals’ conscious code of ethical action helps create an ethical culture without unquestioned obedience to authority where you go along with the boss because you are afraid you will lose your job. Of course people will hold different values, but that is true whether you bring religion into the workplace or not. With freedom of religion, rather than a workplace of freedom from religion, people will be more able to draw on their own moral compass and use it for ethical decision-making at work.

We are aware that it is easier to have higher ethical standards in good economic times. We do not expect people to be perfect. Susan Dwyer, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland said, “I think people have a great deal of difficulty being honest and straightforward.” As an Australian, she found Americans coy about saying in both personal and professional relationships, “This is an uncomfortable situation and I don’t want to do it.”³⁰ Being in touch with a religiously or spiritually inspired moral compass, including Ten Commandments of Character in the Workplace, will help individuals as they strive to be good and to do the right thing.

Our exercise aims to intervene at the individual level to better equip leaders to make decisive, ethical decisions to stem corruption of any form. We are aware of corporate wrongdoing at the highest levels and the high price whistle-blowers often pay for speaking up. They often suffer economically and emotionally for challenging their employers. Being highly principled, with a strong sense of right and wrong, is a luxury many believe they cannot afford.

Being aware of the difficulty of such high levels of integrity, and the importance of information on wrongdoing, federal regulators in the United States have announced a recent program to make things better for informants who provide fruitful tips about corporate wrongdoing. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission now gives a cut of penalties won by regulators to whistle-blowers.³¹ Whistle-blowers in recent years have been responsible for getting defective bulletproof vests off the market; revealing how the financial services firm UBS helped thousands of Americans evade taxes with offshore accounts; exposing the improper off-label marketing of drugs, kickbacks to doctors, and violation of Medicaid pricing laws by Pfizer; and disclosing waste and fraud by oilfield services company Halliburton in Iraq. It is not clear that people who commit these massive acts of corruption even think that what they did was wrong. Hank Greenberg, the former CEO of AIG, the insurance giant, which overstated its assets by $2.7 billion, criticized stricter regulations. He said regulators were turning “foot faults” (a tennis reference) into murder.³²

Ethical Decision-Making Strategies

Individuals use ethical decision-making strategies to resolve a dilemma whose resolution requires them to wrestle with notions of “right and wrong.”³³ James and Smith (2007) identify six ethical decision-making strategies that individuals use to determine what is “right”: (1) Kant’s Categorical Imperative (relies on absolute rules and universal laws of right and wrong that must be followed by everyone, regardless of what the situation seems to urge, no matter the consequences). By this standard, some actions (telling the truth, helping others) are always right, while others (lying, cheating) are always wrong³⁴; (2) legalism (bases decisions on societal or organizational laws or policies, with justice and fairness guaranteeing the same basic rights and opportunities to everyone). When these basic requirements are met, the responsibility of a leader is to give consideration to the least advantaged³⁵; (3) cultural relativism (using cultural norms to determine what is right, focusing on responsibilities to the larger community and to make decisions that support the common notion of good, not depending on absolute truth); (4) enlightened self-interest (determines the costs and benefits to the decision maker to determine what is right); (5) utilitarianism (weighs the costs and benefits of moral choices, seeking to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people); and (6) light-of-day (weighs costs and benefits according to the opinions of others using the likely opinion of important others to determine what is right).

Altruism, which we include as a seventh decision-making ethical lens, is based on ancient scriptures and traditional wisdom.³⁶ It argues that love of neighbor is the ultimate ethical standard, putting help for others as primary whatever the personal cost, a type of selflessness. This moral reasoning approach, much like communitarianism, has a lot in common with contemporary virtue ethics.³⁷ Many of the virtues of people with high moral character like honesty, fairness, compassion, generosity, respect, and empathy reflect an other-centered concern for people.

The Dalai Lama urges his followers to practice an ethic of compassion.³⁸ Judaism and Christianity have greatly influenced Western thought with their altruistic emphasis important to leaders and society. The command to love God and to love others as we love ourselves is one of the most important obligations within Judeo-Christian ethics. Some version of the Golden Rule is present in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Because humans are created in the image of God, we have an obligation to love others, including loving the stranger.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan in the New Testament (Luke 10:25-37) Jesus illustrates what an altruistic act is when asked what must be done to inherit eternal life. Jesus spoke of a man robbed, stripped, beaten, and abandoned on a road half-dead. Both a priest and a Levite saw the suffering man, but passed him by. A Samaritan, as he traveled, saw him, pitied him, ministered to his wounds, put him on his own donkey, and took him to an inn to care for him.

