LEARNING THE WAYS TO COLLABORATE PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL

ETHICS CHALLENGES
The term “ethics” is a complicated word to define but the appropriate definition is both a
code to follow and a thinking process. Professional ethics are a set code that professionals in
a variety of fields follow to meet certain industry standards. Personal ethics are based on
thinking processes that determine right from wrong according to a personal standard or
morality. Balancing and collaborate the two types of ethics is usually challenging. For
solving such issues most personal ethics will follow similar professional codes.
There are several ways to collaborate personal and professional ethics challenges
 Find the area of conflict between personal and professional ethics. This differs
depending on the specific job. For example, a social worker's problem might arise
when she sets boundaries for clients she meets outside of work. For a business
professional, the problems may occur when personal morals conflict with the needs of
the company.

 Look for options to solve the problem without involving others if possible. In some
situations, the problems might be easily solved, such as avoiding a group meeting that
a client attends. In other situations, reorganizing or revaluating personal ethics might
be necessary and require personal changes.  For example, professional ethics requires
diversity in the workplace, but some individual’s personal ethics might make a person
uncomfortable with disabled individuals or minority groups. In this situation, adapting
or changing personal ethics is a necessity.

 Focus on duties and responsibilities. In the professional world, an individual's focus is

on the duties and responsibilities she must follow. Put the focus on responsibilities
rather than personal opinions.

 Get others involved. Sometimes, balancing professional and personal ethics requires
getting others involved in the situation. For example, a business professional might
ask an employer to rearrange job duties when her personal ethics conflict with the
business code of ethics in a particular situation. Other professionals, such as social
workers or psychologists, might need to make arrangements with clients, schools or
other groups when personal and professional lives collide.

 Laban’s four-step strategy for resolving questions of role morality

In order to follow a professional rule that conflicts with personal ethics, an individual would
have to be able to:
1. justify the relevant societal institution, based on the moral good it does;
2. justify the professional's role, based on the structure of the institution;
3. justify the particular role obligation in question, by showing that the behaviour
required is essential to that role; and
 4. Justify the act demanded by the role, by showing that the role obligations require the
action.

This four-step strategy is not an algorithm that invariably leads to the right solution, but
rather a heuristic framework that allows professionals and others to critique professional
rules. The four-step evaluation process is formulated to assist with collaborate professional
and personal ethics challenges.

EXAMPLE
Assume that a charitable organization has the goal of getting food to countries suffering from
famine. The organization hires people to fulfil different roles to get the food delivered,
including an employee with the job of securing trucks inside a country that will transport the
food from a warehouse to people in the country who need it. The trucks available to make
this delivery in the country are held by an unscrupulous individual, understood to be involved
in various kinds of illegal activity such as extortion. The employee is fairly certain that the
money provided by the organization for the food delivery will be used by the truck owner for
illegal purposes, some of which are likely to result in threats or actual injury to people. But
trucks are needed for the delivery and there is no other available transport, so if the employee
does not use the truck owner, the food will not get to the people who need it.

The employee is in a dilemma, because pursuant to personal ethics the employee would
normally not give business to a criminal or even indirectly support criminal activities. The
employee, however, can resolve the dilemma by evaluating the good done by the institution
and the links between the institution and the employee's action. The act of giving business to
the truck owner is required by the employee's role obligation (getting trucks to deliver food),
which in turn is required in order to perform the institution's task (getting food to the persons
who need it), which finally is required by the institution's positive moral good, that of saving
the lives of people dying of starvation. Taken together, the employee could determine that the
role requirement outweighs the personal ethics of not giving business to a known criminal.

The four-step evaluation can result in a finding that the professional requirement should not
be performed if the connection between any of the four steps breaks down. For example, if
other trucks were available, but it would be a small amount of additional work for the
employee to get them, then there is nothing wrong with steps 1-3, but the employee cannot
satisfy step 4, justifying the act by showing that the role obligations require it. In that case,
professional ethics do not outweigh personal ethics.
GETTING WHAT WE WANT IN LIFE ETHICALLY

Ethics is the word that refers to morals, values, and beliefs of the individuals, family or the
society. The word has several meanings. Basically it is an activity and process of inquiry.
Secondly, it is different from non-moral problems, when dealing with issues and
controversies. Thirdly, ethics refers to a particular set of beliefs, attitudes, and habits of
individuals or family or groups concerned with morals. Fourth, it is used to mean ‘morally
correct’.
The study on ethics helps to know the people’s beliefs, values, and morals, learn the good and
bad of them, and practice them to maximize their well-being and happiness. It involves the
inquiry on the existing situations, form judgments and resolve the issues. In addition, ethics
tells us how to live, to respond to issues, through the duties, rights, responsibilities, and
obligations. In religion, similar principles are included, but the reasoning on procedures is
limited. The principles and practices of religions have varied from to time to time (history),
region (geography, climatic conditions), religion, society, language, caste and creed. But
ethics has grown to a large extent beyond the barriers listed above. In ethics, the focus is to
study and apply the principles and practices, universally.

