BLC: Creating A New Work Ethic - CEO Bayer, Amir Iqbal

Mr. Amir Iqbal, MD & CEO of Bayer Pakistan spoke at Business Leaders Conference held on 16 August 2017. He addressed on the topic of “Creating A New Work Ethic”. Mr Amir said that an ethical work environment is the one where everyone realizes that his/her role is to create
value for all the stakeholders.

Leaders know what they stand for, that is, what are their values. They also recognize the significance of ethical behavior in a workplace. The great leaders show both their values and their ethics in their
leadership actions. They believe that ethics and values are two important traits that must be seen in
their acts and activities and must be promoted among their employees.

A leader always chose values and ethics as a most important thing towards him because it defines his
character. In an organization, a code of conduct is given to everyone to inform them about work ethics.

If a leader would fail to follow the published code then it can be seen that no one would be following it. This is why a leader’s action put a powerful influence on his followers.

The speaker further spoke about delivering value to your customers, employees and all other
stakeholders. He said that one of the main objective of doing the business is to create sustainable value for your customers, your employees and your stakeholders.

In past years, it was thought that value can be delivered to customers only by reducing prices and by understanding the value preposition now the trends have been transformed. In this era, an organization’s reputation in a market is very important towards a customer. So, the value can be delivered to customers and other stakeholders if the organization is carrying out ethical practices and following the industrial standards.
He further added that dilemma is that how does one manage the organization’s short term goals and sustainability by taking ethics together.

He also said that out of many, few of the most important ways that can help to grow ethical practices in a better way are sharing vision and values, having trust on each other, being courageous and transparent and last but not the least, respecting each other.

In the end, he said that one must not be scared of failure but should face it because it makes us
courageous enough to stand for our values.

“The time is always right to do what is right” – Martin Luther King