Altruism means performing an action and forgoing the fruits of the action.³⁹ It is rewarding in itself because it is considered the right thing to do. The righteous gentiles in Germany and other parts of Europe, who risked their lives to help Jewish countrymen and women escape during World War II when Adolph Hitler was engaged in executing his program of cultural genocide, provide another example of altruistic ethical behavior. The non-Jews who helped Jews did what they did based on selflessness, doing good for others, and serving them without expectation of reward. Similarly, Jews played an integral part in the U.S. Civil Rights movement. For example, out of altruism, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman ended up sacrificing their lives to help blacks during this struggle. Hospice volunteers are a modern-day example of the unconditional love portrayed in the story of the Good Samaritan, the rescuing of Jews during the Holocaust, and the sacrifices made during the Civil Rights era in the United States for equal rights for blacks. Hospice volunteers meet the needs of people who are dying, providing compassionate help without expecting anything in return.⁴⁰

The ethic of care is a contemporary altruistic feminist approach developed to counter the more traditional male-oriented approaches to ethics mentioned earlier. Both the categorical imperative and legalism theories emphasize action based on abstract moral principles, impartiality, and treating others fairly. Carol Gilligan (1982), Nel Noddings (2003), and others argued that women have a “different voice” to moral decision-making based on valuing human interdependence and caring for others through their relationships. They put the needs of specific individuals first, thinking of how people are impacted by decisions. Newer research has demonstrated that men as well as women often prefer an ethic of care to one of justice.⁴¹

The ethic of care has five components: (1) a focus on meeting the needs of those for whom you are responsible; (2) values cultivation of moral emotions like sympathy, sensitivity, empathy, and responsiveness; (3) specific needs and relationships take priority over universal moral principles like rights and freedoms; (4) barriers between public and private spheres are broken down; and (5) people are viewed as both relational and interdependent, embedded in particular families and cultures, with a need to take responsibility for others, and not leave them alone to exercise their individual rights.⁴²

When we compare good to evil, altruistic acts by moral heroes come to mind because they ignore personal risks to confront evil. Jeffrey Wigand is one of the better-known U.S. heroes, who as a daring and important whistle-blower was the industry insider who told the public in court, the Wall Street Journal, and on 60 Minutes that tobacco companies were trying to get people hooked on nicotine. He told of their extensive campaign to conceal from the public their knowledge that cigarette smoking was highly addictive and caused lung cancer. As head of research and development for Brown and Williamson, the third largest tobacco company, he believed that his role when he joined the organization was to reduce the risks of smoking and produce a safer cigarette. His courage and moral outrage brought great risk to his personal life, but also led to stronger government curbs on the behavior of the tobacco industry. This included tobacco companies agreeing to pay billions of dollars to states to offset medical costs they incurred treating smoking-related illnesses. To this day Wigand maintains that he did what any decent human being in his situation would have done. He did what was right, with no regrets, and would do it again.⁴³

Religion as a Framework for Anti-Corruption Behavior: The Individualized Imperative

Though the aforementioned ethical decision-making strategies are commonly used and cited, often as conflicting approaches to moral reasoning, they are also combined in a type of ethical pluralism⁴⁴ where more than one perspective is used in order to solve an ethical dilemma. An examination of the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam indicate that another ethical framework for anti-corruption can be employed using wisdom from these traditions. Since religion shapes many of the deepest values of people across the globe, identifying religiously oriented ethical decision-making strategies bolsters the ability to make sounder ethical decisions, providing a foundation for moral character, courage, and candor. The meaning and memories of religious teachings provide a way to analyze the consequences of one’s behavior. Who will be helped by what you do? Who or what will be hurt? What are the benefits and harms that need to be considered? What are both long-term and short-term consequences? Are you acting with moral virtues like honesty, fairness, justice, and courage; emotional virtues like compassion and respect; social virtues like trustworthiness and generosity; and political virtues like service and citizenship? These are the virtues that embody character,⁴⁵ with integrity the most cited.⁴⁶

In this chapter, we introduce an exercise to employ an eighth ethical decision-making strategy: Individualized Imperative. While Categorical Imperative involves the individual relying on an abstract universal standard that applies to all, Individualized Imperative involves individually derived standards to which one holds consistently, across situations, no matter the personal cost or temptation.

