This decade has seen the confidence falling into employees against a panorama of the growing deception.
In fact, statistics indicate that society’s position on dishonesty is becoming more indulgent. The results of the British social attitudes survey reveal that the condemnation of £ 500 in benefits fraud fell from 68 percent in 2016 to only 53 percent in 2022.
This does not mean that we are becoming a nation of noisy: innumerable factors come into play, from the crisis of life cost and continuous economic uncertainty to the growing distrust in the institutes and the terrible examples established by aliks and business leaders.
The leadership problem
The potential impact of these changes in the workplace is fixed, with consequences for the participation of employees, trust, motivation, honesty and more. But the main concern should not be with employees: the biggest problem is leadership.
There is a leg a precedent worrying in recent years of autocratic styles or leadership, which have potentially disastrous effects on behavior. The investigation shows that the rupture of three different types of standards (legal, moral, social and/or political mandates) leads to an increase in distrust. We have seen these shattered again and again by politicians on the world stage, which in turn has given business leaders an excuse to be bad.
We know that distrust feeds conspiracy theories and bad behavior. Therefore, it is not surprising that the workforce feels the impact: employee satisfaction scores are at its lowest point in 20 years. The change has to come from the top.
Psychological security
Behavioral science can be a great tool for companies to understand how and why deception: studies have shown that people are prone to justify dishonesty when they feel socially acceptable or personally beneficial, for example.
But just as important, employers can use behavior science to help design interventions that promote transparency and responsibility, reward ethical behavior and counteract cognitive biases.
One of the most common cognitive biases among leaders and employees is excess confidence (a study showed that 73 percent of the US drivers claimed to be better than the average, which is statistically impossible).
All, at all levels of a company, must strive to suppress that bias. For leadership, that means creating an environment where the truth to power is permissible; A culture where people feel that they can share ideas, discuss and discussion with the things that become personal.
The Google Aristotle project is a great example of this in action: the initiative revealed that psychological security: confidence to assume risks or admit errors without fear of judgment, is key to high performance teams. Similarly, the pharmaceutical giant Sandoz demonstrated how the creation of a psychological safe environment increased confidence: the duration of a six -week initiative focused on individual participation, the will of employees to communicate openly inconent by 12.
Transparency and responsibility are key: these examples highlight how the prioritization of openness can counteract unusual behavior while building collaborative and resistant teams.
The power of people
Leaders must welcome and adopt the various thoughts offered by all in their companies: introverts and extroverts; Planners and visionaries; The Go-Getters and Technological Geeks; Artists and makers, and channel all these skills at the service of a purpose and a set of values. It does not serve anyone when the workforce of a company is reduced to a homogeneous set of robots.
That is where the use of ‘people’ (fictitious profiles is based on real data, it can be very useful to obtain information to shape the way an organization is communicated. People allow internal communicators to focus on the truth on people: their wishes, I like it, idiosyncrasies and drivers. That is why behavior scientists are always so interested in the capacities, opportunities and motivations that change the behavior (or what they call Com-B).
Southwest Airlines has done well, creating characters that define personality types that best delivery and then create conversation tools, communication and data to help managers to communicate better with their teams. Led to customer complaints by 20 percent.
ITV did the same when taking the organization through a technological transformation. They created digital characters that described the relationships of their employees with technology: the platforms they used, the content consumed and the time spent using technology. They gathered this data imaginatively, through a questionnaire that interesting employees the opportunity to play a game. The resulting people guided how communications were prepared and where they were placed.
Creative solutions
Transparent leadership is the only way to ensure that ethical consultations are integrated into decision -making processes. The code of conduct remains a number one tool of organizations to guide ethical behavior and integrity at work. But these are lung, difficult to handle and impenetrable for employees over time.
Often creative solutions are required. Natwest faced countless revelations of the bad decision making of his employees after the 2008 financial accident. The result? An employee base that was terrified of making decisions, committing a similar failure. The answer was a simple tool called Check Yes, which employees could use to discuss any decision. He raised five simple questions: if any of the answers was ‘no’, the staff knew how to explore the code of conduct in more detail.
This stripped setback approach proved to be highly effective, allowing fast and safe options while cutting corporate jargon. Simple tools such as Ethics in everyday actions is embedded, ensuring that integrity becomes a second nature.
Integrity of embedding
The growing normalization of deception is a critical challenge for companies: the failure in risks acts the trust, harmful morals and the success of the organization.
But thesis challenges are also an opportunity: companies willing to invest in psychological security, strategies led by the person and clear ethical frameworks can transform the risks of thesis into strengths.
By integrating integrity through their operations, organizations can rise above the age of deception. Trust, resilience and purpose define tomorrow’s workplaces for those bold enough to lead with principle today. Ethical leadership is more than a moral obligation; It is a competitive advantage.
Cliff Ettridge is a team director.
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