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In today’s difficult business environment, it can be easy to overlook ethical dilemmas in the workplace out of sheer exasperation. But when a company makes the effort to treat employees in a fair and consistent manner, it can reap the benefits of having employees who internalize the company’s high ethical values as their own.

What would your employees do if they thought no one was watching? We’d like to believe that they would behave honestly, ethically and with the best interests of the company at heart. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, there’s always a chance that, when you’re not paying attention, a (hopefully) small percentage of people will try to get away with something on the company’s dime.

It may be something relatively benign, like adding an extra few minutes to their lunch break here and there, or it may be something much more serious, such as someone in accounting padding vendor checks to get kickbacks.

Unethical behavior isn’t just black and white.

There are many shades of gray, and there may be an entire spectrum of unethical behaviors plaguing your workplace.

You may have a manager who is pushing salespeople to peddle a shoddy product instead of reporting the known product faults to engineering. She might think she’s doing you a favor by getting rid of the merchandise languishing in the warehouse, or she might have her eye on a fat bonus check at the end of the quarter. Either way, her behavior can be defined as unethical.

Perhaps there’s a supervisor promising overtime to the loading dock employees just to get the job done, knowing full well that the overtime will not be paid. When a dock employee finds her week’s paycheck is short, she might start intentionally damaging shipments to retaliate. It’s easy for company morale and ethical behavior to tank faster than you’d think. It rarely stays static — it’s likely to fluctuate — or even snowball.

In an article for Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, Carmen Nobel wrote about the telephone conversations professor Eugene Soltes had with Bernie Madoff (who was serving a prison sentence for his giant Ponzi scheme). One of Madoff’s quotes reads, “It wasn’t like I was being blackmailed into doing something, or that I was afraid of getting caught doing it … I, sort of, you know, I sort of rationalized that what I was doing was OK, that it wasn’t going to hurt anybody.”

Ethical behavior is vital in organizational excellence.

Without ethical behavior, it’s much too easy for the slide down the slippery slope to begin.

To encourage ethical behavior in the workplace, it’s important to create a tangible definition of what ethical behavior is and what it is not. With mergers, transfers and new hires, there is no way to know what prior standard of ethical behavior was expected. Give some time and thought into how the company values are communicated to each and every employee.

The Ethics & Compliance Initiative’s 2018 report, “Building Companies Where Values and Ethical Conduct Matter,” found that “Employees who agree that their managers and supervisors talk about the importance of ethics are almost 12 times more likely to believe that their organization encourages them to speak up.”

No matter how honest you believe your staff to be, there is always the chance that someone will be tempted to push the limits of ethical behavior. However, when you embed a check-and-balance arrangement into critical procedures, the odds of anyone doing so diminish.

If an employee does manage to break your trust by acting unethically after being informed of the company’s code of behavior, carry through with the consequences. If Sally pads her expense report and nothing happens to her as a result, the message sent to her colleagues is that it’s OK to lie about the cost of their mileage, too. If instead, Sally is reprimanded for such an action, employees will know that your company is serious about upholding its ethical commitments.

Don’t forget to show appreciation for those who exemplify the values your company strives to live by. Recognition of these individuals reinforces to the group at large your commitment to ethical behavior.

One of the best ways to discourage unethical behavior is to lead by example. If the management team displays model behavior, the rest of the staff can readily see what is expected of them.

Ensure there is a written code of conduct for all employees that everyone, from the top down, is aware of. Have a company mission statement that specifically mentions the priority placed on ethical behavior and living the stated values.

It’s easy to simply hire the candidate that best matches the tangible qualifications for the job. He has a related degree, years of experience and has worked with the department’s software. But, what are the candidate’s values? Is he honest? Is he fair with customers and co-workers? Can he readily own up to his own errors? I believe it’s important, now more than ever, to hire with an eye towards applicants who show ethical tendencies.

Ethics training can be a valuable addition to the orientation presentation. In this forum, proper attention can be given to the company’s stance on nondisclosure of proprietary information, the posting of negative comments on social media and even on the particulars of the sexual harassment and interdepartmental dating policies.

