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Ethical Conduct

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Three Ways Leaders Live Their Ethics

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When I think of some of the greatest ethical leaders (the keyword here is “ethical”), a few immediately come to mind, based on what they’ve done for others. From Harriet Tubman and Eleanor Roosevelt to Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, there’s no shortage of visionary leaders in history who have placed ethics and values first, tuned into their Ethics GPS, and have accomplished positive change for the good of humanity.
 
At the same time, fast forward to today, with leaders who take ethical “detours.” In their organizations, they’re seen as high performers and they’re known for making shareholders happy. Although they may say the right thing, they don’t always do the right thing, when it comes to the different stakeholders they serve. Sometimes the “Do No Harm” and “Do Well By Doing Good” mantras don’t apply to all parties involved.
 
For me, leadership and ethics go hand-in-hand. As my friend and colleague, Richard Bistrong, CEO of Front-Line Anti-Bribery LLC shared in a recent social media post, “If we are not careful, bad behavior can hide behind good performance, until it’s too late, for everyone.” Unfortunately, Richard is correct, the bad behavior is present, and it often goes unnoticed and also unquestioned. 
 
When I wrote Answers for Ethical Marketers, the book’s mission was to help business professionals communicate with honesty, transparency, respect and objectivity, knowing that ethics and values were always leading the way. In my book, I discussed a number of steps business leaders could take to “Live” their values, demonstrate ethics daily and “walk” the ethics “talk.” Among the top suggestions included were: 
  1. Living / working by a standard (a code of ethics), and knowing one standard is in place for everyone.
  2. Choosing the high road when making decisions; remembering two wrongs don’t make a right.
  3. Keeping transparency top of mind; having to engage in uncomfortable conversations with open dialogue.
In my video, I share more about how to “walk” the ethics “talk: and to evaluate whether you and the leaders around you demonstrate ethics in every communication and business interaction.
 
As a leader, are you simply talking about ethics or are you living your ethics and values?
 
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Four Questions to Ask Your Mentors About Their Ethics & Values

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A situation stands out in my mind from 20 years ago. At my agency, one of our senior leaders had misreported the marketing campaign results in his presentation to the client. When the error was discovered, there were other leaders at the firm who made excuses for him. I heard everything from “oh, he’s a good guy” and “what’s one little white lie” to “a tiny exaggeration doesn’t hurt anyone.”
 
There was a time when I looked at the leaders around me and just thought they were all honest, transparent, and spoke from a place of “Do Well by Doing Good.” Whether the leader I remember from 20 years ago was lying, or as his peers stated, simply exaggerated the numbers, it made me step back to think about the situation, and what it meant to have shared ethics and values. 
 
To this day, each and every one of us should take the time to step back and reflect, especially when our ethics and values are challenged. Of course, ethics and values are a personal choice and a business practice. Personal is just that … it’s personal and may differ from the professionals around you. However, it’s important to see eye-to-eye with the people who are in your inner circle and who are your trusted advisors.
 
Here’s when your mentors’ ethics and values really matter. As I mentioned in my book, Answers For Ethical Marketers,” early in my career, I thought my ethics and values were naturally baked into the professionals around me. However, it’s important to ask questions and to make sure your mentor’s values and ethical conduct are aligned with yours, as it creates a stronger bond and a long-lasting relationship.
 
What questions can you ask when selecting a mentor to make sure you’re both on the same ethics and values page? My video shares four of these questions. Please share the questions you would ask too!
 
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Three Ways to Identify Ethical Issues at Your Company

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Ethics and values have to move across your organization. Today, all employees are considered Ethical Marketers, not just your marketing and PR professionals. They all have a responsibility to uphold ethics and values when they communicate on behalf of your company.
 
Ethics and values are not not just words on a plaque that hang on a company wall. Of course, once you’ve identified those ethics and values, it’s time to think about if and how they’re adopted. Why are ethics and values spelled out and then not demonstrated?
 
