How to Make Good (Ethical) Decisions

When I was about ten years old, I decided to run away from home and ran (unexpectedly) into an ethical issue. I can’t remember exactly why I wanted to run away (as my life wasn’t exactly bad) but I do remember that I strolled out of the house carrying nothing but a penknife. I was obviously confident in my survival skills and overly trusting that warm weather would continue!

With my elementary school logic, I decided that a hole in the ground – in the woods not far from my house – was the obvious place to start my new life. As this den was also known to my friends it was not long before one stumbled across me as I cleared the twigs from my future bed space.

“What are you doing?” My friend asked me. “Making camp.” I replied, “I have run away from home so don’t tell anyone!”

My friend wandered off and I continued working. Then, about twenty minutes later my friend arrived back. Behind him stood my dad. I remember looking into my friend’s eyes, feeling betrayed but also knowing they had done the right thing. I was outraged and relieved all at the same time.

What are ethics and why are they important?

At that stage in life, I had no idea what ethics was, but I did intuitively know that my friend made a courageous moral decision that day. Ethics is simply that; it is making good or right choices. That includes big ethical dilemmas, such should we limit artificial intelligence or genetic engineering, right through to more everyday choices, such as whether you help yourself to extra stationery at the office for personal use at home.

Making good decisions is not easy. We might have an intuitive feel of what is right or wrong but sometimes the answer is not obvious. This is particularly the case when various values come under tension.

Taking my running away as an example, my friend had to balance the value of loyalty against that of care. Loyalty might have persuaded them to keep quiet as I had shared something in confidence, but out of care for me they knew the right thing was to tell my parents.

Therefore, sometimes values on their own are not sufficient. In these moments, where good values are in tension, we can employ a decision-making tool to help make the best ethical choice.

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How to make ethical decisions

One such technique has been developed by The Ethics Centre in Australia. The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation that promotes the use of ethics in everyday life and decision-making. They suggest a decision-making model based on considering values, principles, and purpose.

In this context (and using the wording of The Ethics Centre):

  • Values tell us what’s good – they’re the things we strive for, desire, and seek to protect.
  • Principles tell us what’s right – outlining how we may or may not achieve our values.
  • Purpose is your reason for being – it gives life to your values and principles.

Of course, to employ this methodology you must first know what your values, principles and purpose are, so let’s take some time to consider each in turn.

Values

Values are things we give worth, things we prioritise. The values (or virtues) we aspire to come in different forms, such as:

  • Personal values (the ones we prioritise as an individual)
  • Corporate values (the ones we hold in a community or organization such as a company’s values)
  • Universal values (ones that are held in common more globally such as the UN Charter of Human Rights)

Therefore, the starting point, when making a decision, is working out which values are the most important ones in the circumstance. If you have never properly identified your values, then I would recommend you discover your top 3 personal values.

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Principles

Principles help us think about what is right or wrong and, in this way, they complement values. These principles are essentially algorithms for behaviour. For example, when working in the British Army and considering a course of action the principles I was taught to apply can be summed up in the following question:

“Is this action lawful, appropriate, and professional?”

Many of our principles have a basis in religion. For example, one of the principles I (like many) try to live by is the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is the idea of treating others as we would like to be treated and this precept is reflected in various spiritual traditions. For example, the Hindu Mahabharata states:

“One should never do something to others that one would regard as an injury to one’s own self.”

Mahābhārata 13.114.8

Or in the teachings of the Buddha:

“Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”

Udanavarga 5:18

And similarly, Jesus of Nazareth said:

“Do to others what you want them to do to you.”

Matthew 7:12

So, as with values, there are some common themes, but it is also worth reflecting upon the specific principles you hold to. This can be done systematically if you take time to reflect on how you make decisions. This reflective process will start to reveal the underlying principles you use.

If you would like to explore more on identifying and developing principles, then I recommend reading Ray Dalio’s book Principles where you can see how this process can be done on both a personal and organisational level.

Purpose

Similarly, to values and principles, there can be overlapping ideas of purpose. These might be:

  • Individual purpose – your own sense of personal purpose
  • Professional purpose – the specific purpose we have in a given work role
  • Organisational purpose – the mission statement of a team or business your work for

To understand purpose and make it measurable it is advisable to create a clear and concise mission statement. A good purpose statement is a definition of success, within a given context.

For example, my own mission statement is:

 “To serve people by helping them unlock their leadership, in order to support them on their adventure.”

In this case, my personal purpose statement also encompasses my top three values of serviceleadership, and adventure (but this does not have to be the case). For example, Oprah Winfrey’s purpose statement is:

“To be a teacher. And to be known for inspiring my students to be more than they thought they could be.”

