Ten Ways That Organizations Encourage Unethical Behavior

1. Shooting bearers of bad news.
2. Labeling dissenters as incompetents and malcontents.
3. Letting the end justify the means.
4. Aiming solely for legal compliance instead of ethical behavior.
5. Seeking to be right instead of doing right.
6. Justifying questionable behavior by noting that everybody does it or that the competition did it first.
7. Punishing technical violations more severely than ethical violations.
8. Identifying anything related to the success of the business as being synonymous with good ethics.
9. Believing that the top decision makers are so bright that if they favor a course of action, then that course of action must be ethical.
10. Valuing toughness over integrity.