It is clear that many people do not use religiously derived ethical values in their daily business decisions even though they apply these consistently in their personal lives.⁴⁷ In Jackall’s in depth, multiorganizational study, Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers, he found that a “bureaucratic ethic” guided managers’ behavior where right and wrong was decided by those with the most clout within the organization.⁴⁸ The exercise we propose is to eliminate this ethical relativism that necessitates separating personal values, including religious ones, from work, in order to conform to those in the corporate hierarchy in order to please. As Case and Smith (in press) have stated, “religion links to our ‘conscience‘, our sense of right and wrong, which is developed through religious role expectations and internalized as our religious self-identity… Attention to our conscience makes ethical issues accessible, while listening to feelings from it guides our behavior.”

For many of us, the combination of stories and ethical principles from our religious or spiritual heritage are starting points for behaving with integrity throughout our lives. For example, the story of The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20: 2-17; Qur’an 6:152-155) is inspirational, providing a foundation for many current laws governing business, including truthfulness in transactions. They can serve individuals as a starting place for developing their “Ten Commandments of Character.”

One author has written her own guiding personal commandments of character based on her religion’s values and virtues for morally responsible behavior. They include commandments such as: “Be a person of integrity with a kind heart who demonstrates respect, pursues kindness, and caring for others”; “Exert myself ethically on behalf of others with care, compassion, and responsibility”; “Always conduct myself in interactions in a trustworthy and transparent way, doing what is right, fair, and just even if it creates personal difficulty”; “The highest form of charity for me is making time for others through dialogue, coaching, mentoring”; “Act with spiritual audacity by questioning and challenging authority when justice is at stake.” These Commandments of Character form a prism for determining behavior in her workplace and life (Case, in press). They are a salient part of her internalized character of what it means to be a moral human being and part of her core identity. For this author, integrity is standing for something, demonstrating moral purpose, and acting with virtuous behavior.⁴⁹

Building upon participants’ religions, the “My Ten Commandments of Character in the Workplace” exercise provides an individualized and practical litmus test for actions and attitudes about what is the right thing for them to do when confronted with questionable practices and temptations in the workplace. It helps in the drawing of ethical lines to consistently guide actions. It draws on expected moral behavior for acting with integrity that they live by as adherents to that religion. This exercise can bring them into contact with their own moral intuitions and values (which may be hidden) and create new ways to recognize moral issues. It is not an exercise to monitor thought, but rather to use voices from religious teachings to establish ethical ideas as guides for deeper thought about ethical behavior. Religious guidance is full of diffuse, and often contradictory “shalls.” This exercise helps participants decide which elements they call their own that answer the question: What does “right” behavior require? When they complete the exercise, they have developed their own concise guidelines and principles for action that take them beyond a mechanical following of rules from scripture.

Unlike Joseph Teluskin’s advice for living an honorable, ethical, and honest life, in which he provides specific “Ten Commandments for Character,”⁵⁰ we ask participants to develop their own ethical standards and take responsibility for them, figuring them out by listening to their inner voices. These individually derived Ten Commandments then become a self-help guide, assisting each individual in avoiding everyday compromises through a renewed consciousness using clearer thinking and an awareness of how to behave. It is our hope that their code will lead to not only doing the right thing, but a striving to use their Ten Commandments to do the best things they can at work, making ethical choices and living their life with meaning and integrity.

This exercise is specifically designed to help leaders and other individuals of the Abrahamic faiths more explicitly connect their ethical values with their faith, deriving their own religiously inspired code of conduct that stimulates high moral standards and counteracts misconduct. It serves as a decision-making tool offering clear ethical guidance broadly applicable to common and ethically sensitive situations. It is constructed in a form that is easy to understand and apply.

Assessing religious values and virtues leads to moral mindfulness. This is an ethically inspired attitude of endeavoring to do the right thing for the right reason (Case and Smith, 2012).⁵¹ However, this exercise can be used by anyone, ranging from those of different faiths, to atheists and secular humanists. Each of these groups can reflect upon their different religious, spiritual, or humanistic secular teachings and philosophies.

One of the authors completed a version of this exercise based on Judaism, with two students who practiced Islam, a Nigerian Catholic, and a self-proclaimed “anti-theist.“ All indicated the exercise grounded them in their value systems, understood the religious embeddedness of their values,⁵² became more mindful of their inner voice, and clearer about their own behavior in the workplace. They described enhanced understanding of what they would question and what they would or would not do in the workplace as a person of integrity and conscience, committed to their Ten Commandments of Character.