What I find useful about this (and good purpose statements in general) is they can give a measure of success against different time scales. Both the mission statements above can be used to consider achievement in a day, week, year, or lifetime. These statements also help to analyse whether decisions have worked towards the good and successful outcome of the stated purpose.

Factors that impact good decision-making and ethical choices

Even after identifying our values, principles, and purpose, or those specific to a given ethical problem, there are still factors that can impact making a good choice. Most of these factors relate to cognitive bias, the subconscious rules of thumb we use to help us make quick decisions.

To minimise the negative impacts of cognitive bias it is worth considering the following:

  • Education and training. Learn about decision-making and the different types of cognitive bias
  • Diversity of thought. Bring different perspectives to a team or decision
  • Build a culture that allows challenge. Create a culture around you where people are more likely to challenge or call out bad behaviour and decisions (even if that is just a good friend who will be brutally honest with you)

The three things to help you make good ethical decisions

Therefore, if you want to make ethical decisions you need to first know your values, principles, and purpose. Then, while allowing for cognitive bias, you can then balance these three elements against each other to make your choice.

This does not mean you will immediately come up with an answer. If you are new to exploring values, principles, and purpose then that will likely throw up challenges and questions to work through before you even get back to the ethical problem you are facing!

But don’t despair. The search for good outcomes and truth is a journey, not a single destination. It should inspire personal reflection, critical thinking, and the sort of discourse that Socrates would be proud of. And that quality thinking leads to good actions, and as Martin Luther King said:

“The time is always right, to do what is right.”

If you want the right answers you have to start with the right questions

About The Right Questions

The Right Questions is for people who want greater clarity, purpose and success. There is a wealth of resources to boost your effectiveness in achieving goals, your leadership of yourself and others, and your decision-making.

Wherever you are on your journey, I hope that you find information on this site to help you on the next leg of your quest. Even if that is just the inspiration to take one small step in the right direction, then that is a success. If you can take pleasure in learning and travelling as you go, then so much the better.

Need help navigating your journey to success?

I love to serve people, helping them unlock their potential, empowering them as leaders, and assisting them in achieving their goals. Please get in touch and let me know how I can support you!

Why Personal, Corporate and Universal Values Are Important

I am fascinated by the concept of values and their different types; particularly how they affect our character, decision-making and leadership. The more I explore this topic and implement the lessons, the more I am convinced of the importance of understanding values at every level, from the individual to the global.

In my own learning journey, I have discovered the impact of knowing my core values and applying that to my life choices. As a coach, I have witnessed the transformation that exploring personal values can have; seeing people gain a deeper understanding of themselves and others.  As a leader, I have seen the impact of leading authentically, by my principles, and the transformation of groups into high-performing teams, when they properly understand and behave according to their shared values.

I have also witnessed first-hand the friction when people breach universal values on the international stage and the terrible conflict that results. Now, as we live through yet another terrible war in Ukraine, it is important to reflect on what these values are and how we should respond. Not only that, there are other crises, such as environmental change – wicked problems – that require a principled approach if we are ever going to tackle them.

An overview of what values are

This specific post looks at the different levels of values and brings together the differing perspectives, paradigms, and insights that I have shared in the most recent ten articles in my Leadership Unlocked column. This post provides an overview of the topic as well as embedded hyperlinks to help you explore in more depth any area that particularly piques your interest.

The different types of values

Firstly, we should ask the question, what are values? Among other things, values are principles, standards, judgements, beliefs, and priorities. They are things we give worth, a concept that is explored in How We All Worship Something (and Why That’s Important).

Broadly, values can be categorised into three types:

  • Personal values
  • Corporate values
  • Universal values

These different types of values tend to overlap and have some commonalities but the way these values are expressed and prioritised is often subtly different at each level. These can be visualised as overlapping spheres or ellipses, as in the diagram below.

Different typoes of values and how they overlap

Let’s look at each type of value in turn:

Personal values

Personal values are the specific combination of values that best reflect our character and preferences. For example, these could be compassion, courage, honesty, or any number of other virtues. For me, adventure and inquisitiveness are core personal values.

Finding your personal values is an important part of self-awareness. As the Greek philosophers said, the starting point of wisdom is to know thyself. Self-inquiry is the start of self-improvement, as explained in Why Socrates is the Father of Self Improvement.

Our values reflect our sense of identity. If we are not true to our values we become inauthentic – an imposter – as explored in How to Smash Imposter Syndrome: Don’t Be a Job Title.

Understanding our personal values is also important in terms of mental health and physical wellbeing. Our values help us to gauge our performance and energy levels, as seen in Burnout Prevention: How to Monitor the Essentials.

And once we find our personal values, we become better at achieving things; we align ourselves to our values to achieve our targets. In other words, to achieve your aim you need to know and apply your principles.