The bottom line is that unethical behavior can and will eventually undo any company or any individual. It’s worth the time and effort to create an ethical workplace for everyone.

Cultural intelligence, also known as CQ, is the ability to connect with others and work effectively in multicultural situations. Some people seem to have an innate ability to observe a new culture as an outsider, but act and react in a manner that shows they have been able to interpret the unfamiliar and successfully incorporate it into their own actions and behavior.

In 2003, P. Christopher Earley and Soon Ang brought this idea to the forefront with their book Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions Across Cultures, in which they explored effective ways to help companies and employees discover how to think globally and integrate themselves in the international arena. It espouses the benefits of being able to assimilate into new and various cultures harmoniously without the usual friction between people from disparate nations.

With effort, almost anyone with an open mind can expand their cultural intelligence. Some seem to be more suited for the task than others. Earley and Elaine Mosakowski explained in Harvard Business Review that “people who are somewhat detached from their own culture can more easily adopt the mores and even the body language of an unfamiliar host. They’re used to being observers and making a conscious effort to fit in.”

Even individuals without an innate talent for CQ can learn the skills that will allow them to participate more effectively on an international stage. The four main factors to consider when building your cultural intelligence capabilities are: CQ Drive, CQ Knowledge, CQ Strategy and CQ Action. Your enthusiasm to acquire knowledge about a new culture is your CQ Drive (also known as motivation). People in each culture have had their beliefs, behaviors and values shaped by that culture. Learning these aspects of the nation and its philosophies relates to your CQ Knowledge (cognition). Taking into account what you have learned about the culture and factoring it into your strategy is an example of CQ Strategy (metacognition). Being able to act appropriately and accordingly in a range of culturally diverse situations is an example of CQ Action (behavior).

Why is this important to global performers, international companies and even companies who are solely based in one country? If your organization is international, it is obvious that the opportunities for personnel from different cultures to cooperate effectively will show measurable benefits in performance, employee satisfaction and the bottom line. According to Ang, having high cultural intelligence is associated with myriad outcomes for an individual, including a more culturally diverse network, boosted job performance, improved results in cross-cultural negotiations, and better decisions in cross-cultural situations.

For example, if you work for a company that is only based in the United States, you may not have to consider international cultural diversity. However, cultural intelligence will still give you a considerable edge in your performance. Consider your own location, division or department as a single culture. Although you may have a colleague working in a different office performing the same job, consider that while you are on the West Coast, he is on the East. Though the company you work for is the same, his location has a different culture than your own. Upper management at his location may have different behaviors, different time constraints and different expectations of their employees than your own office. You are effectively interacting in a cross-cultural situation. Once you apply your CQ skills, imagine how many differences could be ironed out and how many difficulties could be avoided simply by realizing that although every location is part of the same company, they are not cookie cutter versions of your location.

Now that you understand the concept, you can see with fresh eyes that even your own singular location is a cross-cultural enterprise. This has the potential to lead to misunderstandings, miscommunications and problems. Each department has its own culture, its own customs, its own language and its own hierarchy.

For example, consider that the engineering department wants to add a new feature to an existing product because they think it will make a vast improvement. They may not even have considered what the accounting department will have to say about it, such as “What cost will it add to the bottom line?” or “Can the company charge more per unit because of the improvement?” The sales department might be in a quandary on how to upsell the customer to this new and improved version. All the while, the manufacturing department is wondering how they will tackle the problem of integrating this “improvement” into the production line. They may even feel blindsided that their input wasn’t consulted at the beginning.

To drill down even further, one department in one location by itself can benefit from applying your improved cultural intelligence. Getting to know your teammates can be valuable for something as seemingly innocuous as ordering a group lunch. Do you know who on your team is vegetarian and why? Are there some members who have religious or allergen-related dietary restrictions? It really is important not to be the manager who just orders pepperoni pizza for everyone and thinks everything is fine.