A secondary use of this exercise is to elicit commonalities in values amongst participants of diverse religious, spiritual, and secular practices. This assists in creating an unexpected community of shared values that enable organizational dialogue for the common good, rather than individual fear and suppression of voice. Such dialogue could assist in the recognition of moral challenges.

We believe that by helping individuals more clearly articulate their most deeply held standards for acting with impeccable character, we can better empower them to be decisive leaders who can quickly, confidently, and consistently make ethical decisions. The following exercise forms the basis of a new course in a management school on Religion, Business, and Leadership Integrity to be taught by one of the authors, in spring 2013.

The Exercise: My Ten Commandments of Character for the Workplace

Learning Objectives

This exercise has three learning objectives for participants:

The first objective is addressed by participants determining the salient religious or spiritual teachings and messages from their family and culture important to their views of what it means to be a good person, acting ethically with integrity.

We then encourage them to bring to the learning community scriptures or sacred writings that form the bases of these teachings. In the case of Jewish, Christian, or Muslim participants, this means bringing a copy of the Torah, Bible, or Qur’an to the session to use as a reference for the exercise, or other forms of traditional wisdom that embolden their behavior around virtues and values.

The second and third objectives are addressed by the “My Ten Commandments“ Exercise, which will be described in the next section.

Procedures

The exercise is conducted in five parts: reflection, personal application, initial refinement, workplace application, and further refinement.

Part 1: Reflection

During the reflection portion of the exercise students are asked to reflect upon their sacred teachings to determine a personal Ten Commandments of Character, a personal code clarifying their ethical principles to guide decisions in their work and life, and to help them resist temptations. What are the ten principles your inner voice holds clear? What does your religion tell you about ethical workplace behavior? Who are your top ethical role models from biblical narratives and parables?

The code each person develops should describe the very best version of the “you” that you can be, reflecting a thoughtful ethical self, confident of ethical choices, and imbued with a sense of integrity. Since it is used to remain true to oneself, there is a need for participants to listen to and educate their own inner voice on personal rules for ethical behavior. Each of us has an idea of what is right and what is wrong. We often do not listen well enough to see our compromises for what they are, missing opportunities for self-examination and growth. Since this is their code, it must work for each of them, inspiring them to think when they have choices.

There is a need to resist any temptation to criticize the ethics of others. The main purpose of the reflection portion of the exercise is improvement in ethical actions. The question for each person is “What do you want to continue to embrace and what actions will you discard?” The goal is to help participants clarify their own principles, which if not followed will not only lead to remorse, but also an eroding sense of integrity.

Because of the amount of reflection (and possible consultation) required to do this exercise well, we recommend Part 1 as a written homework assignment to be submitted to you, the facilitator, well in advance of facilitation of the other parts of this exercise.

Prompt

The prompt for the homework assignment follows:

Think about and identify unique temptations in your own lives. When you think about these ethical issues, which ones have left you with a legacy of remorse? Where do you need some clarity about what is right and what is wrong?

Present each value and statement as a commandment (e.g., “Value my time and the time of others.”).

Sample Commandment

“I will value my time and the time of others.”

“By the (token of) time (through the ages)! Surely Man is in loss, except those who believe and do good, and exhort another to Truth, and exhort one another to patience.” (Qur’an, 103:103)

The value of time is paramount in Islam just as it is important in the workplace. This surah explains that one should not misuse the amount of time they are given but instead should use it wisely and consciously. Being lazy or “killing time” is not acceptable as spare time should be used in the betterment of yourself or the help of your neighbor.”

When at work I will arrive on time, work consistently to complete tasks, be prepared when I work with others demonstrating respect for their time, and put in a full day’s work, staying late when necessary to complete organizational priorities.⁵³

Part 2: Personal Application⁵⁴

Ask participants to recall an ethical decision in their lives where they still have remorse. They may not know why, but it remains in their memory.

Part 3: Initial Refining of The Ten Commandments of Character

In this section have participants draw sharper lines for their ethical behavior so that they can ensure compliance with the standards they set. They want to have their code sharpen their own thinking and have it assist in changing their own behavior. It should be quickly accessed and useable without remorse.