These are some features of ethics which we want to follow in our life

 INTEGRITY
Integrity is defined as the unity of thought, word and deed (honesty) and open mindedness. It
includes the capacity to communicate the factual information so that others can make well-
informed decisions. It yields the person’s ‘peace of mind’, and hence adds strength and
consistency in character, decisions, and actions. This paves way to one’s success. It is one of
the self-direction virtues. It enthuse people not only to execute a job well but to achieve
excellence in performance. It helps them to own the responsibility and earn self-respect and
recognition by doing the job. Moral integrity is defined as a virtue, which reflects a
consistency of one’s attitudes, emotions, and conduct in relation to justified moral values.

 WORK ETHICS
Work ethics is defined as a set of attitudes concerned with the value of work, which forms the
motivational orientation. The ‘work ethics’ is aimed at ensuring the economy (get job, create
wealth, earn salary), productivity (wealth, profit), safety (in workplace), health and hygiene
(working conditions), privacy (raise family), security (permanence against contractual,
pension, and retirement benefits), cultural and social development (leisure, hobby, and
happiness), welfare (social work), environment (anti-pollution activities), and offer
opportunities for all, according to their abilities, but without discrimination.

Many complex social problems exist in the industrial/business scenario, because:

1. The people desire to be recognized as individuals and treated with dignity, as living human
beings. Work is intrinsically valuable so far as it is enjoyable or meaningful in allowing
personal expression and self-fulfilment. Meaningful work is worth doing for the sense of
personal identity and the self-esteem it holds.
2. Economic independence: Work is the major instrumental good in life. It is the main source
of providing the income needed to avoid economic dependence on others, for obtaining
desired materials and services, and for achieving status and recognition from others.
3. Pay as well as the pace of work should be in commensurate with the expertise required,
acquired, and utilized in the persons. Exploitation and bargained pay should be discouraged.
4. Privacy (personal freedom) of the employee, including women, is to be protected. At the
same time, confidentiality of the employer is also to be protected. Mutual trust and loyalty
both ways play major roles in this aspect.
5. Security during job and upon retirement: This concept is being accepted only in
government jobs, public limited companies, and corporate organizations. The western
thought has influenced the Indian private industries and multinationals in a paradigm shift
from ‘lifelong employment’ to policies such as ‘merit only’, ‘hire and fire’, ‘pay and use’ etc.
This situation has no doubt created tension in the Indian scene.
6. Recognition to non-work activities, such as leisure, paid holiday on the day of visit of a
dignitary, social service, and other developmental activities. The workers in prosperous
countries are less willing to consider ‘work’ as their prime interest in life. They claim that
such service activities give them peace of mind and happiness. However, such a trend is
likely to decline the work ethics.
7. Hard work and productivity are very essential for the success of an industry. The quality
of work life deserves to be improved. Hard labour, undignified jobs (human-drawn rickshaw,
people carrying night soil), and hazardous jobs are to be made less straining, dignified, and
safer. Automation and CNC systems to a large extent have been successful in lessening the
human burden. Still, many a hard work cannot be replaced by ‘virtual work’, in the near
future.
8. Employee alienation: Absence of or inadequate ‘recognition and reward system’ and
‘grievance redressal system’, lack of transparency in policy implementation, factions in trade
unions etc. lead to ethical problems, affecting the work ethics. Participative management,
quality circles, job rotation, and flexible working hours are some of the measures to counter
this situation.
9. A different view of work ethics: Work is considered as a necessary evil. It is a thing one
must do in order to avoid worse evils, such as dependency and poverty. That is a major
source of anxiety and unhappiness.
10. As per the Protestant Work Ethics, the financial success is a sign that is favoured by God.
It means making maximal profit is a duty mandated by God. It is to be obtained rationally,
diligently, and without compromising with other values such as spending time with one’s
family and not exploiting or harming others.

