In June 2024, I wrote an article reflecting on the role of ethical leadership in upholding the values of the Constitution to ensure that the state of the South African nation improves. A few months later, one must wonder whether the tide is beginning to turn.

The state of a nation reflects the collective aspirations, challenges, and milestones of its people. At any given moment, it is shaped by a confluence of political decisions, economic trends, social movements, and cultural shifts. In South Africa, the past year has been pivotal, with critical developments, such as the establishment of a Government of National Unity (GNU), influencing both domestic and international standing. However, the GNU faces numerous challenges and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

This is not unlike the world of business. As corporate scandals and crises continue to unfold globally – and as challenges such as climate change, sustainable development, social inequality, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) intensify – the role of ethical organisational cultures, led by ethical leaders, has never been more crucial. The cultures established within workplaces are vital, and the field of ethics offers a uniquely valuable pool of principles, insights, and knowledge that can significantly contribute to addressing these challenges.

The findings of a 2024 survey conducted by the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE), across 16 countries and 12 000 employees, suggest that, globally, and more specifically in South Africa, some ethical principles have become more deeply embedded in the DNA of corporations. However, there are still areas where more work and leadership are required.

Across these 16 countries – including South Africa, Japan, India, Brazil, Germany, France, New Zealand, the UK, Hong Kong, and the USA – most employees (71%) believe that their organisations are taking ethics seriously. However, persistently high levels of misconduct remain, with a quarter of employees reporting that they had been aware of misconduct or illegal activity at work in the past year.

Although below the global average of 84%, it is encouraging to note that South African employees, in general (81%), believe that honesty is practised at work. Nevertheless, pressure to compromise on ethical standards remains high, with around one in five employees in South Africa saying they feel such pressure. The main sources of this pressure to compromise on ethical standards are time pressure/ unrealistic deadlines and following their boss’s orders.

It is worrying that more than a third of employees in South Africa reported being aware of conduct that they believed violated either the law or their organisation’s ethical standards in the past year. This marks a statistically significant increase from 2021, when much fewer employees reported being aware of misconduct. What is even more concerning are the types of misconduct that employees knew about, such as abuse of authority (46%), stealing (43%), discrimination (based on ethnicity, gender, or age) (38%), misreporting of hours worked (36%), unethical hiring practices (28%), and safety violations (28%). Organisational leadership should take note of these findings and implement ethics interventions to demonstrate the unacceptability of such unethical conduct.

On a positive note, the percentage of employees who blew the whistle (79%) is the second highest across the 16 countries (India reported 88%) and shows a significant increase since 2021, when just over two-thirds of employees reported unethical conduct. What is particularly remarkable about this increase in willingness to report is that the generally negative perception of whistleblowing and the detriments whistleblowers experience seemingly did not serve as deterrents for these employees to speak up.

However, for those employees in South Africa who observed misconduct but did not report it, fear of losing their jobs (60%) was the most significant reason for their silence. Other reasons cited include not wanting to be seen as a troublemaker by management (32%) and not believing that their reports would result in action by the organisation (30%).

Unfortunately, despite their willingness to report unethical conduct, nearly half of employees who reported such behaviour experienced personal disadvantage or retaliation. This is a particularly serious finding and presents a significant risk of undermining confidence in the systems and leadership that support an ethical culture.

In the findings of the survey section dealing with awareness of an organisational code of ethics, South Africa takes first place, with more than ninety percent of employees indicating that they are aware of the code that communicates acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in their organisations. This is a testament to the efforts made by organisations to create ethical cultures.

South Africa also earned first place for awareness of their organisations’ speak up (whistleblowing) mechanisms, with 81% stating that they know where to report misconduct (this is significantly higher than the global average of 61%).

It is clear that high levels of awareness of an organisation’s ethical standards, as codified in a Code of Ethics, coupled with high levels of awareness of where to raise concerns, lead to increased recognition of unethical conduct and a greater willingness to report it. This, in turn, enables action to be taken and ensures that people are held accountable for their misconduct.

Returning to the State of Affairs of our Nation – according to CollinsDictionary.com, if you refer to a particular state of affairs, you mean the general situation and circumstances connected with someone or something. As an example of the phrase’s usage, it cites: “The nation had a chance to move towards a more democratic and modern state of affairs.”

The South African nation consists, among others, of employees of organisations. If employees experience ethical organisational cultures where acceptable and unacceptable behaviour are clearly communicated, and leadership sets the tone for ethical conduct, this must surely spill over into the rest of the nation. If the GNU can do the same, the state of affairs of the South African nation can only improve.

Perhaps CollinsDictionary.com should add another example of the term’s usage: “The Government and organisations have a chance to move towards a more fair, equal, and ethical state of affairs.”

Dr Liezl Groenewald is the CEO of The Ethics Institute