Part 4: Workplace Applications

In this section of the exercise, we provide vignettes for students to individually, then in triads,⁵⁵ reflect upon and discuss what their Ten Commandments of Character would have them do.

With each vignette, students are asked:

“Using your own Ten Commandments of Character in the Workplace, please describe in detail what you would do and say if you found yourself in this vignette. Please note which of your commandments is guiding your behavior. Alternatives should be evaluated against each person’s own individual code. If you discover that you have omitted a commandment that would help prescribe your behavior in this situation, by all means, write it down for a homework reflection paper and refer to it on the Vignette sheet.”

After initial discussion of the vignette, then apply the following three questions to each:

Vignettes

Depending upon the size of the group, you may first want to do one of the vignettes together as a model for what the triads will do later. Feel free to use our original or adapted vignettes, or Telushkin’s vignettes in the Ten Commandments of Character, or vignettes from your own lived (or observed) experience.

Vignette A

Your present company is trying to minimize the impact of a downward trend in sales. In last month’s meeting, top management announced that alcoholic beverages were no longer being covered on business trips. This policy was instated to avoid employees claiming alcohol as reimbursable “food” expenses. This week, you and two colleagues are at a training class out of town. Last night, while you and your colleagues were talking and having dinner, you noticed that your coworker ordered two martinis. You also noticed that when your coworker requested a bill for his portion, that he requested the server to re-label his martinis as appetizers, without altering the price.

Vignette B

You are an Information Technology consultant. Instead of working at your company, you work each day at your firm’s client, ABC, Inc. One of the managers, Chris, who is the same gender as you, keeps making comments with sexual innuendo to you. Today, while getting coffee, Chris made yet another pass at you … this time physically brushing past you and commenting about how good you smell. ABC is your company’s largest client and you know that your long-term contract brings in a lot of revenue. Chris is one of the managers reporting directly to the cost center manager—who is the manager who contracts your services from your firm.

Vignette C

You are a student working to earn your MBA part-time while you work full-time. You are in your final course, Policy, which is graded solely based upon group responses to case studies. You find out that a close friend of yours took the class two years ago. While talking to her, you discover they did three of the same cases you are assigned this semester. If you don’t make a “B” or better in this class, your company will not pay your tuition, which is in excess of $900/credit hour.

Vignette D

You are in charge of recruiting a business analyst to work for your firm. You have attended three career fairs this month to gather resumes of qualified candidates. Last week when you spoke with your father, you told him about your travel and the position for which you were recruiting. Today, when you checked your mail, you noticed a resume and cover letter from Cory Smothers, the son of the CEO of your father’s company. While Cory has a degree from a top business school, he has no work experience. Many of the candidates from the career fair have had at least two years of experience as business analysts, as well as internships with top corporations.

Vignette E

You are a consultant and know that your bid for phase one on a project at $500,000 will be more than your client wants to spend. You could low-ball the bid to $250,000, knowing that once you began the work the client would have to agree to the extra work and the extra expense since they are already well into the project. You are tempted to understate the cost.

Vignette F

You are currently looking for a job. During the job hunt you accept an offer, promising the company that you would start on a particular date. But knowing that this wasn’t exactly what you wanted, and the salary wasn’t as good as you think you deserve, you continue to look for other positions. Two days before your start date you get another job offer, breaking your promise to the first company.

Vignette G

You are new to a job. While hanging out with your new colleagues, one of them tells the group a racist joke that has everyone laughing. You are shocked, finding the joke disgusting. Being new to your position, and wanting to fit in and make a good impression, you are tempted to keep quiet, and even consider smiling. Your personal ethics forbids deception. You also are afraid that keeping quiet might give people the impression that you approve of such humor.

Vignette H

A group of your friends live together in an apartment while working part-time and attending school. You see an ad at a local store that will provide a 50-inch screen TV free for 90 days. The condition is that you need to return it in that time period, indicating that you have decided you do not want it. You and your three friends are discussing acting as a tag team. Each would take a 90-day turn, ending up with a whole year of use of a TV you all were unable to afford.

Vignette I

When you were ready to leave a company party celebrating the success of a desired acquisition, you realize you have had too much to drink. It is late. You are expected home. At this time of night there are unlikely to be many people driving on the road. In spite of recognizing that you are impaired, you decide to drive your car home.

