When you hear the names Enron, Global Crossing, Arthur Andersen and WorldCom, you instantly think "secrets and lies." But do the misdeeds of these companies represent the modus operandi for leaders today? Are morals in American business deteriorating?

I posed this question to 10 business leaders, and they all agreed that business ethics have eroded over the past two decades. Yet these leaders are also unanimous in their belief that American business can retrieve itself from the gutter. They say it is up to each individual to make good ethical decisions.

Personal Responsibility -- When Does It Start?

It's easy to blame business leaders for corporate transgressions. We stand up and take notice when our pension plans are affected. But when should personal responsibility start? In the 1998 Who's Who Among High School Students survey, four out of five students admit to cheating on assignments, and 53 percent said cheating was no big deal. Of course, these students grow up and go into business. When ethical challenges arise, will they make the right decisions?

It used to be that making decisions in business was pretty simple. All you had to do was ask yourself, "Is this legal? Is this against company policy? Can I sleep at night if I do it?" Then business got more complicated, with the competition to succeed becoming more intense. The gray areas surrounding decisions expanded. Many leaders are now torn between company profits and doing the right thing. They are also torn between doing what is right for the company long-term and what is good for their careers in the short-term.

The problem doesn't just exist in corner offices. According to a survey of workers by the Ethics Officer Association, 48 percent of workers surveyed said they had engaged in at least one unethical and/or illegal action during the past year. The most common behavior involved cutting corners on quality (16 percent), covering up situations (14 percent), lying about sick days (11 percent) and deceiving customers (9 percent). Four percent of workers reported taking credit for another's idea, while 5 percent lied to superiors on a serious matter and 3 percent did the same to a subordinate.

What Can Ethical Leaders Do?

Ethical business leaders will have to take some immediate steps to show employees and stockholders they are honest and determined to do their best for the organization. Each leader must model high ethical standards. In addition, here are 10 more steps you can take right now.

• Assess your personal morals. What you do in your personal life permeates your business affairs and the lives of your children. Be a good role model.



• Review your company's ethics. Make it clear what is and is not acceptable.



• Establish your mission statement and your company's core values. High ethical standards are based on integrity, honor, honesty and fairness to all.



• Communicate the mission and core values to every employee and customer through your words and actions.



• Create an ethics policy that clearly states the company's philosophy and consequences for not following the policy. Some guidelines can be found on the Society for Human Resource Management's Web site.



• Implement ethics training.



• Tighten your accounting practices as well as your conflict-of-interest policy.



• Establish an ethics panel that will review ethics violations and questionable decisions. This group can take pressure off employees during decision making.



• Include ethics in your performance evaluations to ensure employees are held accountable for their actions.



• Watch out for any employee who is out to make a name for himself. It is often the superstar who is the one pushing the envelope.

There Is No Magic Potion

The University of Missouri has many well-known graduates; two of the more noted are Sam Walton of Wal-Mart and Kenneth Lay of Enron. Their different paths to success remind us that there is no magic formula for keeping your employees honest. As Elizabeth Dole told the Duke University class of 2000, "In the final analysis, it is your moral compass that counts far more than any bank balance, any resume, and yes, any diploma."