Maintaining moral integrity is essential for leaders, particularly for healthcare administrators. Moral integrity plays a significant role in ensuring career success, as it promotes trust in the workplace. As individuals strive to function as ethics-based health care professionals, they are influenced by several factors that impact on their ethical decision making. Such influences could be internal, external or founding principles that exert pressure on individuals. As such, maintaining moral integrity could be challenging for individuals seeking to make ethical decisions during their careers (Morrison, 2009). The inner circle of ethics determines whether an individual maintains moral integrity or not. This is because people make ethical decisions at a personal level. Therefore, the inner circle of ethics defines an individual's morality, which comprises those values that one holds independent of work or other social groups. People who are personally moral tend to treat others in the best way they would like to be treated. Such factors often influence the personal moral values as education, professional socialization, and experiences. Essentially, the role of a healthcare administrator is to provide authentic leadership by promoting actions that are geared toward producing good and avoiding harm. Therefore, moral-centeredness is essential for career success among healthcare leaders, particularly health care administrators. This paper will focus on several challenges for maintaining moral integrity, especially in the workplace. Focusing on such challenges could significantly help in developing an individual's moral code. Additionally, personal integrity can be improved by engaging in projects that increase ethical practice.
The first important challenge for maintaining moral integrity is determining why I want a career in healthcare administration. The moment I understand the main reason I want to be a healthcare administrator is when I will be able to figure out my fundamental career responsibilities. The essential thing is to have a satisfying career. This challenge is fundamental because it enables me to realize that there are some sacrifices I will have to make to be a successful professional. Additionally, reflecting on the reasons that make me choose a career in healthcare administration can help me realize that money or fame is not one of the reasons. Such a reflection makes me realize that two powerful forces will help keep me in a healthcare administration career (Morrison, 2009). I will challenge myself to make a significant difference through service delivery. Moreover, I will have to engage in meaningful work to ensure that I succeed in the field of healthcare administration.
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There are various indicators that I may detect if at all I am not providing meaningful service in the workplace. For instance, I may realize that I am not contributing positively in terms of service delivery. To consider myself successful, I have to influence other employees positively and initiate meaningful change. My goal would be to create a better organization for my staff, patients, and community ( Hutchinson & Jackson, 2013) . Failure to achieve these will mean that I will have failed in providing quality service in the workplace. However, if the job contributes to my life's meaning, I will consider it fit. If service becomes a principal focus of my work, I will view it as a source of meaning. This way, I will be willing to continue being a health administrator, even when things are not that pleasant, and I will be committed to the profession. I will ensure that decisions I make help in creating a positive work environment. Moreover, I will be able to make a lifelong commitment to moral integrity.
Conducting a personal moral integrity cost/benefits analysis is another challenge for maintaining the moral integrity that can help me in developing an effective personal moral code. This challenge will ensure that I assign a career cost to a given decision, as it will help me to decide if a particular course is beneficial to my moral life. The challenge is important because it will help in proper decision making. Personal morality is entirely a matter of decision making (Morrison et al., 2002). Therefore, determining what decisions to make can help in promoting moral integrity in the workplace. For instance, I could conduct a cost/benefits analysis to make a decision on whether or not to accept a job promotion. There could some moral costs associated with making a particular decision. On the other hand, there could be benefits for making such a decision (Morrow, 2009). Likewise, there could also be moral costs and benefits for not making a given resolution. Therefore, it is important to weigh the benefits against the costs of making or not making a particular decision. As such, I will adopt a simple self-brainstorming technique that will help me to think about the possible benefits and costs relating to a particular decision. The impacts that my decisions will have on the organization and employees will indicate whether they are ethical or not. For instance, if employees become less productive, then my decisions could be inappropriate. Therefore, I will have to determine the costs and benefits of the decisions I make.
Another important challenge for maintaining moral integrity is by engaging in directed activities aimed at building and maintaining moral integrity. This challenge is important because it helps in reinforcing ethical behaviors among individuals. If I engage in activities that will build my morality, I will be more successful in maintain moral integrity in the workplace. For instance, I will try to keep a journal of the actions and decisions I make. I could do this twice a week. This technique will help me to reflect on the decisions I make based on my moral values. The moral values I uphold will always be reflected in the actions and decisions I make. When I finally go through my journals, I will be able to read about former areas of concern. As such, this will help me determine how much I have grown morally as an individual. Essentially, reflection is an effective way of fostering growth in moral integrity (Hayes, 2006). For instance, I could use actions of other people and think about what I could have done in similar situations. Repeating the same moral mistakes over and over will indicate that I have failed in building and maintaining my moral integrity through directed activities. As such, I will have to always reflect on my actions to draw critical moral lessons from them.
Another critical challenge for maintaining moral integrity is identifying a moral mentor. This challenge is very appropriate to me because learning from a mentor is much easier and more effective. This is because one can not only learn from the successes of a particular mentor, but also from his failures. As such, I will have an opportunity to become better than my moral mentor in terms of personal moral integrity. It is important to realize that a moral mentor always goes beyond sharing information regarding how things work. In fact, moral mentors are willing to hear and understand an individual's deepest professional concerns in confidence and proceed to provide guidance without prejudice. Generally, the healthcare system is continually growing in complexity (Rhee & Morrison, 2018). As such, it will be normal for me to have concerns and questions regarding the right thing to do. However, I may tend to shy away from sharing such concerns publicly for fear of profiling or humiliation. In such a case, a moral mentor could be very useful, given the confidentiality that they treat your concerns with. Having a lot of unanswered questions regarding how things are done would be a clear indication that I do not have a moral mentor to provide guidance. Upon realizing this, I will identify a moral mentor who will be able to take me through the journey of personal moral integrity. In choosing a moral mentor, I will identify a person whose behavior is consistent with his words. This will help me build and maintain personal moral integrity in the workplace.
Designing a prevention plan to avoid moral derailment is another significant challenge for maintaining moral integrity. This challenge is appropriate to me because I need to identify and avoid any actions that may hinder the growth of my moral code. Essentially, there are aspects of our personalities that may derail our morals in a significant way. For instance, the privileges that come with power can be a great temptation, particularly if too much value is put on them. At such a point, it is important to realize that compassion, service, and heroism are keys to success (Douglas, 2014). I will also have to stay away from the shadow of deceit and complacency at work. This will help me in building and maintaining moral integrity.
In conclusion, it is demonstrable that moral integrity is essential for career success. Healthcare administrators have an obligation to maintain personal integrity through a commitment to service, compassion, and humility. There are several challenges for maintaining moral integrity in the workplace as highlighted above. Most importantly, the inner circle of ethics represents an individual's moral code, which is influenced by various external factors. An individual ought to maintain personal moral integrity amid such influences.
References
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Morrow, S. (2009). New graduate transitions: leaving the nest, joining the flight. Journal of Nursing Management , 17 (3), 278-287.
Rhee, E., & Morrison, W. (2018). Pediatric Palliative Care and the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Current Pediatrics Reports , 1-7.
