Ethical Dilemmas: The Mysterious Roses Scenario

The activities in class this final week helped each student further practice ethical decision making. The EthicsGame Dilemmas provided the class with a couple of additional unique scenarios that invoked more thought and decision-making principles.
The first dilemma that required action was The Mysterious Roses scenario. This particular issue involved a couple of different things. Based on several different perspectives that were shared by employees it seemed as though one of my team members was on the receiving end of some unwanted attention. The issue was possible sexual harassment and it required action. As the supervisor of the employee who believed she was being harassed I had a responsibility to her and the company to make sure that
I understood who my stakeholders were and what the specific issue was that I needed to solve. This lens helped guide me to my ultimate decision to honor Gayle’s request for a confidential meeting. I wanted to preserve the trust relationship between her and her leader and I also made a decision to guide her in what she should do if her concern was indeed harassment. My decision had a moderate risk to the company because there was a chance that Gayle would not act on her
Using the Relationships Lens I was able to answer the question of what the core problem was and what my responsibilities were. I knew I had to protect my employees’ rights and I further had to protect my employer’s integrity. It would not be beneficial to allow faulty data to be published and approved by myself and my employer. This would break the law in a few different ways and would further question my judgment and integrity. I realized that I needed a to face the issue head on and also put a process in place that would address any potential questions of data integrity in the future, not just this situation, so that we would be prepared for any future issues. This was the most ethical decision to make. I let the employee know that I had serious questions on the data provided and I let him know that I would be initiating an investigation into the information. My decision was praised as the best one for this