Li, a top sales associate at Tech Solutions Inc., has consistently exceeded her quarterly sales targets, significantly contributing to the company's revenue. However, it's become known that Li often bypasses the company's ethical guidelines to close deals faster, such as omitting important product limitations or overpromising on delivery times. While her results are impressive, her methods have raised concerns among her colleagues and a few clients. Given deontology’s emphasis on adherence to rules and ethical principles, how should Li’s supervisor address her conduct?

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

This scenario asks how a supervisor should respond to an employee whose sales results are strong but whose conduct violates ethical guidelines, viewed through a deontological lens that prioritizes adherence to rules and duties.
Option a: 'Ignore Li’s ethical shortcuts, focussing solely on her exceptional sales figures' This approach is inconsistent with deontological ethics, which requires following rules regardless of outcomes. It implicitly rewards noncompliance and could erode the company’s moral standards and legitimacy, even if profits are high.
Option b: 'Confront Li about her ethical shortcuts, emphasising the importance of integrity over results' This aligns with deontology by foregrounding duty, rule-following, and the company’s ethical standards over mere performance metrics. It signals that outcomes do not excuse unethical means and invites Li to realign her behavior with established guidelines, preserving trust and the moral framework of the organization.
Option c: 'Assess the overall impact of Li’s sales achievements on the company, weighing them against her ethical shortcuts' While this seems balanced, deontological ethics would still require addressing the breach of rules directly rather than performing a business-impact assessment alone. A mere calculation of outcomes risks normalizing the shortcuts and delays accountability for the violation of duties.
Option d: 'Reflect on how addressing Li’s behaviour could influence the supervisor’s relationship with her and the team' This emphasizes relational dynamics and potential harm to leadership legitimacy rather than focusing on the ethical obligation to enforce rules. Although workplace harmony matters, a deontological response would prioritize duty compliance and corrective action over concerns about personal relationships, at least as a guiding motive.
In summary, option b directly upholds the central deontological principle: rules and ethical duties take precedence over desirable outcomes. The other options either sidestep accountability, risk normalizing unethical conduct, or foreground relational consequences at the expense of duty to guidelines and integrity.

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