In the realm of business, ethical challenges are inevitable, particularly when you hold a leadership position. But the path to striking the right balance between a company’s fiduciary obligations to its employees and stakeholders, alongside its ethical responsibility to its customers, is often not very clear.

Just as no two establishments are the same, from microenterprises to multinational corporations, every impasse faced requires a nuanced response that accounts for multiple factors, like the severity of the issue at hand and the potential impacts of inaction.

In this piece, Harvard Business School Online highlights four real world scenarios, in which leaders from established companies like American pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, as well as multinational coffeehouse chain Starbucks, had to navigate their own ethical crises.

Solutions will vary based on the situation at hand, but the overarching theme is a company’s ability to accept when mistakes are made, and willingness to correct them even in the face of potential blowback.

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