But it does not stop there. We need to constantly re-examine our values. We change and our situation changes. These changes can cause misalignments between ourselves and these actions. This can lead to feelings of frustration and unhappiness, as I have experienced and shared in My Mid-life Crisis and How to Re-find Happiness.

Corporate values

Corporate values are the precepts we hold in common within a family, team, organisation, or people group. These are the principles that bind a group of people together for a particular purpose.

Many organisations have statements that include values such as integrity, creativity, and collaboration. These values should be visible in the behaviour of an organisation, as explained by the Iceberg Model of culture.

If organisations don’t take their values and culture into account then things can go very wrong, especially when they are implementing change programmes, as explained in How to Stop Culture Eating Your Strategy for Breakfast.

Universal values

Universal values are core virtues that transcend individuals, organisations, and national borders. Examples of these would include those enshrined in the United Nations Charter, such as peace, freedom, equal rights, and human dignity.

We often examine values through a very personal lens, and this is important, but this can often limit our ideas of success, both in time and level of impact. Values or virtues should help us define what achievement really means. This success goes beyond just us as individuals as none of us can live a life without interacting with and influencing others. Therefore, we cannot examine values in isolation. Personal values are nothing without the context of corporate and universal values.

There can often be a difference between how we try to sell ourselves – through our CV or on social media – and what really matters when we consider the perspective of universal values. What does success actually mean in this life? The author David Brooks challenges the question “what do I want from life?” and asks another question, “what does life ask of me?” This challenging idea is explored further in What is the Difference Between Eulogy Virtues and Resume Values.

How values can reveal your personal purpose

Here is another way to look at the three types of values (personal, corporate, and universal) intersect. This time we have three overlapping circles.

Where values overlap can give us insight to our purpose

Each of us has a unique expression of how and where these circles meet. When you have explored and understood each different sphere you should have a better idea of where and how the values overlap.

Why is that important? Well, this intersection can give us a great insight into the specific role we can play, and the special impact that we can bring to the world. We may not feel we can change the whole world, but we can certainly change our world; the environment and the community we live in. This opportunity, where our values align and can bring the greatest impact, can reveal our personal or life purpose.

So, what is that place for you?

If you want the right answers you have to start with the right questions

About The Right Questions

The Right Questions is for people who want greater clarity, purpose and success. There is a wealth of resources to boost your effectiveness in achieving goals, your leadership of yourself and others, and your decision-making.

Wherever you are on your journey, I hope that you find information on this site to help you on the next leg of your quest. Even if that is just the inspiration to take one small step in the right direction, then that is a success. If you can take pleasure in learning and travelling as you go, then so much the better.

Need help navigating your journey to success?

I love to serve people, helping them unlock their potential, empowering them as leaders, and assisting them in achieving their goals. Please get in touch and let me know how I can support you!

How to Make Good (Ethical) Decisions

When I was about ten years old, I decided to run away from home and ran (unexpectedly) into an ethical issue. I can’t remember exactly why I wanted to run away (as my life wasn’t exactly bad) but I do remember that I strolled out of the house carrying nothing but a penknife. I was obviously confident in my survival skills and overly trusting that warm weather would continue!

With my elementary school logic, I decided that a hole in the ground – in the woods not far from my house – was the obvious place to start my new life. As this den was also known to my friends it was not long before one stumbled across me as I cleared the twigs from my future bed space.

“What are you doing?” My friend asked me. “Making camp.” I replied, “I have run away from home so don’t tell anyone!”

My friend wandered off and I continued working. Then, about twenty minutes later my friend arrived back. Behind him stood my dad. I remember looking into my friend’s eyes, feeling betrayed but also knowing they had done the right thing. I was outraged and relieved all at the same time.

What are ethics and why are they important?

At that stage in life, I had no idea what ethics was, but I did intuitively know that my friend made a courageous moral decision that day. Ethics is simply that; it is making good or right choices. That includes big ethical dilemmas, such should we limit artificial intelligence or genetic engineering, right through to more everyday choices, such as whether you help yourself to extra stationery at the office for personal use at home.

Making good decisions is not easy. We might have an intuitive feel of what is right or wrong but sometimes the answer is not obvious. This is particularly the case when various values come under tension.

Taking my running away as an example, my friend had to balance the value of loyalty against that of care. Loyalty might have persuaded them to keep quiet as I had shared something in confidence, but out of care for me they knew the right thing was to tell my parents.

Therefore, sometimes values on their own are not sufficient. In these moments, where good values are in tension, we can employ a decision-making tool to help make the best ethical choice.

How to make ethical decisions

One such technique has been developed by The Ethics Centre in Australia. The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation that promotes the use of ethics in everyday life and decision-making. They suggest a decision-making model based on considering values, principles, and purpose.

