Hospitality Leadership Part 2
Ethics
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Can you imagine something like this happening at your property:
A fellow manager storms into your office one afternoon waving a memo in
his hand. “Look at this!” he says angrily. “Yesterday the GM told us there
wouldn't be any layoffs, and here’s a memo from corporate headquarters
ordering staff cuts!”
“That’s terrible!” you say. “Where’d you get that memo, anyway?”
“I went to talk to the GM and he was out. But I saw this on the desk,
so I copied it. That guy is such a liar!”
In the situation above, if the general manager knew about the layoffs when he told
his managers there wouldn't be any, he acted unethically by lying. The manager
acted unethically by reading a memo that wasn't addressed to him, by copying that
memo, and by showing the copy to a co-worker.
If you work at a property where managers always tell the truth and trust each
other, you may be working in an uncommonly ethical environment. According to
recent surveys, today’s workers at all levels are increasingly disappointed in the
ethical standards of the workplace.
This section of your handbook will explain what ethics are, outline some of the
ethical traps you may face as a hospitality manager, and discuss what you can do to
nurture a sense of ethics in yourself and your employees.
What are ethics?
Being ethical involves more than just obeying local and national laws. Being
ethical also means having moral principles that guide your behavior. Stealing an
employee’s idea and telling the boss it was yours, excluding some employees from
departmental lunches, and telling ethnic jokes may not be illegal in all cases, but
they certainly aren't ethical. As one manager succinctly put it, “Being ethical is
doing the right thing when nobody’s looking.”
Having a sense of ethics also means that you can see the larger principle involved
in small actions. For example, most hospitality employees would recognize that
taking home a television set, a radio, or a floor lamp is theft. But do these same
employees equally regard as theft such things as punching a time card for someone
else, making personal calls on the property’s toll-free lines, or taking food home
from the dining room?
Ethics start at the top.
Business geneticists agree that without ethical leadership at the top of the
organization, dishonesty multiplies rapidly in the lower ranks. Managers who fail
to communicate ethics to their employees send the unspoken message that it’s OK
to cheat. That doesn't mean that every employee will behave dishonestly. Instead,
the honest ones will stay honest – but they will become demoralized and move on.
Ethics affect the bottom line.
When managers are unethical – or tolerate unethical behavior – business suffers.
It’s very easy to rationalize small breaches of ethics by saying, “Who’ll ever notice?”
or “Who’s it going to hurt?” or “It’s just a drop in the bucket.” But there’s a big
connection between ethics and the bottom line.
Consider, for example, the case study at right. Have you ever been tempted to use
property equipment or supplies for your personal use? If you did it on a regular
basis, how much would it cost the property each year? How much would it cost
the property if all your employees followed your example?
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