We all have our own internal ethical alarm bell.  You feel it and hear it when ‘something’ goes down at work, and it sets off a deep feeling of unease that is impossible to ignore.  Yet extraordinarily difficult to deal with rationally. Not least because – at this early stage – it’s a feeling, a discordant sound in your head, a faint nausea that creeps up when the ‘something’ pops back into your mind.  Which it does with increasing fervour.

It doesn’t have to be a high-stakes issue such as fraud or corruption to create such disquiet.  Although these things do happen.  

It can be much more subtle, almost imperceptible.  Maybe a decision gets made behind closed doors that doesn’t square with loudly stated plans. Perhaps a process gets conveniently sidestepped by someone with the power to do so. Or it could be that someone senior/powerful says something shocking in a meeting and you catch a colleague’s eye across the table in a fleeting moment of shared disbelief.  But no-one comments out loud…..

And then you go home and think about it. And think about it. And think about it some more.  Until you begin to feel a little stir crazy. Your mind launches into what I can only describe as an exhausting internal committee meeting that goes round in circles and never reaches a decision.

I’ve had plenty of moments in my career where something felt discordantly wrong, and I had absolutely no clue what to do about it. I had plenty of ideas, all of which were angrily stated in my mind’s eye and then reined in because the consequences, of which there were many, flared up in response.

Am I overreacting? Am I the only person who thinks this is wrong? If I raise it, will I become the problem? What if I’m partly motivated by frustration with the person involved and this isn’t really about ethics at all? Who can I actually trust with this? And if I say something, who has my back?

It seems to me that this sort of scenario has extra piquancy right now.  The sector is on high alert, change is rapid and opaque, loyalties are shifting, and so people’s position in an organisation can feel precarious.  So much so that raising an uncomfortable truth can feel truly dangerous. 

Far easier, of course, to try to ignore ‘the thing’ and turn a blind eye.  So many others will do just that.  But, as you will know, this can be corrosive and can lead to damaging self-recrimination.

This article is not about saying – ‘call it out’ or ‘do the right thing’.  There is rarely a ‘right thing’ in these complex scenarios, and your response will be uniquely grounded in circumstances.

Sometimes the wisest move is a carefully placed conversation with someone you trust. Someone who can listen without judgment or advice.  Who can help you really understand your own thinking.  Back in my Registrar days, I would take these issues to a coach, a mentor, or a thinking buddy from a wholly different sector.   It always helped me to get to where I needed to get to. And into action.

Now, I’m lucky to have an excellent supervisor to whom I can take my moral maze dilemmas, with whom I can talk the issue out in detail and be gently challenged on my thinking. In these sessions, I can explore every crevice of the issue, understand what the root unease is all about and determine what course of action feels just right for me.

If you are ruminating on an ethical dilemma, my invitation to you today is, don’t let it expand to fill your week.  It will fry your brain!   Say it out loud, examine it – ideally with a neutral colleague – stare it down and work out what feels absolutely right for you.  Then do it.

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I work with women leaders in HE to help them feel in control so they can thrive in their careers and lead with confidence and impact.