There may be ethical trouble spots preventing good judgment and ethical behavior, which you can identify. Some of these signs can easily be uncovered. These signals let you know there could be ethics trouble ahead. The key is to identify early to prevent the sharing of harmful or miscommunicated information.
 
In my video, I offer three tips so that you can identify where there might be a breakdown in company ethics and how you can build stronger internal systems.  It was Ben Franklin who coined the timeless phrase, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” 
 
If you want to learn more about being an Ethical Marketer, which everyone is today, then you can check out my book, Answers for Ethical Marketers, here.
 
Enjoy the video, and then “weigh in” on the ways you uncover trouble spots at your company.
 
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Three Tips to Building Your Ethical Marketing Foundation

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The road to ethics and values is ongoing. You don’t stop shaping your values or reflecting on your ethical conduct as you develop personally and professionally throughout your career experience.
 
Ethics and values go where you go; down every road and they’re with you at every crossroad. At the same time, as you travel this road, you my be challenged with different situations that you haven’t experienced earlier in your career and scenarios that you didn’t learn about in school.
 
As a result, you need a solid framework for decision-making; one with ethics and values at the core of how you think, communicate and how you act. In this video, you’ll learn my three tips to build your strong ethical marketing foundation.
 
Be sure to weigh in on how you have built your ethical marketing foundation and what guides good judgment in your decision-making and communications.
 
If you want to learn more about being an Ethical Marketer, which everyone is today, then you can check out my book, Answers for Ethical Marketers, here.
 
Enjoy the video and the tips!
 
 
Featured Image; Photo
by Karsten Würth on Unsplash
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Book Announcement: Answers For Ethical Marketers Published as a Guide to Good Business Communication

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When I started my public relations and marketing career journey, I thought ethics and values always entered the equation. Every professional, journalist, and media outlet practiced ethical conduct. Naive, I know!
 
What I’ve learned quickly, and, in some cases, with a big lesson attached, is that ethics and values are a personal choice and a professional practice. Defining your values and applying your good judgment in decision-making goes with you, down every road and at every crossroad. You do not leave your values at your company’s doorstep and automatically adapt their “best practices.” Suddenly, the ability to pause, question, involve smart people in decisions, and course correct are critical actions. Upholding the standards of truth, objectivity, accuracy, fairness, with a “Do No Harm” approach is also what you want to rely on every day. This way, at the end of your day, your integrity is still intact.
 
Answers For Ethical Marketers Released  in April 2021
Now, there’s a book with personal stories, shared experiences with business thought leaders, and plenty of questions asked and answered about ethical conduct in communications. I’m excited to announce I’ve collaborated with Routledge Publishing to release my book, Answers for Ethical Marketers. It’s the 2nd book in the ‘Answers’ series after releasing Answers for Modern Communicators in 2017.
 
My new book is just the beginning of pressing conversations about ethics and values. Some we’ve had in the past and other discussions that are new due to ever-changing technologies and the evolving media landscape.
 
Breaking Down the Book
As for the writing process, there was plenty of fodder for the pages of this book. I wrote it during a global pandemic, the 2020 Presidential Election, and, at a time, when there was racial violence. Yes, challenges lie ahead, and leaders need to be ethical role models. They should be setting an example for their employees, customers and the other stakeholders they serve. However, is it just leaders and their communications teams responsible for ethics in communications?
 

Who is the Ethical Marketer? Well, it’s you, whether you’re a marketing / PR professional, a business person, or anyone in the company who is communicating and sharing about the brand. That’s a wide range of professionals.  There are opportunities and challenges when it comes to ethics and values permeating every level and position in an organization. Answers for Ethical Marketers breaks down the landscape. The book starts by probing the ‘essentials’ of what Ethical Marketers need to know.

