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The Importance of Ethics in Project Management

Kelley Hallmann

Arizona State University

OGL 321: Project Leadership

Professor Ben Pandya

September 27, 2020

THE IMPORTANCE OF ETHICS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The Importance of Ethics in Project Management

Ethics influences the behaviors and decisions that individuals make every day, and it

plays an important role in leadership. Leadership is dependent on a leader’s ability to influence

their followers, and how the leader accomplishes this is influences by their standard of ethics.

Project managers make leadership decisions that impact many individuals such as team

members and project sponsors, and their ability to act ethically with impact how the individuals

respond. In this paper, I will discuss the strategies I learned to improve my ethical leadership

skills by reading Ralph Kliem’s Ethics and Project Management, Project Management Institute’s

Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, Easy in Theory, Difficult in Practice’s blog entry “Are

You Being (Responsibly) Transparent?,” Project Management Hut’s blog entry “Ethical Issues

Related to Project Management,” playing the Harvard Business Project Manager Simulation E,

and reflecting on my own personal experience. Project managers must be capable of making

ethical decisions to lead an effective project team to the completion of a successful project.

Ethics and Project Management

In his book Ethics and Project Management, Ralph Kliem elaborates on the importance

of ethics in chapter two, “Why Ethics Should Matter to Project Managers” (2012). According to

Kliem, project managers must have a broad perspective because of the many individuals that

they interact with. The unique circumstances that project managers navigate often cause

ethical dilemmas to arise. Ethical failure leads to severe consequences that will likely be

devastating to a project’s ability to be successful. These consequences include tarnished

reputation, tarnished credibility, hindered careers, and legal consequences. Project managers
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are ultimately responsible for the performance of the project team, so failure to properly

handle ethical situations is a failure in the project manager’s job responsibilities.

Ethical situations are one of the most difficult responsibilities that project managers

have because these dilemmas are rarely straightforward. Project managers must decipher half-

truths, assumptions, and subjectivities before getting to the root cause of the dilemma. Another

challenge that project managers face is allowing themselves the time to deal with these

dilemmas on top of the other responsibilities they have, but ethical dilemmas must be address

with urgency so they do not further delay the project and lead to severe consequences. Kliem

provides two key considerations for project managers dealing with these situations. The first is

the sensitivity of the issue, and the second is intensity of the response.

Not all ethical situations are equal, so the project manager must weigh the severity of

each issue that arises before responding, and their response should be adjusted based on the

level of severity. To determine the severity of the issue and the response needed, there are a

few things that Kliem suggests for project managers to consider. The first of these is magnitude

of the issue – is it in violation of the law or will it damage someone to a significant degree? The

second is the scalability of the issue, which is how many people it will affect. The third is the

context of the situation – what caused it to occur and did the perpetrator commit this under

duress? The fourth thing project managers must consider is the ramifications of actions. There

are potential actions that project managers can take in response that will make the situation

worse. A project manager must also consider their level of control over the event and if the

event happened by accident or design. Before making a decision, they must also gather the

facts and data, consequences, assumptions, and causes. While there is a lot of information that
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project managers need to deal with ethical dilemmas, taking the time to gather all of this

information – like in many other areas of project management, will significantly increase the

project manager’s ability to make a successful decision.

PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

The Project Management Institute (PMI) puts a high value on ethics. They state that

“ethics is about making the best possible decisions concerning people, resources, and the

environment” in project management (PMI, n.d.). Making ethical choices is a critical skill for

leaders to hone, as it impacts long team success and reputation. Honesty, responsibility,

respect, and fairness are the four values that PMI believes drives ethical leadership in project

managers. PMI expects all members, volunteers, certification holders and applicants to comply

to their code of ethics and professional conduct (PMI, n.d.). PMI provides their Ethical Decision-

Making Framework (EDMF) to assist project managers who are faced with an ethics-based

decision. The first step is to assess and ensure the project manager has all the information

about the dilemma. They must ask themselves if the dilemma abides by the law, aligns with

PMI’s and the organization’s code of ethics and compliance, as well as the values of oneself and

the surrounding culture. The second step is to consider the alternatives. In this step, project

managers make a list of pros and cons as well as the alternative choices that can be made. The

third step is to analyze the decision and test its validity. The project manager must consider if

this decision has a positive impact on the project stakeholders, the environment, and future

generations. They must also consider cultural, external, and internal influences that may impact

or be affected by the decision. The fourth step is the application of the decision. In this step,

project managers should ask themselves if this decision is fair and beneficial to everyone
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concerned. The final step is to make the decision. Once this occurs, the project manager must

take ownership of the decision and its consequences. The project manager should be ready to

act at this phase and comfortable making the decision public.

Blog Analysis

In the blog Easy in Theory, Difficult in Practice, Kiron Bondale elaborates on the

importance of responsibly transparent communication in their article “Are You Being

(Responsibly) Transparent?” (2019). Transparent communication is a key part of ethical

leadership, and it benefits the sponsors, customers, and project teams. Sponsors can build

stronger relationships with project teams and provide better support; customers will have a

better understanding of what is going on, and project teams are able to develop higher levels of

trust and communicate effectively with stakeholders. However, when transparency is not

responsibly filtered, it could create unnecessary panic or cause stakeholders to micro-manage.

