Spirituality and Business Ethics

The past few decades have been filled with business leaders who treated making a profit as if it were the only part of ethics under the company’s umbrella of responsibility. Business leaders, as of 2010, are finding that exhibiting ethics in labor relations, environmental issues, and spirituality, ends up giving company owners and investors a larger pay off than cut-throat business practices provide.

Colleges Offering Business Ethics Training to Prepare Future Leaders

Potential future business leaders have traditionally gone to college to learn the fine points of being a good leader, and professors have instructed the students on how to use facts, economic principles, and accounting procedures as a basis for effective decision-making. This is how things have been done for decades, but the educational paradigm is shifting because the business world is changing.

Business students still learn the basics of good decision-making, but many colleges have added ethics courses. Ethics, corporate responsibility, and spirituality are combining to change the way business is done. The media and the educational systems are taking note, and following the trend. The idea of chasing the bottom dollar, and keeping the human need for spirituality out of business, is no longer considered the only way to run a successful business.

What is Spirituality in Business?

Businesses have to be careful of how they present spirituality in the workplace. If it is presented from a particular religious viewpoint, the company might be accused of discriminating against those people who are not of the denomination in question. Spirituality in the workplace affects the way companies perform because leaders send the message that the rewards within the company are for doing the ethical thing rather than taking short-cuts.

Spirituality in business is generally thought of as the way a company conducts business. Things like using sweatshop labor practices, hazardous chemicals, and careless waste disposal, give companies and leaders a poor reputation. However, companies that provide a quiet area for meditation or prayer and that go out of the way to find environmentally friendly solutions, get rewarded by consumers, reduced worker absenteeism, and reduced employee turn-over.

Business Ethics Policies

According to Corinne McLaughlin, in her article Spirituality and Ethics in Business, the popular line of thinking, as of 2004, is for corporations to consider a triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit. Investors, consumers, and potential employees are all seeking companies that actively practice these three p’s of corporate ethics.

Organizations that are failing to balance the three p’s, people, planet, and profit, are finding it harder to thrive. Consumers and investors are increasingly aware and informed, and are following the trend of voting for socially responsible companies by spending and investing with the companies with the highest spiritual and ethical standards.