Research shows employees who engage in unethical behavior—surprisingly—are not new to their organizations. They have been there for a considerable amount of time, typically at least six years, and have risen through their companies. Worse, the longer they have been with their organizations, the greater the financial and reputational damage when unethical behavior occurs.
And though we might think of corporate misconduct as C-suite malfeasance, unethical behavior can occur at all levels—and many offenders have a steady career path. It begs the question: could an ethical assessment have been designed during their career progression to have detected someone being more subject to ethical risk before they were promoted?
While there are numerous resources available to help gauge someone’s ethics during the initial hiring process, in our experience in executive search and career coaching (Ellie) and ethics consulting (Richard), we’ve seen that such screening is at best “one and done.” Once the onboarding process is completed, it’s vanishingly rare for companies to evaluate employees’ ethics as part of the promotion process. We believe this is a mistake and a missed opportunity.
By following these four key strategies, you can design an ethical assessment for mid- to senior-level leaders, to ensure they don’t disregard ethics as their careers advance—because, as the research behind numerous scandals demonstrates, ethics isn’t a fixed state but can be dramatically impacted by changed context and professional circumstances. Yet, with planning and design work, you can help keep ethics and career advancement aligned—while protecting your company from reputational or regulatory trouble.
1. Explore the candidate’s previous ethical track record
Don’t miss vital data from your candidate’s career so far. Liaise with your HR Director to review any relevant and accessible information. This could include:
- Hiring documentation, like reference checks, interviews, and assessment notes
- Performance review documentation
- 360-degree feedback reports
- Disciplinary or grievance processes
Look for anything that could point to ethical gray areas that you would like to explore further, including formal complaints raised about the individual, incomplete reference checks, as well as borderline scores on values or ethics at the interview stage.
It’s not uncommon for individuals to move around large organizations with numerous personnel touchpoints. Therefore, it’s crucial to reach out to individuals who have worked alongside your candidate to solicit feedback on their experiences. A great way to do this is to gather anonymous feedback. Ideally, this would include a cross-section of employees at different levels and functions. Questions could include:
- Would you have any ethical or behavioral concerns about them stepping into a role with more responsibility?
- How do they role model the values of the organization?
- Did they ever take an ethical decision that might have been at the cost of commercial success?
- Would you feel comfortable speaking to them when confronting an ethical dilemma?
2. Consider what new ethical challenges might arise
It’s critical to identify new risks and ethical challenges that might arise in a post-promotion role that are not present in the current one. In our work, we have encountered a number of such changes, including:
- Geography: Different regions have different customs and practices that might pressure test one’s ethics. For example, Richard was promoted to the VP of International Sales, from a U.S. role, moving from a low-profile role for corruption risk to high-risk regions, bringing a cascade of ethical challenges that did not exist in his prior role.
- Increased pressure and ethical impact: Your candidate will likely be accountable for team targets, as opposed to individual ones, contributing to increased earnings potential, along with the risks of not meeting financial goals and targets. Employees under such high financial stress are eleven times more likely to jeopardize regulatory compliance. There are a number of additional factors that might contribute to unhealthy stress that can result in these ethical lapses, including our current environment of economic and social volatility.
3. Ask candidates to complete an ‘ethical self-reflection’ as a discussion point in the promotion interview
Simply asking your candidate “are you ethical” won’t lead to any valuable insights; however, a self-reflection can prompt an honest introspection about what matters most when it comes to ethical conduct. This can be a simple online template for your candidate to complete and share with you in advance of the interview. Here are some questions that might prompt your candidate to think deeply about their ethics and values:
- Can you give an example of when your values or ethics were challenged in the past and how that impacted your decision-making?
- Do you think your future role will challenge your values and ethics differently from your current role? If so, how will you manage these ethical challenges?
- Can you tell us about someone you respect for their ethics and values-based leadership, and why?
As you move to the more formal part of the promotion process, ensure the interview process integrates these responses to ethical challenges as well as other performance measures for the new role. Probe any responses from their self-reflection that warrant further discussion. Ian Johnston, a chief people officer with decades of experience, favors scenario-based questions, exploring a moral dilemma the individual had encountered. Example interview questions could include:
- Tell me about a time you made an unpopular decision because it was the right thing to do. How did you communicate this? Would you do anything differently?
- What’s the biggest ethical error you’ve made, and how did you manage it? What did you learn?
- Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you thought a colleague misrepresented something? What did you do about it?
- What do you believe you will need to do differently in the future to navigate ethical challenges with greater responsibility?
4. Analyze what the data is telling you
You now have a lot of ethical information about your candidate, so it’s time to review the data you have gathered from the above steps.
Ensure a rigorous focus on how they achieved results and how they handled ethical setbacks. When analyzing how the candidate will perform ethically in a new role, look for positive indicators and red flags. While these will differ depending on the organization and the role, positive indicators would include that the candidate had a positive track record of speaking up, calling out unethical behavior, and was a good listener when ethical issues were brought to their attention.
For example, one of Richard’s clients had a recently promoted Sales VP give an “ethical award” at a Sales Kickoff Conference to someone on her team who spoke up and disrupted a large order due to the unethical conduct of a third party involved in the transaction.
Negative ethical indicators or “red flags” might include an unwillingness to talk about how they achieved results, ambiguous replies during the interview, and/or a lack of awareness of what had not worked with respect to ethics and integrity, with no suggestions as to what could be improved.
While past behavior may not be an entirely precise predictor of future ethical conduct, it’s a strong signal as to how your candidate will respond to ethical challenges that are ahead. If there are any “red flags,” ask yourself what these are telling you.
As Jamie Browne, managing director of Leonid, a corporate governance hiring specialist firm, cautioned, “A candidate who is fixed on results, targets, or efficiency but with little reference to values or ethics can be problematic. Someone who does this may rationalize unethical shortcuts to what they might perceive as the necessities of business growth, with or without integrity.”
If your candidate gets that promotion, it’s easy to move on to the work at hand, but don’t forget to keep ethics front of mind, and don’t give a long ethical “leash” to your new leader. For example, you might want to schedule regular “check-ins” to make sure that your newly promoted employee is comfortable in their new role, and to give them the opportunity to share any ethical or commercial challenges.
You might even consider pairing them with an ethical mentor—someone who has experienced a similar move that understands the realities and can support their development in the new role
By following these strategies and designing an ethical assessment as part of the promotion process, companies can ensure they’re promoting candidates who can handle new ethical pressures that may come with increased or changed responsibilities—and protect themselves from costly scandals and breaches that can bring down both employees and corporations.