The phrase, “Acting ethically is the right thing to do, but it’s not always easy”, from UC SD’s Ethics Awareness, is a quote that resonates with me. I think that choosing between the easiest decision and the “best” decision can be difficult for me and many others around me. This article highlights the key values of trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. These values make up ethical behavior and can help guide everyday moral behavior that is incorporated in decision-making. The article emphasizes looking at how everyone will be affected by our choices and maximizing overall good.

There are many situations when this concept is used in my daily life. I think that when living with roommates there are many times when you must make ethical decisions that affect everyone living in your apartment or house. Sometimes I will be busy and want to ignore things like unloading the dishwasher or taking out the trash but at the end of the day I always make what I think is the most ethical choice and do the chores. This is a much smaller scale example but it is something that I experience daily and it has helped me to grow as a person by ensuring my living space is in pristine condition for my roommates and I.

This article also reminded me of Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats book which assigns different ways of thinking to hats. The ethics article focuses on values, while the Six Thinking Hats focuses on how we think when making decisions. When combining these two concepts, it can help readers to make more intentional decisions.

“Ethics Awareness.” Ethics Awareness, blink.ucsd.edu/finance/accountability/ethics-awareness.html#core-ethical-values. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.

After reading Thomas Jone’s article on ethical decision making, I realized how much moral intensity affects everyday choices. The article explains how ethical decisions are not just based on personal values but are also shaped by the issue itself. The seriousness of an event or problem, as well as the consequences can affect everyone who is involved in a situation. One part of the article that really stood out to me was the idea that people are more likely to act ethically when there is a high risk factor involved and the consequences can negatively impact themselves or someone close to them. Jones recognizes that people may act differently in a situation in which the effects seem distant.

When I think about my own life, I can see this idea present in some ways. For example, when working in teams sometimes I will let things slide if it doesn’t have a strong impact on me, but when my grade is heavily impacted I will. I have had to reach out to professors about team members not doing their part when my grade was at stake but sometimes I have let it slide if it is a small group discussion or something without big consequences. I also have had times where I have intervened when someone was talking down on someone close to me but not said anything if it was someone I don’t really know. While these are not necessarily ethical practices, it is something that many of us do without thinking twice.

I can also connect this to the world through tragic events. People oftentimes have stronger reactions to tragedies when people who have similar beliefs or live close to them are affected. When someone far away is suffering it can sometimes be more difficult to feel the moral intensity because it seems so distant. This article has helped me to reflect on my own behavior and how I can expand my morals beyond my community.

Jones, Thomas M. “Ethical Decision Making by Individuals in Organizations: An Issue-Contingent Model.” Academy of Management Review, vol. 16, no. 2, 1991, pp. 366–395.

The AP article “Playing favorites? Hospital boards, donors get COVID shots”, describes how some hospitals gave out early COVID-19 shots to wealthy donors and board members as opposed to vunerable patients. A quote that stood out to me when reading the article was, “We want people vaccinated based on priority, not privilege,” Inslee spokesman Mike Faulk said. “Everyone deserves a fair opportunity to get vaccinated.” I agree with this statement because wealth and power should not define who gets better access to healthcare.

This can be connected to William D. Guth and Renato Tagiuri’s article “Personal Values and Corporate Strategy” because it shows that the hospital leaders valued status and power over ethics and equality. It goes to show the importance of having morals and that helping people should be prioritized over social influence.

I could also connect this to the way I want to lead. I want to be the type of leader that values fairness and equal treatment without outside influence. When working in groups or in businesses at school or for a career opportunity I will always ensure that I give everyone I encounter equal possibilities. My family implements these values as they lead a real world business and all of my current professors incorporate these values in class by giving each of the students in my classes opportunities to speak up.

Associated Press. “Playing Favorites? Hospital Boards, Donors Get COVID Shots.” AP News, 26 Jan. 2021,https://apnews.com/article/technology-washington-coronavirus-pandemic-russ-seattle-c453fc84e9378ba4259715d3e0ad50d9?fbclid=IwAR0f5KQatkPEoDv64vUzJLY1qg24st1qSKop4uZI8XaU9HOS4PnXHdAdskA.