Vignette J

Sarah and David are single, mid-twenties professionals who are thinking about their careers after graduating with large loans to pay off. Both have been offered attractive high-paying jobs in growth industries. These positions also offer excellent advancement opportunities and about 50 hours of work a week. Sarah was offered a position in the clothing industry and David in tobacco production. Sarah’s firm uses factories in Southeast Asia for manufacturing, exploiting its workers who not only receive low pay, but work in unsanitary and unsafe conditions. David’s firm pays its employees well, including pensions and an expensive health care plan. David is concerned that this firm produces a cancer-causing product marketed extensively to teenagers. Each of them likes that these jobs would let them quickly pay off student debts and help them take care of aging parents. Both are troubled by moral compromises they would have to make if they worked for these companies (adapted from Dorf and Newman, 2008).

Part 5: Further Refinement

During this final stage of the exercise, participants are asked to reflect upon their group discussions of the vignettes. The goal of this stage of the exercise is to further clarify and make more specific (if and where necessary) the Ten Commandments of Character in the Workplace that each student developed.

Prompt

Now that you have tested the usefulness of your individualized Ten Commandments with a series of vignettes, take time to refine, modify, and further clarify them to enhance their usefulness in guiding ethical action.

Evidence of Participant Learning

One way to measure participant learning is to compare the list of commandments initially submitted from the homework assignment to the robustness of their revised list of commandments as a foundation for leadership integrity and moral courage to guide ethical decisions in the workplace. Learning is demonstrated through an understanding of the role that one’s religious and spiritual teachings, upbringing, and culture place upon one’s values. Through personal experience and both reflective observation and reflective writing, it is possible to identify abstract teachings, concrete real-life moral principles derived consciously or unconsciously from their religion, upbringing, and culture, and mindfulness of their inner voice.

In the newly developed course, short reflection writing will be linked to code development. This will include writing of a moment of remorse, ethics in the news, a personal definition of integrity and moral character, ethical and moral touchstones of character, exploration of exceptions, and applying the code to workplace scenarios. The last reflective writing that provides evidence of participant learning involves an assessment of personal learning and reflection on the code development process and outcome as a committed blueprint for moral leadership, acting with integrity, disciplined choices, and ethical guidelines for workplace behavior.

Tips for Implementing the Exercise

Unless you are a theologian holding a doctorate in comparative religious studies, refrain from correcting any participant’s citations (even those who share your religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs), even if you feel an urge to do so. In the classroom, particularly with assignments carrying such ambiguity, participants often seek certainty. Your role is to facilitate their process of reflection and discovery. It does not matter if they are “right” according to your standards; it only matters that they converge upon coherent, concise, and executable commandments.

If you are doing this assignment in an academic setting, we recommend excluding theological accuracy from the grading criteria. Instead, we recommend grading based upon coming up with Ten Commandments of Character, clearly expressing one’s ideas, and properly citing the bases for one’s commandments and their usefulness in guiding their actions. We advise refraining from editing their commandments. However, we encourage asking probing questions when you are not clear as to what participants mean.

Some students will feel uncomfortable with the exercise. They may feel that they are setting themselves up for failure. They may feel pressured to live up to the commandments that they put down on paper. If this is the case, ensure them that very few human beings always live up to their standards, but that they should always try. But do emphasize that having no standards is not the alternative to feeling disappointed in oneself.

Facilitator Preparation and Background Information

First and foremost, we strongly recommend that as the facilitator, you do the “My Ten Commandments of Character for the Workplace” exercise yourself before facilitating it. We recommend that you document (including a citation) specific religious, philosophical, or spiritual principles that guide your behavior. This enables you to give participants examples of what you’re asking them to do. It also demonstrates to them that you think this exercise is important because you have completed it yourself. This will enable you to understand intimately the cyclical reflective process that participants will experience. Finally, doing the exercise gives you the confidence to encourage students who may be struggling with the exercise.

We also recommend that you have materials from the major religions in the classroom while students are doing the applied portion of the exercise. This means, at minimum, having a Torah, Bible, and Qur’an available in the classroom. We also recommend having Telushkin’s Ten Commandments of Character present as a secular alternative to students who are agnostic or atheist. Character is an issue that transcends religion, spiritual practice, or faith tradition.

Conclusions

We believe that intervening at the individual level is a feasible complement to legalistic, compliance-based approaches to anti-corruption education. By encouraging students of all (or no) religions to simultaneously reflect upon, document, discuss, and refine their ethical behavioral standards through the development of a behavioral code, we believe that we contribute to equipping them to be decisive and ethical leaders in today’s ethically challenged workplace. Our work can also be used for dialogue where religion is viewed as a rich resource on which we can broadly build and draw people together around a common good.