 VIRTUES
Virtues are positive and preferred values. Virtues are desirable attitudes or character traits,
motives and emotions that enable us to be successful and to act in ways that develop our
highest potential. They energize and enable us to pursue the ideals that we have adopted.
Honesty, courage, compassion, generosity, fidelity, integrity, fairness, transparency, self-
control, and prudence are all examples of virtues.

Civic Virtues
Civic virtues are the moral duties and rights, as a citizen of the village or the country or an
integral part of the society and environment. An individual may exhibit civic virtues by
voting, volunteering, and organizing welfare groups and meetings.

The duties are:

1. To pay taxes to the local government and state, in time.
2. To keep the surroundings clean and green.
3. Not to pollute the water, land, and air by following hygiene and proper garbage disposal.
For example, not to burn wood, tyres, plastic materials, spit in the open, even not to smoke in
the open, and not to cause nuisance to the public, are some of the civic (duties) virtues.
4. To follow the road safety rules.

On the other hand, the rights are:

1. To vote the local or state government.
2. To contest in the elections to the local or state government.
3. To seek a public welfare facility such as a school, hospital or a community hall or transport
or communication facility, for the residents.
4. To establish a green and safe environment, pollution free, corruption free, and to follow
ethical principles. People are said to have the right to breathe in fresh air, by not allowing
smoking in public.
5. People have inalienable right to accept or reject a project in their area. One has the right to
seek legal remedy, in this respect, through public interest petition.

Virtues are divided into four categories:

1. Civic Knowledge
Citizens must understand what the Constitution says about how the government is working,
and what the government is supposed to do and what not to do. We must understand the basis
of our responsibilities as citizens, besides duties and rights. We must be able to recognize
when the government or another citizen infringes upon our rights. It implies that the
government requires the participation of the enlightened citizens, to serve and survive.
2. Self-Restraint
For citizens to live in a free society with limited government each citizen must be able to
control or restrain himself; otherwise, we would need a police state—that is, a dictatorial
government to maintain safety and order. He advocated for morality and declared that
happiness is achieved and sustained through virtues and morals. He advocated and
demonstrated self-restraint several times in his private and public life, and naturally he was a
great leader.
3. Self-Assertion
Self-assertion means that citizens must be proud of their rights, and have the courage to
stand up in public and defend their rights. Sometimes, a government may usurp the very
rights that it was created to protect. In such cases, it is the right of the people to alter or
abolish that government (e.g., voting rights, rights call back).
4. Self-Reliance
Citizens who cannot provide for themselves will need a large government to take care of
them. Once citizens become dependent on government for their basic needs, the people are no
longer in a position to demand that government act within the confines of the Constitution.
Self-reliant citizens are free citizens in the sense that they are not dependent on others for
their basic needs. They do not need a large provider-government, which has the potential to
become an oppressive government, to meet those needs. Only a strong self-reliant citizenry
will be able to enjoy fully the blessings of liberty. These civic virtues, applicable to local,
state, and central governments, nourish freedom and civil liberty at the root of democracy.

 RESPECT FOR OTHERS

This is a basic requirement for nurturing friendship, team work, and for the synergy it
promotes and sustains.
The principles enunciated in this regard are:
1. Recognize and accept the existence of other persons as human beings, because they have a
right to live, just as you have.
2. Respect others’ ideas (decisions), words, and labor (actions). One need not accept or
approve or award them, but shall listen to them first. One can correct or warn, if they commit
mistakes. Some people may wait and watch as fun, if one falls, claiming that they know
others’ mistakes before and know that they will fall! Appreciate colleagues and subordinates
on their positive actions. Criticize constructively and encourage them. They are bound to
improve their performance, by learning properly and by putting more efforts.
3. Show ‘goodwill’ on others. Love others. Allow others to grow. Basically, the goodwill
reflects on the originator and multiplies itself on everybody. This will facilitate collinearity,
focus, coherence, and strength to achieve the goals.

 LIVING PEACEFULLY
To live peacefully, one should start install peace within (self). Charity begins at home. Then
one can spread peace to family, organisation where one works, and then to the world,
including the environment. Only who are at peace can spread peace. You cannot gift an
article which you do not possess. The essence of oriental philosophy is that one should not
fight for peace. It is oxymoron. War or peace can be won only by peace, and not by wars!
One should adopt the following means to live peacefully, in the world:
Nurture
1. Order in one’s life (self-regulation, discipline, and duty).
2. Pure thoughts in one’s soul (loving others, blessing others, friendly, and not criticizing or
hurting others by thought, word or deed).
3. Creativity in one’s head (useful and constructive).
4. Beauty in one’s heart (love, service, happiness, and peace).
Get
5. Good health/body (physical strength for service).
Act
6. Help the needy with head, heart, and hands (charity). Service to the poor is considered
holier than the service to God.
7. Not hurting and torturing others either physically, verbally, or mentally.