In William D. Guth and Renato Tagiuri’s article “Personal Values and Corporate Strategy”, the authors argue that corporate strategies are influenced just as much by personal values as they are by financial and market forces. This idea resonates with me because I have seen this firsthand through the way my family chooses to operate our family business. As funeral home owners and directors, my family does not just measure success by profit but also by showing care, compassion, and trust to grieving families. Running a business by valuing integrity, empathy, and kindness goes a long way and helps build consumer relationships. This directly reflects the point that Guth and Tagiuri are conveying through taking an ethical approach to doing what is “right” for long-term success.

Additionally, I have seen this method being used in other companies such as Patagonia. Patagonia positions itself as an ethical company that focuses on environmental and social responsibility through many outlets such as its “Worn to Wear” program that encourages customers to trade in old items or have them repaired as opposed to accumulating more waste. I have learned about this program through a presentation I watched during another class that showed clips and insight into Patagonia’s strategies.

In personal business opportunities as well as when analyzing the business tactics of other ethical brands or corporations I will incorporate ideas from this article to instill my values into my work. I agree with the article that you can only have so much success in business without having morals that build relationships with other companies and consumers.

Guth, William D., and Renato Tagiuri. “Personal Values and Corporate Strategy.” Harvard Business Review, vol. 43, no. 5, Sept. 1965, pp. 123–132. Harvard Business Publishing.

Reading the article “Moral Person and Moral Manager: How Executives Develop a Reputation for Ethical Leadership” by Trevino, Hartman and Brown, I noticed that many of the characteristics of leaders that my team has been discussing can be seen through balancing both managing and personal values. Being a moral person focuses on showing honesty, fairness, sincerity, and integrity through everyday actions. Being a moral manger focuses on promoting ethics through setting standards, rewarding ethical conduct, and holding others accountable (Trevino et al. 128).

I can compare and connect this article to what we have been discussing with our Hot Topic Headline of the week about AI and the environment. I think that when it comes to such a prominent issue in the world today, individual values are strongly associated with how we portray certain environmental impacts. The article talks about how much resource depletion is occurring through developing new AI models and working to improve older models. The difference between just having moral people working with these technological software innovations and having moral managers is that the managers are able establish consequences and guidelines for proper and misuse of creating new artificial intelligence models.

In my personal life I also use these methods because while oftentimes I act with my own morals, in a classroom setting I have to follow certain protocols that my professors set up for me regarding ethical AI use, respecting others opinions, and actively participating in class.

Trevino, Linda Klebe, Laura Pincus Hartman, and Michael Brown. “Moral Person, Moral Manager: How Executives Develop a Reputation for Ethical Leadership.” California Management Review, vol. 42, no. 4, Summer 2000, pp. 128–142

After reading the article “The Role of Values in Leadership: How Leaders’ Values Shape Value Creation”, I noticed the similarities between this article and one that I had to read for my Critical and Creative Decision Making Models class this week. This article argues that leaders’ values act as lenses that help them to interpret challenges in creative and critical decision making. The article “Measuring What Matters Assessing Creativity, Critical Thinking, and the Design Process” talks about how testing does not measure the ability to be a leader and that it is more important to see the design process and thinking that got the person to the answer or choice they selected. I can connect these articles because they both reflect on the process and values that go into making someone a leader as opposed to just evaluating a test score or decision.

I can also connect this article to my personal life because as a marketing student I spend a lot of time working with many different types of people. For example in my brand promotion class, my team is tasked with creating a brand positioning map and creative brief that will lead us into our final presentation. This will allow us to put our different values and strategies together to show our professor the way we got to our final production.

Lichtenstein, Scott. The Role of Values in Leadership: How Leaders’ Values Shape Value Creation. Integral Leadership Review, 2012

Shively, Kate, Krista M. Stith, and Lisa DaVia Rubenstein. “Measuring What Matters: Assessing Creativity, Critical Thinking, and the Design Process.” Gifted Child Today, vol. 42, no. 1, 2019, pp. 37–47

The article “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making” discusses using the six ethical lens called rights, justice, utilitarian, common goods, virtue, and care. These approaches set the ethical framework on making decisions that impact your life while using empathy for those around you. One thing I have learned as a marketing major is that you have to use these approaches when creating campaigns to use persuasion as opposed to manipulation. This brings me to an in class discussion on whether or not marketing unhealthy foods to children on their television channels is unethical. This exercise in class raised many questions and I came to the conclusion that while it can be “wrong” at the end of the day it is up to parents on whether or not they want to let their young children consume unhealthy fats and sugars. This can be applied in so many real life situations for marketers because you want to get people to purchase what you are selling but don’t want to cross lines.

