Ethics from a Developmental Perspective
Posted in Career Planning
Given what we know about how we develop across our entire lifespan, it is sensible that there would be developmental perspectives to the ethical dilemmas and challenges that we face over the course of our professional lives. Such views provide fascinating avenues for exploring how our growth and maturation involve evolving ethical challenges.
1. Beginning of training
Our initiation to our choice of profession is often characterized by sheer passion and energy, an enthusiasm to practice new sets of skills and to engage in the latest professional endeavors. This early stage of our professional life may be marked by anxiety-driven ethics and an amplified concern of stepping beyond the limits.
In this period when things often go wrong, we do all we can to avoid what is wrong and do what is right. This can offer a strong foundation for sensitivity to ethical concerns throughout a professional's career. However, failure to move on from this phase may lay the base for a risk-avoidant posture, which can limit our ability to engage people in meaningful and flexible ways.
2. Mid-career
At mid-career, professionals often take pride of coming to master the techniques and skills they have been working on for a decade or so. This stage of a professional's career can bring huge accomplishment and satisfaction. However, this developmental period also offers special ethical challenges.
The beginner's enthusiasm and energy have largely waned and the novelty has likely worn off. What used to be fresh and new may now be considered as routine. Professionals in this period often experience personal obligations, like family and financial demands. Such demands can leave us feeling depleted and render us more susceptible to ethical lapses.
3. Later stage
Thirty or more years into our career, we already have a wealth of experience and wisdom to use when making crucial decisions. Along with these long years of professional experience, we face challenges very different from the first two phases of our professional life.
Vulnerability may crop up from a belief that the rules of ethics apply no longer to oneself but to others, and that we can now decide what is right or wrong when dealing with people without referring to legal rules and codes of ethics. This frame of mind can result in serious ethical lapses.
