Leadership in Big Tech: How to Make Ethical Decisions

Business ethics are increasingly important in the tech industry.

According to a survey of technology professionals by consulting firm Deloitte, 82 percent believe their companies are ethical. However, only 24 percent strongly agree that the tech industry approaches products and services ethically.

Considering these statistics, it’s essential to understand ethical leadership and decision-making’s importance in technology and how you can make a difference.

The Importance of Ethical Leadership in Technology

Ethical leadership is crucial in any industry. With the emergence of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and facial recognition advancements, technology faces additional scrutiny.

“Reflecting on complex, gray-area decisions is a key part of what it means to be human, as well as an effective leader,” says Harvard Business School Professor Nien-hê Hsieh in the online course Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability. “You have agency; you must choose how to act. And with that agency comes responsibility.”

As a tech leader, you must make ethical decisions that ensure products and services are useful and safe for consumers. For example, digital health technologies are quickly becoming gray areas. While they enable new, more convenient forms of health care, they also create privacy concerns around sensitive data.

Discrepancies between products and services and the ethical considerations they pose can affect your business’s ethical reputation and bottom line. According to BusinessDIT, 84 percent of consumers consider a business’s ethics and values before purchasing.

If you want to make leadership decisions that promote ethics and accountability in big tech, here’s how.

How to Make Ethical Decisions in Big Tech

1. Overcome Bias

Stereotypes and biases—even those that are unconscious—can contribute to unfair decisions and harmful actions. That’s why overcoming them is essential when starting a tech business.

Workplace stereotypes and biases can be based on:

• Race
• Gender
• Age
• Sexual orientation
• Religious affiliation

Strategies for surmounting bias and practicing ethical decision-making include:

• Hosting workshops to increase cultural awareness
• Encouraging interactions between diverse groups
• Holding colleagues accountable when biases or stereotypes affect the workplace

“Factors such as where companies recruit, who they decide to interview, how employees are treated once they’re hired, and aspects of organizational culture all play major roles in determining workforce diversity and a sense of well-being among employees,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability.

Related: 5 Strategies for Overcoming Unconscious Bias in the Tech Industry

2. Prioritize Data Ethics

Ethical leadership is pivotal to ensuring tech products prioritize data ethics—the moral obligations of gathering, protecting, and using personally identifiable information.

The five data ethics principles are:

• Ownership: Obtain consent from users who own their personal information.
• Transparency: Show people how you use, collect, and store their data.
• Privacy: Protect personally identifiable information.
• Intention: Know why you collect data and your intentions regarding its use.
• Outcomes: Consider data analyses’ possible outcomes, regardless of intentions.

“Digital technologies provide a great many benefits,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability. “While at the same time heightening challenges to things like privacy, human rights, and the mental and physical safety of users.”

While you may not be responsible for the back end of your organization’s services or products, it’s critical to understand data ethics to spot unethical actions, ensure customers' safety, and avoid legal issues.

3. Foresee Potential Harms

Identifying potential harms in technology is crucial to your company's long-term success. Doing so allows you to proactively diminish risks, such as:

• Security breaches
• Data privacy violations
• Negative social impacts, such as social isolation, job displacements, and privacy concerns

According to Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability, tech companies’ speed, scope, and scale often magnify their risk of harm.

“In these situations, developing our awareness as individuals—as well as the organizational capacity for awareness—becomes especially critical,” Hsieh says in the course. “Most business leaders would argue that they didn’t intend any harm related to their business. And while that may be true, the question remains: ‘Could they have foreseen those harms?”’

Consider the debate around social media’s impact. According to Pew Research, 64 percent of Americans say social media has had a mostly negative effect on the world. While social media founders may not have foreseen that outcome, perhaps they could have mitigated it with changes to their business models.

4. Reflect on Past Decisions

Being an effective ethical leader requires reflection. By fostering self-awareness, introspection, and continuous learning and growth, you can practice reflective leadership, make better decisions, enhance your skills, and improve your team’s performance.

“Reflective leadership requires the continuous practice of reflection over time,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability. “This allows you to regularly examine and re-evaluate your decisions and responsibilities to practice, broaden, and deepen your skills, and to apply this knowledge when analyzing present situations.”

This is particularly important in tech, considering the constant shift of advancements and ethical issues.

“As a leader, when trying to determine what we should do, it can be helpful to start by simply asking in any given situation, ‘What can we do?’ and ‘What would be wrong to do?’” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability. “From there, we can expand our second reflection question—‘How can we do better?’—and consider more generally how to make a positive difference in the world.”

Make a Difference in Big Tech

With a myriad of concerns around technology, it’s essential to take an active role in creating a responsible, accountable business environment.

One way to do so is by taking an online course that provides a toolkit for making tough leadership decisions. For example, through an interactive learning experience, Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability enables you to use the reflective leadership model and gain insights from real-world examples featuring business leaders.

Do you want to be an ethical leader in the technology industry? Enroll in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability—one of our online leadership and management courses—and download our free e-book on effective leadership.