Increasing cultural intelligence is a benefit to anyone. It takes effort to build your CQ skill set, but think of the positive benefits and the boost it can provide to your career. The more you understand the cultural differences between the parties participating in the business venture (and the more you can demonstrate your ability to be fluid between those parties), the more poised you are to become the company’s go-to person for cross-functional and, perhaps, international assignments.

In today’s high-visibility world with the constant social media avalanche, it’s more important than ever to ensure that, as a leader, your ethical message is consistent. Anyone out there can talk the talk, but if you don’t truly believe in the importance of ethical behavior in your business career, it will become apparent to your employees, your peers and to the people occupying the C-suite.

If you’re searching for the answer to the ongoing dilemma of how to nurture an environment of trust, accountability and respect in the workplace, start with practicing ethical leadership in all levels of management.

To be an ethical leader, you must demonstrate ethical behavior — not just when others are looking, but all the time and over time. Consistently doing what’s right, even when it’s difficult, should be an integral part of a leader’s makeup. If you behave in an ethical manner when you’re in the spotlight, but avoid responsibility, cut corners and value profit above people behind closed doors, it is inevitable you’ll be found out.

The negative effects of failing to uphold ethics-based leadership and behavior are legion. A recent example is longtime financial institution Wells Fargo. Because of years of unethical sales practices, they were ordered to pay $185 million in fines in 2016 for the creation of 2 million accounts that were unauthorized by customers. With a deeper investigation of the sales practices in place at the time, which were questionable at best, it was found that some employees were actually fired for reporting this egregious corporate behavior to the company’s own ethics hotline. This “cross-selling” fiasco not only cost the company in fines, but more importantly, in the loss of its ethical reputation.

If you model ethical behavior, you can have a positive effect on your organization — even if you only start with your own department or team. The trust that ethical leadership builds is infectious. When you consistently act in an ethical manner, you’ll earn respect, and your integrity will serve as a model for others in the organization.

Upper management never seemed to understand the irony: Middle management was being routinely reproved for expressing their ideas and concerns in an anonymous survey. Despite the obvious remedy of listening to employees without inflicting repercussions, upper management never made any attempt to solve this ongoing problem.

Elbert Green Hubbard said, “The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you’ll make one.” Without psychological safety in the workplace, it is all too easy to become discouraged and simply move on to a hopefully more supportive organization. Employees now have the benefit of obtaining instant information on a place of work from the internet. With employee review sites such as Glassdoor, Indeed and FairyGodBoss, it’s easier than ever to get a preview of what a company’s culture is really like, as opposed to what they claim to be like on the “About Us” page of their own website.

If a firm is truly interested in fostering innovation, teamwork and accelerated productivity, there are steps they can take to foster an environment of psychological safety.

Understand that mistakes can and will be made without fear of retribution or consequences. Mistakes simply need to be acknowledged. They can then be used as a springboard for new ideas.

Make sure everyone is heard. Do the same three people voice all the opinions or ideas at every meeting? Encourage wider participation. Reticent team members may need encouragement to speak up. They may only feel comfortable answering a direct question. In meetings, no one is allowed to interrupt or belittle another speaker. Opinions and ideas are valuable and may come from the most unlikely members.

Encourage questions and feedback. Are you unconsciously doing or saying something that is impeding the process?  If no one feels safe speaking up, you’ll never know.

Develop trust between participants by sharing. Team members can relate to personal stories, triumphs and challenges. Forming a group bond is important in developing a cooperative environment that encourages participation.

Active listening is important to really hear what the other team members are trying to convey. This is no time to be checking the calendar on your cell phone. It’s OK to ask questions or request a clarification on a participant’s idea. Be open to hearing opinions other than your own.

Diversity in mindset is necessary for success. If everyone on the team thinks the same, there is no impetus to try anything new or different, and stagnation will be the result. Having a team that includes different viewpoints is essential for innovation.

If your organization doesn’t have a culture of psychological safety, it can be a big change to implement, and a bit daunting. There are many good books and articles with information on the subject that can offer ideas and support for converting the mindset of your organization. The results of providing a safe and supportive organizational culture can be amazing.