Key Terms and Definitions

Abrahamic religions: “Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, listed in chronological order of development, are monotheistic religions developed in the Middle East originating from the same patrilineage of Abraham who lived 4000 Years ago.”⁵⁶

Altruism: argues that love of neighbor is the ultimate ethical standard, putting help for others as primary whatever the personal cost, a type of selflessness.

Christian ethics: combines elements of duty and virtue. (See perspectives on Duty.) The Seven Heavenly Virtues are Faith, Hope, Charity, Courage, Justice, Temperance, and Prudence. Jesus taught and exemplified Humbleness, Generosity, Forgiveness, Purity, and Love. To be more virtuous, which brings harmony to one’s soul and society, you are to follow the example and inspiration of Jesus.

Corruption: “illicit … behaviors, including bribery, extortion, fraud, nepotism, graft, speed money, pilferage, theft, embezzlement, falsification of records, kickbacks, influence-peddling.”⁵⁷

Cultural relativism: using cultural norms to determine what is right, focusing on responsibilities to the larger community and to make decisions that support the common good, not depending on absolute truth.

Deception: “failing to correct an inaccurate impression, feigning ignorance, not telling the whole truth, withholding information, sugarcoating the truth, or overusing tact. Deception is intentionally giving a false impression with or without telling a lie.”⁵⁸

Enlightened self-interest: determines the cost and benefits of moral choices, seeking to do the greatest good for the greatest number ofpeople.

Ethics: the principles of right and wrong that people use to guide their behavior.⁵⁹

Ethical decision-making: making decisions about dilemmas with an ethical dimension.⁶⁰

Ethical decision-making approaches: the thought processes and rationales that individuals use to resolve ethical dilemmas.⁶¹

Ethics of care: contemporary altruistic feminist approach arguing that a different voice to moral decision-making based on caring for others through their relationships rather than the abstract moral principles of a justice (legalistic) approach. Put need of specific individuals first, thinking how individuals are impacted by decisions.

Ethical perspectives: articulate, commit to and defend specific values, principles, and ideals by which to live one’s life that ground ethical judgments about who to be and what to do.

Harm: use of or threat to use violence against another person … also includes acts that may lead to physical injury to another … causing risk or harm to others.⁶²

Individualized imperative: individually derived standards to which one holds consistently across situations, no matter the personal cost or temptation.

Integrity: part of one’s character, consisting of discrete virtues, such as behavioral consistency between words and actions and espoused values and enacted values, across time and situations; avoiding hidden agendas and acting morally, transparently, and sincerely from internal values—even in the face of adversity or temptation.⁶³

Jewish ethics: is virtue ethics. Jewish virtues include tikkun olam, a Hebrew phrase meaning “repairing the world,” contributing to not only making the world a better place, but fairness, honesty, respect, loving your neighbor, being charitable, desiring to learn, questioning what you do not understand, striving for social justice, and ethically responding to others. Virtues are important because they help a person live his or her life in service to others, improving the world, community, and him or herself.

Kant’s categorical imperative: involves three principles. First is individual relying on abstract universal standards of right and wrong that must always be followed when acting, regardless of the situation or consequences. Emphasizes behavior based on abstract moral principles of obligation, impartiality, and treating others fairly apart from consequences. Some actions (like telling the truth) are always right while others (cheating) are always wrong. Universality means if an action is right for you, it would be right for everyone to act the same without inconsistency. A second principle includes that each person is of value. To use another person as a means to further one’s own ends denies their status as a rational human being. Within this principle is an obligation to devote time to improving oneself and helping other people. The third principle states the importance of freely choosing to adopt and impose specific moral obligations. This forms a guideline for moral awareness of one’s own freedom as a human being and the ethical freedom of others.

Kant’s ten commandments: sees the Ten Commandments as valid ethical commands. Criticizes that they lay no requirements on having a good moral disposition based on reasoning, but simply are laws to be followed rather than the individual behaving as a moral agent.

Legalism: bases decisions on society’s laws or policies, with justice and fairness guaranteeing the same basic rights and opportunities to everyone.

Light-of-day: weighs costs and benefits according to the opinions of others using the likely opinion of important others to determine what is right.

