The Management Bible

Chapter 16. Ethics and Office Politics

IT'S A NEW WORLD OUT THERE ...

Ethics and ...

• The impact of office politics on organizations.

• Understanding values and ethics on the job.

• Creating a code of ethics.

• The power of office politics.

• Who's hot (and who's not).

• Managing your boss.

ETHICS AND OFFICE POLITICS

If you've been in business for any time at all, you know that ethics and office politics are very powerful forces in any organization. Ethics is the framework of values that employees use to guide their behavior. Unfortunately, people are not perfect, and ethics is something that's often absent in organizations, as the string of relatively recent business failures attributed to less than sterling ethics in some seemingly upstanding businesses bears testament to. There's more pressure than ever for managers to model ethical behavior and to ensure that their employees follow in their footsteps, and it's the wise manager who quickly gets with this particular program.

The other powerful force in organizations, office politics, represents the relationships that you develop with your coworkers—both up and down the chain of command—that allow you to get tasks done, to be informed about the latest goings-on in the business, and to form a personal network of business associates for support throughout your career. On the positive side, office politics helps ensure that employees work in the best interests of the organization. On the negative side, office politics can degenerate into a competition, ...