The purpose of the paper is to help leaders gain awareness of areas that can lead to problems in ethical decision making. Instead of simple “black and white” decisions, leaders face a myriad “grey” situations that cannot be addressed via blind application of company policy. The areas of focus are time, proximity, competitiveness, and personality.
The reader will learn about the “Urgency&Proximity Model” (U&PM); which describes how the urgency of an ethical decision and the proximity between the moral agent and the people involved in the situation impact the moral agent's decision‐making process. The authors incorporate the “Five Factor Model” of personality into the U&PM, raising possible connections between personality and moral reasoning.
The findings indicate that company policies lend themselves only to the simplest decisions, not ethical dilemmas. Thus keeping in mind the U&PM model, organizational competition, and one's own personality (from the WorkPlace Big Five Profile™) can form an ethical basis for moral decisions.
Additional research is needed to connect the aspects of personality to the U&PM.
Leaders are advised to increase self‐awareness, consider their personality traits, and position the moral dilemma being addressed in the U&PM.
This paper is only an introductory examination of ethical decision making based on urgency, proximity, competition, and personality. The concept should be further investigated because of the impact these factors can have on leadership decision making.
