Ethical Dilemmas faced by Managers today

Managerial prerogative is a thorny issue in the human resources discourses, especially when one examines it within on ethics. Increasingly employees are largely dissatisfied with their bosses yet studies that encompass management studies and research are on the rise.  While some argument thrust that managers have done their role by stamping their authority, others reckon that privileges have been over-emphasized and abused. For the managers who over-stamp their authority and power, increased criticism from their juniors’ makes a number of them whole-up, timid, aggressive and indifferent.

With the hard economic times in consideration, employers pile pressure on employees to deliver, with managers being the crux in pendulum. Increasingly, managers experience ambivalence trying to please both sides, choosing predominantly the former.  Therefore, some bully other employees in the lower rank, thus the rising term called Workplace Bullying or Narcissism

in total  management of employees is the mandate of managers. This includes employee choice and recruitment, their classification and determination of compensation.  Beyond this, managers should instantiate employee training and capacity development besides facilitating negotiations for payment agreements and other relevant harmonization, besides initiating other corporate social responsibilities. Broadly, the phenomenon of managers’ dilemmas is broadly conceptualized overstepping their mandate in the following ways:

Today, a number of companies employ people without formalized accord and some do so at ‘at-will contracts’ interestingly, a few managers take advantage of this unfortunate affair. It is not surprising witnessing managers terminating employees for any reason they believe fit, sometimes basing their decisions on pure discrimination and ‘whistle-blowing’. This largely creates conflict in the work place and is a great violation of ethical standards. Various reports show that a good number of managers are exhibiting harassment on their subordinates, some sexual . No wonder, a number of acts and pieces of legislations the world over have prohibit discriminatory harassment including sexual harassment.

The other area where managers seem to overstep their boundaries and experience dilemma is when managing the customer relationship and employee interaction. Related to this is placing bottlenecks of employees’ communication with clients and sometimes within themselves. This is usually tailored around the ‘ebb and flow’ of communication as defined by the management. Sometimes managers consciously or unconsciously inhibit the flow of communication between workers to promote witch-hunting and cause incitement.  Most of them are not aware of the fundamental need associated with dealing with this and sometimes base their fear and defensive action on their insecurities and inferiority complex.