In another leadership class, I read an article called “Teaching for Critical Thinking: Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats” which I found to be similar to this reading. This stuck out to me because there are six different “hats” that you would wear for different types of thinking. For example, you would wear a black hat when you are using cautious thinking which I think pairs best with the utilitarian approach because it values doing the least harm possible. All of these approaches and hats can work together to bring leaders to conclusions that provide positive outcomes while using creative and critical ways of thinking to solve problems.

Velasquez, Manuel, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer. “Thinking Ethically.” Issues in Ethics, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University, 1 Jan. 2010

After reading the article “Thinking Ethically”, I realized that I can resonate with the ethical questions that arise when making difficult decisions. At my job working at my family’s funeral home over the summer I oftentimes had to make the decision on whether or not to spend more time talking and comforting people grieving while also ensuring I completed all of the tasks I was given to make sure things run smoothly behind the scenes. I feel like I oftentimes used the Virtue Approach because it values compassion, integrity, fairness, and other characteristics that I apply to the work place.

This article reminds me of a book I had to read called How Good People Make Tough Choices by Rushworth Kidder. This book outlines the “right vs. right” decision making process in which there is no wrong way to go in a dilemma just a better choice for you that aligns with personal values. When making an important decision, I think looking at all outcomes and taking the time to evaluate each step leads to more ethically driven frameworks.

Lastly, I think that this article is very much connected to current events in the world such as the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I think ethics really come into play when there is such a division surrounding a devastating tragedy. It goes to show that not everyone has morals nor do they think ethically when making a choice to hurt another person. I think that better decision making processes could help avoid people making rational decisions to do something so horrible.

Velasquez, Manuel, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer. “Thinking Ethically.” Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University.

In todays world, teamwork is a central concept that is applied in various different fields such as universities and businesses. Bruce Tuckman’s model of group development provides valuable insights for evolving teams through five important stages for team growth. These stages include forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Bonebright, 2010). This simplistic model helps groups to introduce ideas, work through conflicting ideas, come to a consensus, implement ideas, and then reflect on the process. Working through these steps helps to make the teamwork process run smoothly and hear each team member’s point of view.

As a college student, I have unknowingly used this model before but now that I have read more about the process, I will be able to better use each step for my own enrichment as well as to show my peers in other courses that have maybe never heard of Tuckman’s model. Finding effective teamwork strategies can be a challenge, especially in online courses. Making sure that everyone participates and respects each other is a key part of producing efficient work and walking away with new knowledge. In one of my other classes, my team and I were asked to do an assignment where we were given seven different candidates and we had to rank them on how “worthy” they were for getting a heart transplant. Having read this article previous to doing that assignment would have helped my team with cohesion since we had very differing opinions. I think that using each step is important to avoid conflicting ideas that could weaken your team and lead to disagreements. Although everyone may never fully agree, being able to respectfully come to common ground is crucial to effective team decision making.

Bonebright, D. A. (2010). 40 years of storming: A historical review of Tuckman’s model of small group development. Human Resource Development International, 13(1), 111–120

When reading the article “How to link personal values with team values”, I was able to gain a deeper understanding about how organizations can connect employees’ personal values with team values in order to create a strong, high performing work environment. The article discusses several big companies and how they instill team values into employees for maximum productivity. For example, Nordstrom uses many strategic tactics with employees in order to meet their one true goal which is to satisfy customers. Employees apply their individual values to their work which allows many different perspectives to be incorporated into one space where colleagues are able to learn new tips from each other (Jaffe & Scott, p. 4).

The article puts a strong emphasis on taking your individual beliefs and sharing them with your team in order to create a group of central values that everyone believes are a key part of teamwork. Having diverse ideas can help to reach a larger audience and see things that you may not have noticed working solo. This article has helped me to gain more insight on how I can apply my own values with those of my team so that we can collaborate to share innovative ideas with our whole class. The article discusses the core values, Integrity, competence, teamwork, communication, autonomy, creativity, and personal growth which I believe are all components that make a strong team with ethical practices. My team, the Yellow Company, strongly values integrity and communication as we analyze complex scenarios and make important decisions together.

Jaffe, D. T., & Scott, C. D. (1998, March). How to link personal values with team values. Training & Development, 52(3), 24–30