The following are the factors that promote living, with internal and external peace:
1. Conducive environment (safe, ventilated, illuminated and comfortable).
2. secured job and motivated with ‘recognition and reward’.
3. Absence of threat or tension by pressure due to limitations of money or time.
4. Absence of unnecessary interference or disturbance, except as guidelines.
5. Healthy labor relations and family situations.
6. Service to the needy (physically and mentally-challenged) with love and sympathy.

 CARING
Caring is feeling for others. It is a process which exhibits the interest in, and support for, the
welfare of others with fairness, impartiality and justice in all activities, among the employees,
in the context of professional ethics. It includes showing respect to the feelings of others, and
also respecting and preserving the interests of all others concerned. Caring is reflected in
activities such as friendship, membership in social clubs and professional societies, and
through various transactions in the family, fraternity, community, country and in international
councils. In the present day context, caring for the environment (including the fauna and
flora) has become a necessity for our very survival. If we do not care for the environment, the
environment will scare us.

 SHARING
Primarily, caring influences ‘sharing’. Sharing is a process that describes the transfer of
knowledge (teaching, learning, and information), experience (training), commodities
(material possession) and facilities with others. The transfer should be genuine, legal,
positive, voluntary, and without any expectation in return. However, the proprietary
information it should not be shared with outsiders. Through this process of sharing,
experience, expertise, wisdom and other benefits reach more people faster. Sharing is
voluntary and it cannot be driven by force, but motivated successfully through ethical
principles. In short, sharing is ‘charity’
For the humanity, ‘sharing’ is a culture. The ‘happiness and wealth’ are multiplied and the
‘crimes and sufferings’ are reduced, by sharing. It paves the way for peace and obviates
militancy. Philosophically, the sharing maximizes the happiness for all the human beings. In
terms of psychology, the fear, divide, and distrust between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’
disappear. Sharing not only paves the way to prosperity, early and easily, and sustains it.
Economically speaking, benefits are maximized as there is no wastage or loss, and everybody
gets one’s needs fulfilled and satisfied. Commercially speaking, the profit is maximized.
Technologically, the productivity and utilization are maximized by sharing

 HONESTY
Honesty is a virtue, and it is exhibited in two aspects namely,
(a) Truthfulness and
(b) Trustworthiness
Truthfulness is to face the responsibilities upon telling truth. One should keep one’s word or
promise. By admitting one’s mistake committed (one needs courage to do that!), it is easy to
fix them. Reliable engineering judgment, maintenance of truth, defending the truth, and
communicating the truth, only when it does ‘good’ to others, are some of the reflections of
truthfulness. But trustworthiness is maintaining integrity and taking responsibility for
personal performance. People abide by law and live by mutual trust. They play the right way
to win, according to the laws or rules (legally and morally). They build trust through
reliability and authenticity. They admit their own mistakes and confront unethical actions in
others and take tough and principled stand, even if unpopular.

Honesty is mirrored in many ways. The common reflections are:

(a) Beliefs (intellectual honesty).
(b) Communication (writing and speech).
(c) Decisions (ideas, discretion).
(d) Actions (means, timing, place, and the goals).
(e) Intended and unintended results achieved.
 COURAGE
Courage is the tendency to accept and face risks and difficult tasks in rational ways. Self-
confidence is the basic requirement to nurture courage.
Courage is classified into three types, based on the types of risks, namely
(a) Physical courage,
(b) Social courage, and
(c) Intellectual courage.
In physical courage, the thrust is on the adequacy of the physical strength, including the
muscle power and armaments. People with high adrenalin, may be prepared to face
challenges for the mere ‘thrill’ or driven by a decision to ‘excel’. The social courage involves
the decisions and actions to change the order, based on the conviction for or against certain
social behaviours. This requires leadership abilities, including empathy and sacrifice, to
mobilize and motivate the followers, for the social cause. The intellectual courage is
inculcated in people through acquired knowledge, experience, games, tactics, education, and
training. In professional ethics, courage is applicable to the employers, employees, public,
and the press.
The courageous people own and have shown the following characteristics, in their
professions:
(a) Perseverance (sustained hard work),
(b) Experimentation (preparedness to face the challenges, that is, unexpected or unintended
results),
(c) Involvement (attitude, clear and firm resolve to act), and
(d) Commitment (willing to get into action and to reach the desired goals by any alternative
but ethical means).

