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PCA – Ethical Communities

Megan Miller

Department of Integrative Sciences and Arts, Arizona State University

OGL 481: Pro-Seminar I

Dr. Hess

October 6, 2020
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Ethical Communities

I am the Leadership Development Specialist on the Leadership Development Training

Team at United Wholesale Mortgage Company where we are responsible for providing

leadership training to all levels of the company from team member up to C-suite leadership. In

March of this year our company, like many others, was faced with the harsh reality of COVID-

19. The 2020 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on much of the world and our training teams

have been faced with many difficult decisions regarding training protocols at work.

As a financial industry provider, we were considered an essential business and needed to

ensure compliance training and business continued as normally as possible. During this time, the

senior leadership team continued to meet and discuss issues associated with COVID-19, business

as a whole, and team members health and safety. However, there was a lack of communication

and transparency between the senior leadership team and the team members that unfortunately

led to a misguided press release in August. This release included COVID-19 positive test

numbers for our team members, however over half of the positive results were from team

members who had not stepped foot into the office since March. This lapse in communication

contributed to a culture of distrust and fear amongst many team members.

Ethical Influence

The ethics of the organization influenced the COVID-19 situation both in various positive

and negative ways. I’ve reflected on the influence of ethics of the organization through the four

difference frames: structural, human resources, political, and symbolic.

The first frame I reflected on was the structural frame. One major focus of the structural

frame regarding ethics is the organizations level and commitment to excellence (Bolman & Deal,

2017, pg. 380). At United Wholesale Mortgage we have a very strong commitment to providing
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excellence in all business areas and we strive to always provide elite client service – both to our

internal and external clients. Examples including the speed of service from submission to

closing of a loan and the creation of partner branding products that do not result in direct

profitability for us, but for our clients instead. In addition, our company has six pillars and the

sixth one is referred to as, “Our path is paved with fun and friendship”. This pillar encourages

team members to grind hard, but have fun doing so; to ensure that, prior to the pandemic there

were various fun and friendship events happening throughout every week.

The second frame of the ethical community is the human resource frame. Simply put,

human resources is compared to a family environment in which the people of an organization

show ‘love’ to one another (Bolman & Deal, 2017, pg. 391). At United Shore we believe our

people are our greatest asset, and although we could make decisions based on profitability and

benefits for the business, our true focus resides on our team members. In the scenario described

above, for profitability sake and efficiency, our company occupies a large enough space that we

could bring back all team members to work in the office. However, this would not be in the best

interest of the team members and because we make it clear our team members are the greatest

asset, the company has encouraged team members to work from home through the end of the

year, and likely the time will be extended beyond that.

The third frame of the ethical community is the political frame, also referred to as the

jungle (Bolman & Deal, 2017, pg. 392). This frame is emphasized by the often cut-throat, rigid,

standards of the political or business community. This is certainly an area of opportunity in

regards to the work from home change surrounding the pandemic as many of these strict work

standards remained in effect even when working from home. Specifically referring to the actions

of the senior leadership team, team members felt as though they were left out of decisions and
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the last to find out about changes being made. This led to the feelings of mistrust and unease

amongst team members.

The fourth and final frame of the ethical community is the symbolic frame, also referred

to as the temple. This frame is described as the temple because it includes references to the

organization as, “the gathering place for people with shared traditions, backgrounds, and beliefs”

(Bolman & Deal, 2017, pg. 393). When United Shore sent all team members to work from home,

the ritual and ceremony of the day-to-day traditions were instantly gone. Team members were no

longer coming to work to interact and share stories, engage in lunch time activities, or

communicate about life happenings; team members were just trying to adapt to the changes and

survive in the unknown state of the world. The symbolic environment started to fade, and the

organization was left with team members who no longer felt the magic or possibly were hired

during the pandemic and had never experienced it before.

My Recommendation

One area I would recommend applying the ethical community for an alternative course of

action regarding the COVID-19 pandemic would be to the political community. The reference to

‘the jungle’ applies perfectly to what occurred at United Shore. Although decisions weren’t

being made to cause any harm to team members and I’d like to believe they were not being done

to deceive anyone, the way the decisions were made and the lack of communication that

surrounded them could be seen as dishonest or deceptive through the eyes of team members.

I would recommend looking at the politics of the organization through the eyes of the

team member to understand how the lack of communication funneling down from senior leaders,

to team leaders, to team members affected the morale in the company. Consistent, transparent,

communication funneling from the top down should have been established early on in the
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pandemic rather than months into managing the operational changes. In addition, considering a

more flexible schedule for team members with adaptable shift times, adjustable lunch hours, and

varied time clock punches. These are just a few ways the organization could address the political

community for an alternative course of action.

Reflection

Reflecting on what I have learned about ethics, there are certain things I would have done

differently if I could rewind. The two greatest areas of focus for me would have been on the

political frame and the symbolic frame. As a leadership development specialist, my role is to

analyze the behaviors of the 600+ leaders in our company and provide suggestions for actions

based on the data. Early in the pandemic it was evident to our team that leaders were struggling

to keep their team members engaged and feeling recognized; however, we struggled to

implement change. We provided various ideas and team building activities, but we could have

done a better job following up with leaders and ensuring that these resources were being utilized.

In addition, another role of our team is to advise leaders on the actions they can take to

improve their relationships with team members and ensure we are consistently building on our

desired family culture. I personally felt during this time that I didn’t have enough information as

a team members and there were times I felt concern over the lack of communication. However, I

did not pass on this information or relay my feelings to my leader or others. Our team works with

senior leaders everyday and there is a chance, if we had communicated that members of our team

were feeling this way, the message would have painted a bigger picture that other team members

were likely feeling this way as well.

Reference:

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing  organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership

(6th ed.).San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass