Professional Values and Ethics

Professional Values and Ethics

Professional values are defined as worth or importance, (Free Dictionary, 2009) whereas professional ethics are defined as a moral viewpoint, knowing the difference from right and wrong (Your Dictionary, 2010). Ethics and values are used daily by both young people and old people. Learning ethics, like what is right and wrong at a young age will shape a person's professional values. I think values and ethics are based on feelings of right and wrong and whether or not a person can live with the decisions and choices made. Also the media plays a large role in what people think is right and wrong. With the TV Internet and many other types of media bombarding people, this is when the need to rely on yourself and your core ethics and values to determine what is right and wrong.

The biggest source of values and ethics is your parents. Spending the majority of your formative years with your parents would mean most of what influences a person comes from others in your early childhood. Values and ethics develop over time based on the examples and influences of: parents and loving adults such as caregivers, teachers and coaches; siblings, friends, classmates, teammates, historical figures, business or political leaders and celebrities, messages and lessons presented through print, film, television, music, video, or online.

Children need guidance to form good values and ethics. Parents and other loving adults must deliberately teach and model values, ethics and character, or children will likely absorb a system of behavior based on the ideas and examples they receive from peers, media messages and what seems to benefit them at the moment (Family Values, 2010). Chances are at some point in our lives we will all do or say something that will remind us of one of our parents, and maybe even say, "Oh my, I sound just like my Mother!" The influences are strong and stay within us throughout our history.

Making your own experiences will help shape your values and ethic. Life experiences are important, for example, raising children develops patience, understanding, and skills in dealing with youth, even mediation skills! Employers want workers with these valuable skills, and identifying these skills will make you a more marketable candidate. Showing how you have applied such skills in the past and how you'll be able to use them in the future, and you'll be more competitive for positions in your desired career field (Giordani, P. 2009). Possessing a clear vision of your values will help find opportunities in which you are more likely to thrive and be part of a team of people who share the same values as you.

Correlation between values and ethics will influence your career choices because professional values formed from personal influences. Values can come from previous work experiences and making choices that may be good for the company.

Professional values and ethics are the principals that determine actions and conduct in any given profession; these are the rules that help us determine what is right and wrong in any profession; these values are mainly based on impartiality, integrity, honesty. Both of these impact an individual's professional life when an individual decides on what direction their career path to go toward; these aspects can influence an individual career and success in positive or negative ways. Understanding professional values and ethics one must understand the meaning of both words. Values alone are the beliefs most important to an individual and in terms of professional values are the principles that guide and individual's decisions and actions in their chosen career. Whereas ethics are a formal system or set of rules, which are explicitly adopted by a group; basically these are guidelines and moral principles. With having professional values and ethics these attributes will be practiced and will solely depend on individual, their mindset, and structure of themselves. In a work environment professional values and ethics are a two way street that involves the organization and the individual. Any organization may have values and ethics, but it is the