Ethics and Ambition

Ambition is the drive to achieve high goals. Some people are controlled by their ambitions. Their goals are so important to them they are willing to do anything to attain them. They believe their ends justify the means they use to get them. These people are willing to sacrifice ethics for ambition in the following ways:

Conflicts of Interest: When you choose to use your position for personal gain, you are guilty of conflict of interest. For instance, if you accept bribes, personal favours, and nice gifts to push for a contractor bidding on a project for your company, you are putting your personal gain over the good of the company. If you apply for a job with your company's competitor and suggest you would be willing to divulge secrets, you are guilty of an even worse conflict of interest. If you work for a government regulatory agency and take gifts or presents from those you are regulating, you are also guilty of conflict of interest.

Kissing Up: When you perform unethical activities to gain promotion, you allow your personal ambitions to take precedence over ethical standards. For instance, your boss may ask you to spy on another executive to discover damaging information. Similarly, if you grant sexual favours to a supervisor for promotion, you are also being unethical. It is less serious but still unethical to tell your supervisor what he or she wants to hear, rather than telling the truth.

Deceptive Practices: There are many ways workers can be deceptive. You might hide negative information, distort the truth or even lie about your product or services, to get customers to buy them. You might lie to co-workers to get them to make mistakes and lose their chances for promotion. You are also being deceptive if you exaggerate your skills to get a job or cover up weaknesses to gain a promotion.

Cheating: If you take credit for someone else's work, you are cheating the co-worker. If you take all the bows for a team product, you are cheating all the team members. You also cheat co-workers if you steal clients from them.

Many workers climb the career ladder through such unethical practices. Sometimes these catch up with them. Other times, they pay no penalty for their lack of ethics. However, ability rather than blind ambition is a surer road to success.