Q & A

This is a long weekend. Tomorrow (26th Jan, Monday) is our republic day. I mean today only...it's already 12:31 Ante Meridiem.

Almost everybody is my friend circle is busy watching movies or on trips to unseen places or killing some quality time with their gf/bfs.

Well, I am confined in my 10'x10' room pondering over a question which I have to answer, but I am not able to find/recall any incident from my life that could provide me with the answer. May be I need to talk to Jamal Malik to know how to dig into memory pretty much effectively and probably become a millionaire.

Hoping that my unconscious mind may work out a nice algorithm and flash an answer, I am going to write the 'Q' here and discuss what it means.

"Describe an ethical dilemma you experience first-hand. How did you manage and resolve the situation?"

An ethical dilemma is defined by Wikipedia as
"An ethical dilemma is a situation that will often involve an apparent conflict between moral imperatives, in which to obey one would result in transgressing another."

So, you see, the conflict between two moral aspects is necessary. If one of them is not moral, then it is a dilemma not an ethical dilemma. You will ask "why"?

Good question...because assuming that you are an ethical person and were confronted by a situation that demanded you to exercise ethical leadership. You had two choices. Let's say, one of them was an ethical one and other not. Also you could manage with the ethical one. So obviously you'd go for ethical one. So that was not exactly an ethical dilemma. It was very well a dilemma.

However, if the situation is so demanding that you can not manage at all (some major risk, need, etc) with your ethical stand, then you are in a real dilemma. Consider a hypothetical but not so perfect situation as told to me by a nice friend.

You are working in a team. One particular day, you are not in a mood to work and ask a colleague to cover up for you. You don't inform your manager about it. He covers for you. No issues. After 2 years, you are leading two people. One of them does the same thing that you did 2 years back. You come to know about it. Now you want to tell him about the mistake he has done. But you are not getting the courage to do so as you know you had done similar mistake earlier. To make matters more complicated, let's say he also knows that you have also done the same once.
You also don't want to sour your relationship with your junior.
So you are in a ethical dilemma. Should you go and tell him his mistake and ask him not to repeat it again, you are going to feel guilty and your professional relation will get affected. However if you don't talk to him about this, it is going to affect your leadership. Moreover your junior might get used to such small mistakes. So you really want to correct him.

So what should you do? Neither of the two ways seems like a good option.

A possible way to resolve such a situation would be to have an open talk. Forgo your ego and follow an honest and sincere approach. Tell him that you have also skipped work like this without informing your manager. Also that you realize it is wrong and can have some repercussions later. So basically you'll advise him as a candid senior that he should not practice unethical practices.
Effectively, you have managed the situation very well. You had to undergo a decision making that was tough.

Well, this was in a professional setting. Much bigger and complex ethical dilemmas can happen in personal life also. But they are more on human moral values.
Here, I am generally expected to answer something related to professional ethics.

I have got some examples from my life, but they are more of dilemmas where I knew what was right and I did that. So I won't be able to show my difficult situation and the decision making my mind went through.

During this whole process of applying for MBA, I have certainly gained on intangible aspects (transferable skills, in MBA jargon). I do not know whether I am going to do an MBA this year or not, but this experience has already started having an impact on me. I have started becoming more watchful of my personality aspects. How do I work, how do I present some presentation, how do I carry myself in meetings, what kind of words do I use et al. Well, more on that, later.

For now, my thinking is not yet over and I need to finish this essay before India's 60th Republic day is over.

Wikipedia has some nice links for some practically possible and really tough Ethical Dilemmas. Check them out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_dilemma