Ethics in Engineering: Culture and Accountability

Ethical dilemmas in engineering are often associated with major disasters that result in deaths or serious injuries. However, with tight deadlines, budget constraints, and other pressures, mechanical engineers face tough decisions on a smaller scale every day. It’s critical that they view those decisions through an ethical lens. 

Many mechanical engineers are familiar with codes of ethics published by professional organizations such as ASME. They might assume they would never do anything that violates these policies. But as Tim Groover explains, ethical breaches “almost always happen unintentionally.”

“I think folks need to develop emotional intelligence and self-awareness to be able to tell when something isn’t going in the direction it should,” Groover said. He is a veteran of the consulting engineering industry who now provides leadership consulting in many areas, including ethics. “Work on building that antenna that tells you that something’s not passing the sniff test.”

He learned years ago that the most important four words for an engineer to remember are “I might be wrong.”