Lying: telling someone something we know not to be true with intention of misleading him/her.⁶⁴

Perspectives on duty: a duty-based perspective of the Ten Commandments says that you are to follow certain rules laid out in the Bible including not only the Ten Commandments but also many other laws stated in the Bible and other religious texts. It is possible to believe the Ten Commandments but understand ethics to be virtue-based. This perspective tells you to not violate the duties set forth in certain religious texts. Follow these rules to either please God who will reward you if you follow them or punish you if you do not. Others follow the rules because they believe they provide a foundation for virtues and a stable society.

Reciprocity: mutual action. In the case of an ethical code the questions to ask are (1) “Would I want other people applying this rule to me?” and (2) “Would you want everyone to follow this?”

Other shoe test: a self-test for rationalization, the process of constructing a justification for a decision which you suspect is flawed, blurring right and wrong, and distorting thinking. It involves the age-old question, “How would you feel if the shoe were on the other foot?” What would the other shoe test suggest you do as a further test for reciprocity as a step in making a quality decision by testing the ethical quality of the alternatives to distinguish between good, bad, better, and best.

Stealing: appropriating the property of others without permission … including outright theft like shoplifting, embezzlement, or swindling … taking or accepting something that is not ours, or acquiring another’s property without permission … downloading copyrighted digital files, profiting from others’ inadvertent mistakes, appropriate incidentals … buying under false pretenses, infringing on other’s property, underpaying, overbilling, and borrowing to point of violating another’s trust.⁶⁵

Universality: applying to everyone. Ask the questions: (1) “Would you think the same way if your behavior were reported on the first page of a newspaper read by your friends?” (2) Would you accept this behavior from your children?” (3) What would your mother think?”

Usefulness: practical, serves a purpose, beneficial, advantageous. Can be applied in a variety of situations and contexts leading to reasonable effectiveness or successful outcomes.

Utilitarianism: weighing the costs and benefits of moral choices, seeking to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Study Questions

Additional Reading

Ariely, D. (2012). The (Honest) truth about dishonesty: How we lie to everyone—especially ourselves. New York: Harper-Collins.

Bazerman, M., H., & Tenbrunsel, A. E. (2011). Blind spots: Why we fail to do what’s right and what to do about it. Princeton, NJ and Oxford, UK: Princeton University Press.

Cohen, R. (2012). Be good: How to navigate the ethics of everything. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.

Comer, D. R., & Vega, G. (Eds.) (2011). Moral courage in organizations: Doing the right thing at work. Armonk, NY and London, England: M.E. Sharpe.

Del Mastro, M. L. (2006). All the women of the Bible. Edison, NJ: Castle Books.

Eisler, R. (2007). The real wealth of nations: Creating a caring economics. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Gardner, H. (2011). Truth, beauty, and goodness reframed: Educating for the virtues in the twenty-first century. New York: Basic Books.

James, C. J., & Smith, J. G. (2007). George Williams in Thailand: An exercise in ethical decision-making. Journal of Management Education, 31(5), 696–712.

Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Pantheon Books.

Hicks, D. (2011). Dignity: The essential role it plays in resolving conflict. New Haven, CT and London, UK: Yale University Press.

Kristof, N. D., & WuDunn, S. (2009). Half the sky: Turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide. New York: Alfred Knopf.

Manz, C. C. (2011). The Leadership Wisdom of Jesus: Practical Lessons for Today. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Manz, C. C., Manz, K. P., Marx, R. D., & Neck, C. P. (2001). The wisdom of Solomon at work. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Mele, D. (2012). Management ethics: Placing ethics at the core of good management. Hampshire, England, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Pava, M. (2011). Jewish ethics in a post-madoff world: A case for optimism. New York and Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan.

Pava, M. L. (2009). Jewish ethics as dialogue: Using spiritual language to re-imagine a better world. New York and Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan.

Schwartz, B., & Sharpe, K. (2010). Practical wisdom: The right way to do the right thing. New York: Riverhead Books.

Schulweis, Rabbi H. M. (2008). Conscience: The duty to obey and the duty to disobey. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing.

Shiller, R. J. (2012). Finance and the good society. Princeton, NJ and Oxford, UK: Princeton University Press.

Wankel, C., & Stachgowicz-Stanusch (2011). Effectively integrating ethical dimensions into business education. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2009). The spirit level: Why greater equality makes societies stronger. New York: Bloomsbury Press.

Wolfe, L. (2002). Leadership secrets from the Bible. New York: MJF Books.