Introduction
The objective of this essay is to address the question if the actions of people in the workplace are a consequence of individual or organisational characteristics, and what would promote ethical behaviour at work. Often in a competitive environment at the workplace, it is sometimes tough for employees to maintain an advantageous manner towards other people. Hence, they may end up doing unethical and unacceptable things which they themselves are not aware of, assuming that what they did was ethical. Such situation like this is probably due to the divergence of characteristics which an individual and the organisation encompass that do not communicate the wellbeing for everyone at the workplace. This brings in a concern on whether organisational characteristics are concealed, leading individual characteristics to override and take advantage when undertaking actions at the workplace.
To express regards to the above concern, I will first address the definition of ethics. Ethics, in the context of workplace, is defined as the study of what is right and wrong human behaviour in a business (William 2010, p. 9). This gives rise to a concern of whether individuals carry out activities according to the best interests of their own personal characteristics or of organisational characteristics, assuming that they think is right to carry out.
Moreover, for people to achieve the ideal actions and manners under ethical dilemmas is not so straightforward. This would require plenty of effort towards ethical leadership which serves as a model and direction for ethical behaviour in the workplace, on the basis of characteristics encompassed by the individual and organisation.
To begin with, ethical leadership will first be addressed, following by issues pertaining to individual and organisational characteristics. These would give us