In this context (and using the wording of The Ethics Centre):

  • Values tell us what’s good – they’re the things we strive for, desire, and seek to protect.
  • Principles tell us what’s right – outlining how we may or may not achieve our values.
  • Purpose is your reason for being – it gives life to your values and principles.

Of course, to employ this methodology you must first know what your values, principles and purpose are, so let’s take some time to consider each in turn.

Values

Values are things we give worth, things we prioritise. The values (or virtues) we aspire to come in different forms, such as:

  • Personal values (the ones we prioritise as an individual)
  • Corporate values (the ones we hold in a community or organization such as a company’s values)
  • Universal values (ones that are held in common more globally such as the UN Charter of Human Rights)

Therefore, the starting point, when making a decision, is working out which values are the most important ones in the circumstance. If you have never properly identified your values, then I would recommend you discover your top 3 personal values.

Principles

Principles help us think about what is right or wrong and, in this way, they complement values. These principles are essentially algorithms for behaviour. For example, when working in the British Army and considering a course of action the principles I was taught to apply can be summed up in the following question:

“Is this action lawful, appropriate, and professional?”

Many of our principles have a basis in religion. For example, one of the principles I (like many) try to live by is the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is the idea of treating others as we would like to be treated and this precept is reflected in various spiritual traditions. For example, the Hindu Mahabharata states:

“One should never do something to others that one would regard as an injury to one’s own self.”

Mahābhārata 13.114.8

Or in the teachings of the Buddha:

“Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”

Udanavarga 5:18

And similarly, Jesus of Nazareth said:

“Do to others what you want them to do to you.”

Matthew 7:12

So, as with values, there are some common themes, but it is also worth reflecting upon the specific principles you hold to. This can be done systematically if you take time to reflect on how you make decisions. This reflective process will start to reveal the underlying principles you use.

If you would like to explore more on identifying and developing principles, then I recommend reading Ray Dalio’s book Principles where you can see how this process can be done on both a personal and organisational level.

Purpose

Similarly, to values and principles, there can be overlapping ideas of purpose. These might be:

  • Individual purpose – your own sense of personal purpose
  • Professional purpose – the specific purpose we have in a given work role
  • Organisational purpose – the mission statement of a team or business your work for

To understand purpose and make it measurable it is advisable to create a clear and concise mission statement. A good purpose statement is a definition of success, within a given context.

For example, my own mission statement is:

 “To serve people by helping them unlock their leadership, in order to support them on their adventure.”

In this case, my personal purpose statement also encompasses my top three values of serviceleadership, and adventure (but this does not have to be the case). For example, Oprah Winfrey’s purpose statement is:

“To be a teacher. And to be known for inspiring my students to be more than they thought they could be.”

What I find useful about this (and good purpose statements in general) is they can give a measure of success against different time scales. Both the mission statements above can be used to consider achievement in a day, week, year, or lifetime. These statements also help to analyse whether decisions have worked towards the good and successful outcome of the stated purpose.

Factors that impact good decision-making and ethical choices

Even after identifying our values, principles, and purpose, or those specific to a given ethical problem, there are still factors that can impact making a good choice. Most of these factors relate to cognitive bias, the subconscious rules of thumb we use to help us make quick decisions.

To minimise the negative impacts of cognitive bias it is worth considering the following:

  • Education and training. Learn about decision-making and the different types of cognitive bias
  • Diversity of thought. Bring different perspectives to a team or decision
  • Build a culture that allows challenge. Create a culture around you where people are more likely to challenge or call out bad behaviour and decisions (even if that is just a good friend who will be brutally honest with you)

The three things to help you make good ethical decisions

Therefore, if you want to make ethical decisions you need to first know your values, principles, and purpose. Then, while allowing for cognitive bias, you can then balance these three elements against each other to make your choice.

This does not mean you will immediately come up with an answer. If you are new to exploring values, principles, and purpose then that will likely throw up challenges and questions to work through before you even get back to the ethical problem you are facing!

But don’t despair. The search for good outcomes and truth is a journey, not a single destination. It should inspire personal reflection, critical thinking, and the sort of discourse that Socrates would be proud of. And that quality thinking leads to good actions, and as Martin Luther King said:

“The time is always right, to do what is right.”

If you want the right answers you have to start with the right questions

About The Right Questions

The Right Questions is for people who want greater clarity, purpose and success. There is a wealth of resources to boost your effectiveness in achieving goals, your leadership of yourself and others, and your decision-making.

Wherever you are on your journey, I hope that you find information on this site to help you on the next leg of your quest. Even if that is just the inspiration to take one small step in the right direction, then that is a success. If you can take pleasure in learning and travelling as you go, then so much the better.

Need help navigating your journey to success?

I love to serve people, helping them unlock their potential, empowering them as leaders, and assisting them in achieving their goals. Please get in touch and let me know how I can support you!