Transparent communication must be honest and include communication that may not be

positive, but it also must provide sufficient context, so stakeholders are able to react

appropriately (Bondale, 2019). Especially when delivering news such as progress delays or

problems, it is critical to provide the meaningful commentary to ensure stakeholders

understand the situation and team process to avoid the wrong perceptions being formed.

Mehwish Majeed dives deeper into common ethical issues that project managers face in

her blog entry “Ethical Issues Related to Project Management” in Project Management Hut

(2012). Majeed argues that project managers are rarely provided sufficient training in ethics,

because institutions more commonly focus on professional or technological knowledge. Ethical

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issues are directly related to working relationships with project team members, which has a

direct impact on the productivity of the team. The seven most common issues that project

managers face according to Majeed are: the violation of basic rights of workers, ignoring health

or safety standards, backstabbing, making shady deals, having the wrong people on the job,

having bias, and blaming others (2012). The most common of these is the violation of basic

rights of workers. This can include project managers engaging with team members after office

hours or not allowing them to leave in an emergency. Blaming others is another ethical issue

that happens often that is severely detrimental to the cohesiveness of a team. In projects, the

failure of one individual affects the overall project’s ability to be successful. This causes project

managers to single out individuals and blame them for the failure of the entire project. Not only

is this unproductive and does not allow for the root cause of the project’s failure to be

identified, it creates a hostile work environment that does not foster team collaboration.

Experience with Simulation E

In the Harvard Business Project Management Simulation E, one of the greatest

challenges was to keep team morale high. This simulation had expectations for the level 4

Multifunction printer to be completed within twelve weeks and with a budget of $40,000. Like

Simulation D, Simulation E’s objectives were ambitious, and could easily add stress to the team

if not effectively managed. I found that the most successful approach to this simulation was to

invest in the team’s development to increase their capability and keep morale high. I heavily

invested in coaching time for my team in the early weeks of the project, and then granted them

time back or used that time doing other forms of communication instead as their capability

grew. When team morale plummeted, it was impossible to bounce back and complete the
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project on time and near the budget, so it was important to keep morale top of mind

throughout the simulation more so than ever before.

Personal Reflection

When I was reflecting on my personal experiences in ethical leadership, I resonated with

Mehwish Majeed’s blog entry, “Ethical Issues Related to Project Management.” Blaming others

is a rampant ethical issue at Starbucks at the store level. While Starbucks at the organizational

level does not foster this issue, it happens frequently at the store level because of the “morning

team versus night team” mentality that is commonly allowed to develop by ineffective store

managers. Especially because of COVID-19, it is common at Starbucks to have a team that

exclusively works mornings and a separate team that exclusively works nights. These teams

have vastly different responsibilities, and they rarely understand each other. I have seen many

store managers not invest enough time helped each team understand what each other is

responsible for, but when one of the teams brings a problem to their attention, they blame the

opposite team instead of getting the team to communicate and collaborate on the issue.

My previous employer, GameStop, is like many organizations Majeed describes that do

not invest in ethics training. However, because of my experience at the district manager level

with them, I developed these skills through the many ethical issues I faced in my stores and by

having frequent communication with my human resources partner. When I took over my

current Starbucks store, I experienced the issue of the morning team and night team blaming

each other. The previous leadership in the store exclusively worked in the morning and did not

invest any time with the night team. This resulted in the night team being vastly undertrained
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and toxic relationships to grow within the team. When my team brought problems to my

attention, I immediately brought the parties involved together and mediated a collaborative

conversation instead of assigning blame. My team is now comfortable communicating with

each other daily and having a better understanding of what each other are responsible for.

Conclusion

Successful project managers lead ethically. Ethics influences all the individuals involved

in a project, and it is critical for building reputation, ensuring long-term success, and

establishing a collaborative and effective team. Project managers can enhance their ethical

leadership skills by reading Ralph Kliem’s Ethics and Project Management, Project Management

Institute’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, Easy in Theory, Difficult in Practice’s blog

entry “Are You Being (Responsibly) Transparent?,” Project Management Hut’s blog entry

“Ethical Issues Related to Project Management,” playing the Harvard Business Project Manager

Simulation E, and reflecting on their own personal experience.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ETHICS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

References

Bondale, K. (2019, March 16). Are you being (responsibly) transparent? Retrieved September

27, 2020, from https://kbondale.wordpress.com/2019/03/17/are-you-being-responsibly-

transparent/

Code of Ethics & Professional Conduct. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2020, from

https://www.pmi.org/about/ethics/code

Kliem, R. L. (2012). Ethics and project management. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Majeed, M. (2013, May 15). Ethical Issues Related to Project Management. Retrieved

September 27, 2020, from https://project-management.com/ethical-issues-related-to-

project-management/