When leaders have to make hard and tough decisions, they sometimes have to use personal values as a benchmark. Badaracco (1997) in his book “Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right. Boston: Harvard Business Review” opines, that often times, resolving such problems is not a simple case of “you have to do the right thing” as the school of ethics would have you believe. Instead of thinking about right versus wrong, he argues that the hardest things to really work through are when it is right versus right.
Many times there are rules or laws, which are clear to all and easily used to judge what is right or wrong, but there are other situations when what is right and wrong is not clearly defined or perceived, these are moments when one has to choose between right versus right.
In situations of ethical dilemmas, it is not always easy making the right choice. This is more so because there are many variables complicating the ethical problem.
Badaracco does not provide customized answers to ethical problems neither does he prescribe how people should act in a given situation, rather, he emphasizes that there are no easy answers to the real issues that people are faced with and suggests introspective tools are needed to make better decisions that support who a person is as an individual.
Badaracco’s emphasis is on pointing the direction that a person has to search for an answer. He argues that it is important to ask the right questions in this quest and to look at various aspects in order to make a personal choice.
Most leaders do not have an effective decision-making process on which they can consistently rely on to help them make right decisions. As a result, they are never quite certain if they have made the best choice, and if their final decision was truly the right decision. In a right versus right decision, leaders make decisions based on beliefs or convictions, which are reflections of moral identity. If leaders fail to make the right choice, they feel a sense of failure, betrayal, guilt and regret.
Indeed, all individuals are shaped by their culture, background, and experience, and these vary from person to person more so in today’s global business playing field. This makes it a challenge to choose between right versus right. Some cultures are plagued by corruption, where deceiving, tricking, and conning is fair gain and acceptable in society while others have a zero tolerance to all forms of deceit yet we must all ‘work together’ in today’s global village.
Badaracco argues that most people do not have an effective process for making decisions, hence they dilly-dally when they find themselves in a situation of ethical dilemma like right vs right.
The trend I observe in academia is that more and more leaders are turning to religious values to judge ethical dilemmas. For example, Christian Leaders have a biblical foundation in which to make right decisions. By applying prayer, faith, and patience, one is sure to be guided by the working of the Holy Spirit to make the right choice (John 16:13, NKJV). A Christian has values that are deem to be truth, and practical for everyday living.
These values are not always culturally accepted, but they are truth and when applied can help a leader navigate ethical dilemmas of right vs right.