Some of the chapters include:

  • Applying ethics through media channels in PR, digital marketing, and social media programs.
  • Delivering ethical communication through cause marketing.
  • Taking ethics into media interviews.
  • Learning the actions steps of leaders who are ethical role models.
  • Identifying your ethical mentors. 
Moving Forward With Ethical Marketing
I look forward to the discussions, passionate perspectives, decision-making processes, and highlighting the professionals demonstrating ethical conduct that speak to truth, transparency, integrity, and the character professionals need to uphold in their communications today. Yes, words matter, yet actions will always speak louder than words. At the same time, I realize we’re all human, and mistakes will happen. It’s what you do with the learning moments and how you move forward with action steps knowing that you “Do Well By Doing Good.”
 
Answers For Ethical Marketers is a compass to guide you, and a resource to help you tap into your inner “Ethics GPS,” regardless of your organization, position, or the situation at hand.
 
Here’s my video explaining the book and launch. If you’re interested in learning more, you can check out Answers for Ethical Marketers here.
Buy The Book Here

Answers For Ethical Marketers Book Announcement

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The #PRStudChat Community Joins Together for “Ethics – The Heart of Leadership” Twitter Discussion on September 13th

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PRSTUDCHATSeptember is PRSA Ethics Month and #PRStudChat will be holding an ethics discussion on Tuesday, September 13th at 8:30 p.m. ET. Our community of PR students, educators and pros will join together for a dynamic Twitter chat on “Ethics – The Heart of Leadership.”  We welcome as our special guest and co-moderator, Kirk Hazlett, APR, Fellow PRSA, who will lead the community conversation on the values and fundamental beliefs that guide our behaviors and decision-making process.

A little bit more about our special guest … Kirk Hazlett is an Associate Professor of Communication / PR at Curry College. He is also a member of PRSA’s Board of Ethics & Professional Standards. Kirk will engage students, professionals and educators in a community chat session focusing on the importance of ethics in our professional communication.

A few of the #PRStudChat topics we’ll cover that night will include defining ethics, understanding how ethics is at the heart of leadership, sharing opinions about ethical misconduct and exploring different situations where your ethics may be challenged. Some of the situations we will discuss include scenarios with internal business relations and client communication.

We hope you’ll join us on September 13th for an interesting and useful discussion on ethics in communication and business. As always, we welcome your questions before or during the chat session. You can tweet @PRStudChat, @ValerieSimon, @KirkHazlett or @dbreakenridge with your questions. Be sure to also visit our LinkedIn Group to share your ideas.

Hope to “see” you on the 13th!

PRSTUDCHAT

The #PRStudChat Community Celebrates “Ethics Month” With a September 15th Discussion

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PRSTUDCHATPRSA has designated September as “Ethics Month” with a wide variety of activities to educate and inform members and industry professionals.  The month is jam-packed with twitter chats, webinars, blog posts, newspaper articles, and in-person presentations. In the spirit of Ethics Month, #PRStudChat welcomes Kirk Hazlett, APR, Fellow PRSA, on Tuesday, September 15th at 8:30 p.m. ET, as our guest host and moderator, to lead a discussion on ethics and ethical conduct.

Kirk is an Associate Professor of COMM/PR at Curry College and is a member of PRSA’s Board of Ethics & Professional Standards. He will engage students, professionals and educators in a community chat session focusing on the importance of ethics in our professional communication. A few of the topics we’ll cover that night will include the definition of ethics, understanding the “Declaration of Principles,” opinions about ethical misconduct and different situations where your ethics may be challenged.

We hope you’ll join us on September 15th for a fast paced and informative discussion on ethics in communication and business. As always, we welcome your questions before or during the chat session. “See” you on the 15th!

A Little More About PRStudChat:

It began with a simple question asked by Angela Hernandez, then President of PRSSA at Central Michigan University (CMU). “Is PR Right for me?” A follow up blog post by PR 2.0 expert Deirdre Breakenridge inspired a series of direct messages on Twitter between Breakenridge and fellow PR industry pro, Valerie Simon. This was an important question and one that should be explored beyond one student or one blog post. Why not build a community to help students across the country, and even the globe, learn from the experience and perspective of industry professionals… A community where everyone can learn and grow together. Read more