There are three different types of business directors:

1. Moral Director. The moral director is dedicated to high ethical standards in how they direct and act on their own. They are ethical leaders, and believe it is important to practice business within both the letter and spirit of the law. They often operate well above what the law requires of them.

2. Immoral Director. The immoral director is against ethical behavior in business and consciously ignores ethical principles when making decisions. Legal standards are barriers to get around, caring only about their own wellbeing. All that matters to them is the bottom line and they believe nice guys will always finish last.

3. Amoral Director. Amoral directors can be intentionally or unintentionally amoral. If they are intentionally amoral, then they believe that business and normal ethics should not be mixed because different rules apply to business. They believe it is normal not to reckon in ethical issues to their decision-making processes. They often try to get by at the minimum legal standards of compliance and no more. The unintentionally amoral director is simply ignorant or careless about what the ethical standards are. They are blind to many of the ethical dimensions of their decisions, even if they seem themselves as well intentioned and even personally ethical.

These three types of ethical behaviors of directors can be seen in all businesses. The main drivers of unethical behaviors exhibited by the immoral directors and intentionally amoral directors are

1. The obsessive pursuit of personal gain.

2. Short term corporate pressures to meet target sales or earnings.

3. Corporate cultures that promote profit over ethical behavior.

Ethical decisions are present internationally and some concepts of what is right and wrong are universal and transcend most cultures. One example of this is being honest and truthful. Showing integrity of character and treating people with respect are concepts that are held up in most cultures. There are many situations where what is considered right or wrong varies greatly between different cultures. One example of this is corruption. In some cultures and countries, accepting favors, gifts or even money is not a crime and is not considered as a form of corruption.

What type of ethical directors does your company tend to attract and appoint? What type of behavior should your company be screening for during the hiring process, and what are the implications of this? These questions always haunt ethical companies.

Rather than the businesses screening the directors, it is now time for the aspiring directors to screen the businesses before they accept any offers of directorship from such businesses. Otherwise there is every possibility that they may be sullying their fair names by their association with such unethical businesses. Going by the recent episodes in the corporate sector, the directors are on the mat now and they are expected to screen each and every decision the businesses expect them to make.

But the mute point here is such directors owe their position to their respective businesses and they seem to be under obligation to pursue the path proposed by the face or faces of the businesses.

This can be overcome only if a centralized agency like SEBI in India takes up the role of appointing independent directors to the companies listed in the Indian bourses. And SEBI can monitor the performance of such independent directors periodically. Only then corporate governance and ethical standards can take firm roots and sustain in Indian businesses.