The Importance of Ethics in Business

By Jay Vandenhoff

What is the importance of ethics in business? That this even needs discussed is incredible to me. We are in an age that is totally mixed up about what is right and wrong. There seems to be no black and white anymore.

When I was a child attending Sunday School things seemed pretty much black or white. There were no gray areas. Men’s word, when they gave it was expected to be upheld. It usually was.

In the network marketing business, or any other business, the fastest way to lose customers is to lie to them. Our society has gotten to the point where, some think it’s okay to lie about many things. The boss will say: Tell them I’m out, to his secretary. Avoiding a call with a lie is justified to him. Somehow, to me, that lessens his employee’s respect for him. It also sets the tone for his business. Now his employees can justify lying about business matters. After all, the boss does it!

If you have a personal code of ethics, you would do well to ignore you boss and coworkers lying. Set a personal goal, to be truthful to everyone, whether in business or in your personal life.

Will we stumble? Of course we will. We are after all only flesh. I like to base my standards on the absolute authority found in the Bible. In it, there is no gray area. There is, however a recognition that we all make mistakes. There is also, the admonition to seek forgiveness for the wrongs we do.

Some of the Bible’s greatest heroes, were at times, it’s biggest failures. Moses killed a man before he led the Israelites out of captivity. David was called a friend of God, and yet, he had previously been a failure at life. David stole a man’s wife and allowed him to be killed to cover it up.

I think this shows us, we can make grievous mistakes in our lives, and still turn them around. It may take admitting you did wrong. The mistakes may have consequences you’ll have to bear, but in the end, we call all turn our lives around.

In business all ethics are determined and displayed by the leadership. The leaders of an organization or company must be determined to follow, a personal and business code of ethics. People learn from our examples, not from what we tell them to do.

The importance of ethics in business is: it sets the tone for a business’s success or failure. I usually recommend that all business people and employees try to read a chapter a day from the Biblical book of proverbs. That book is filled with important wisdom for one’s personal and business life.