 VALUING TIME
Time is rare resource. Once it is spent, it is lost for ever. It cannot be either stored or
recovered. Hence, time is the most perishable and most valuable resource too. This resource
is continuously spent, whether any decision or action is taken or not.
An anecdote to highlight the ‘value of time’ is as follows:
To realize the value of one year, ask the student who has failed in the examinations;. To
realize the value of one month, ask the mother who has delivered a premature baby; to realize
the value of one week, ask the editor of weekly; to realize the value of one day, ask the daily-
wage labourer; to realize now the value of one hour, ask the lovers longing to meet; to realize
the value of one minute, ask a person who has missed the train; to realize the value of one
second, ask the person who has survived an accident; to realize the value one mille second,
ask the person who has won the bronze medal in Olympics; to realize the value of one micro
second, ask the NASA team of scientists.

 COMMITMENT
Commitment means alignment to goals and adherence to ethical principles during the
activities. First of all, one must believe in one’s action performed and the expected end
results (confidence). It means one should have the conviction without an iota of doubt that
one will succeed. Holding sustained interest and firmness, in whatever ethical means one
follows, with the fervent attitude and hope that one will achieve the goals, is commitment. It
is the driving force to realize success.
This is a basic requirement for any profession. For example, a design engineer shall exhibit a
sense of commitment, to make his product or project designed a beneficial contribution to the
society. Only when the teacher (Guru) is committed to his job, the students will succeed in
life and contribute ‘good’ to the society. The commitment of top management will naturally
lead to committed employees, whatever may be their position or emoluments. This is bound
to add wealth to oneself, one’s employer, society, and the nation at large.

 EMPATHY
Empathy is social radar. Sensing what others feel about, without their open talk, is the
essence of empathy. Empathy begins with showing concern, and then obtaining and
understanding the feelings of others, from others’ point of view. It is also defined as the
ability to put one’s self into the psychological frame of reference or point of view of another,
to know what the other person feels. It includes the imaginative projection into other’s
feelings and understanding of other’s background such as parentage, physical and mental
state, economic situation, and association. This is an essential ingredient for good human
relations and transactions.

To practice ‘Empathy’, a leader must have or develop in him, the following characteristics
1. Understanding others: It means sensing others feelings and perspectives, and taking active
interest in their welfare.
2. Service orientation: It is anticipation, recognition and meeting the needs of the clients or
customers.
3. Developing others: This means identification of their needs and bolstering their abilities. In
developing others, the one should inculcate in him the ‘listening skill’ first. Communication =
22% reading and writing + 23% speaking + 55% listening One should get the feedback,
acknowledge the strength and accomplishments, and then coach the individual, by informing
about what was wrong, and giving correct feedback and positive expectation of the subject’s
abilities and the resulting performance.
4. Leveraging diversity (opportunities through diverse people): This leads to enhanced
organizational learning, flexibility, and profitability.
5. Political awareness: It is the ability to read political and social currents in an organization.

The benefits of empathy include:

1. Good customer relations (in sales and service, in partnering).
2. Harmonious labour relations (in manufacturing).
3. Good vendor-producer relationship (in partnering.)
Through the above three, we can maximize the output and profit, as well as minimizing the
loss. While dealing with customer complaints, empathy is very effective in realising the
unbiased views of others and in admitting one’s own limitations and failures. According to
Peter Drucker, purpose of the business is not to make a sale, but to make and keep a
customer. Empathy assists one in developing courage leading to success!

 SELF-CONFIDENCE
Certainty in one’s own capabilities, values, and goals, is self-confidence. These people are
usually positive thinking, flexible and willing to change. They respect others so much as they
respect themselves.
Self-confidence is positive attitude, wherein the individual has some positive and realistic
view of himself, with respect to the situations in which one gets involved. The people with
self-confidence exhibit courage to get into action and unshakable faith in their abilities,
whatever may be their positions. They are not influenced by threats or challenges and are
prepared to face them and the natural or unexpected consequences.
The self-confidence in a person develops a sense of partnership, respect, and accountability,
and this helps the organization to obtain maximum ideas, efforts, and guidelines from its
employees.
The people with self-confidence have the following characteristics:
1. A self-assured standing,
2. Willing to listen to learn from others and adopt (flexibility),
3. Frank to speak the truth, and
4. Respect others’ efforts and give due credit.
The factors that shape self-confidence in a person are:
1. Heredity (attitudes of parents) and family environment (elders),
2. Friendship (influence of friends/colleagues),
3. Influence of superiors/role models, and
4. Training in the organization (e.g., training by Technical Evangelists at Infosys
Technologies).

