Figure 1 (Mack, 2016)
It is the responsibility of every employee in the workplace to ensure ethical communication. Figure 1 is pointing out towards the fact that many employees in the organizations fail to communicate in an ethical manner. This is particularly true when leader are communicating with each other. Every leader wants to impose his/her ideas on others, and also in this process they blame one another. The picture is also representing that one leader or manager of a particular department is trying to impose her views on other leader, and it looks like that she is blaming other leader to be responsible for any problem occurred in the organization. There is a need of correcting bad behavior of employees when they are behaving unethically. If such behavior remained unnoticed, the inadequate behavior may spread in the whole business, which paves the way to creation of further issues in the organization. Protection is, however, required for victimized workers of the company, so it is necessary to provide them shield from bad attitude and unethical behavior of other individuals. The major barrier or the factor that presents obstruction in mutual and ethical communication in an organization is natural capability of an individual to approve, judge, suppose, and disapprove what is said by other individual (Devito, 2013). Judging, however, takes place as people focus on evaluation of what they consider from their own point of view as well as reference. Such evaluations by some employees in the workplace lead to short circuiting their abilities of thinking in an objective manner via analyzing, reframing, reacting, and responses.
Managers, employees, and leaders are not only responsible for communicating their ideas, thoughts, and messages in a clear manner, but they are also responsible for ensuring effective communication between individuals and groups from varying point of views. They should develop understanding of the fact that communication is facilitated when personal emotions and feelings are involved. The involvement of more personal feelings of individuals or parties leads to less mutual and ethical agreement between individuals and parties. It is due to the fact that different personal feelings, different judgments, and different ideas have presence is entirely disconnected and distinctive from each other. When they are not disregarded, ensuring ethical communication is difficult.
Communication ethics emphasizes on keeping balance between listening and speaking. The degree of praise and criticism should be maintained. The picture is also showing that such balances are not ensured. Decision making, responsible thinking, and development of associations are necessary for ethical communication. The above image is representing that unethical communication that is threatening the quality of communication, and also it is affecting well being of other individuals who are participating in the discussion. There should be freedom of expression, tolerance of views, and diversity of opinions in order to ensure responsible and informed decision making. Every individual in the workplace should respect and understand communication of others before giving any response and before making any evaluation. It is necessary for an ethical communication that a communication climate of mutual understanding, respect, and care is encouraged for respecting unique characteristics as well as needs of communicators at an individual level. Communication that discourages humanity and individuality via coercion of views, intimidation, violence, and distortion should be discouraged. In the above image, a lady is emphasizing her views, and is also trying to impose her views on other individual, who seems to be quite afraid. The image is also representing that female is using harsh behavior, which is not ethical in any way in the workplace. It is also not appropriate to point out an individual; all communication should be general without addressing anyone individually or in particular.
The above image is also giving an impression that white lady is using a language that is discriminating black man. Ethical communication, however, avoids the use of language that exaggerates, discriminate, evaluate, and manipulate. There is only relevant information involved in ethical communication. Point should be conveyed to listeners or audience without offending, cordial relationship should be maintained with audience, and accuracy of information should be ensured in order to encourage ethical communication in the workplace. Further, there is a need of promoting access to the communication opportunities and resources for fulfilling human potential, and also for contributing to wellbeing of individuals working in the organization. Commitment should be ensured to encouraging expressions of convictions at personal level in order to pursue justice and fairness. Acceptance should be ensured for long term as well as short term consequences for communication at individual level, everyone should be held responsible for his/her communication and the consequences associated with communication.
Threatening other individuals and Intimidation should be avoided (Johannesen, Valde, & Whedbee, 2008). It can also be observed from above image that the female worker is threatening male worker, which is not ethical communication. She is not giving freedom of expression to others, and just focusing on conveying her views without even listening to others. Freedom of expression is, however, basic right of humans, so it should be used in order to express opinions, and also to find answers. There are limits applicable to freedom of expression, but the limits are applied only when in comprises of words harming others.
References
Devito, J.A. (2013). The Interpersonal Communication Book. Pearson, Australia
Johannesen, R.L., Valde, K.S., & Whedbee, K.E. (2008). Ethics in Human Communication. Waveland Press, Inc, Mississippi
Mack, S. (2016). How to Enforce Ethical Behavior in the Workplace. Chron. Retrieved from:
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/enforce-ethical-behavior-workplace-20234.html