The following methodologies are effective in developing self-confidence in a person:

1. Encouraging SWOT analysis. By evaluating their strength and weakness, they can
anticipate and be prepared to face the results.
2. Training to evaluate risks and face them (self-acceptance).
3. Self-talk. It is conditioning the mind for preparing the self to act, without any doubt on his
capabilities. This make one accepts himself while still striving for improvement.
4. Study and group discussion, on the history of leaders and innovators (e.g., Sam Walton of
Wal-Mart, USA).

 SPIRITUALITY
Spirituality is a way of living that emphasizes the constant awareness and recognition of the
spiritual dimension (mind and its development) of nature and people, with a dynamic balance
between the material development and the spiritual development. This is said to be the great
virtue of Indian philosophy and for Indians. Sometimes, spirituality includes the faith or
belief in supernatural power/ God, regarding the worldly events. It functions as a fertilizer for
the soil ‘character’ to blossom into values and morals.
Spirituality includes creativity, communication, recognition of the individual as human being
(as opposed to a life-less machine), respect to others, acceptance (stop finding faults with
colleagues and accept them the way they are), vision (looking beyond the obvious and not
believing anyone blindly), and partnership (not being too authoritative, and always sharing
responsibility with others, for better returns).
Spirituality is motivation as it encourages the colleagues to perform better. Remember, lack
of motivation leads to isolation. Spirituality is also energy: Be energetic and flexible to adapt
to challenging and changing situations. Spirituality is flexibility as well. One should not be
too dominating. Make space for everyone and learn to recognize and accept people the way
they are. Variety is the order of the day. But one can influence their mind to think and act
together. Spirituality is also fun. Working is okay, but you also need to have fun in office to
keep yourself charged up. Tolerance and empathy are the reflections of spirituality. Blue and
saffron colours are said to be associated with spirituality.
Creativity in spirituality means conscious efforts to see things differently, to break out of
habits and outdated beliefs to find new ways of thinking, doing and being. Suppression of
creativity leads to violence. People are naturally creative. When they are forced to crush their
creativity, its energy turns to destructive release and actions. Creativity includes the use of
colour, humour and freedom to enhance productivity. Creativity is fun. When people enjoy
what they do, it is involvement. They work much harder.

Spirituality in the Workplace

Building spirituality in the workplace: Spirituality is promoted in the workplace by adhering
to the following activities:

1. Verbally respect the individuals as humans and recognize their values in all decisions and
actions.
2. Get to know the people with whom you work and know what is important to them. Know
their goals, desires, and dreams too.
3. State your personal ethics and your beliefs clearly.
4. Support causes outside the business.
5. Encourage leaders to use value-based discretion in making decisions.
6. Demonstrate your own self-knowledge and spirituality in all your actions.
7. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Spirituality for Corporate Excellence

The spiritual traits to be developed for excellence in corporate activities are listed as follows:
1. Self-awareness — Realization of self-potential. A human has immense capability but it
needs to be developed.
2. Alertness in observation and quickness in decision making, i.e., spontaneity which includes
quick reflexes, no delay but also no hasty decisions.
3. Being visionary and value based — this includes an attitude towards future of the
organization and the society, with clear objectives.
4. Holism — Whole system or comprehensive views and interconnected with different
aspects. Holistic thinking, which means the welfare of the self, family, organization and the
society including all other living beings and environment.
5. Compassion — Sympathy, empathy and concern for others. These are essential for not
only building the team but also for its effective functioning.
 6. Respect for diversity — it means search for unity in diversity i.e., respect others and their
views.
7. Moral Autonomy — it means action based on rational and moral judgment. One need not
follow the crowd or majority i.e., band-wagon effect.
8. Creative thinking and constant reasoning — think if we can do something new and if we
can improve further?
9. Ability to analyse and synthesize — Refrain from doing something only traditional.
10. Positive views of adversity — Make adversities one’s source of power—a typical Karma
yogi’s outlook! Every threat is converted into opportunity.
11. Humility — the attitude to accept criticism (it requires courage!) and willing to correct. It
includes modesty and acknowledging the work of colleagues.
12. Sense of vocation — Treat the duty as a service to society, besides your organization.