My focus on ethical management reminds me that I still own a box full of business cards with my name from a company that no longer exists.

My first job out of college was with Arthur Andersen. At the time, it was a single organization and I worked in a division that became Andersen Consulting, and is now Accenture. Arthur Andersen had one of the most ethical cultures I have seen; the best people, the best business systems, and a holistic commitment to performance ethics. Yet, it went from being one of the leading professional services organizations to only a Wikipedia entry in a matter of months, due to unethical behaviors in a reasonably small niche of the firm. The disappearance of my first employer due to ethical failures is a powerful lesson I bring to work everyday.

While this is a somber example of the potential downside from an ethics or compliance failure, I have the opportunity at CEB to see how much upside a manager and leader can create with a focus on this issue. One of CEB’s core strengths is a voracious appetite for quantifying the drivers of corporate performance. We ask ourselves: what do the best companies do to create inordinate value? We have gathered and analyzed millions of data points about employee perceptions and behavior and rigorously tied them to key drivers of corporate productivity. What we found is a strong link between ethical cultures and employee engagement. If an employee works for a company they consider having a strong ethical culture they work harder, stay longer, and are less likely to leave. Collectively, this data points to a 9% productivity boost from ethical leadership in the management ranks. That’s a stunning figure, and for me, maybe even more compelling than the business cards.

While there is a strong link, both ethical behaviors and employee engagement are at risk. What we see happening, across hundreds of thousands of employees at the world’s largest companies, is a perfect storm brewing composed of three different factors.

First, we see heightened employee cynicism about commitment of management to ethical principles and compliance standards, as management teams wrestle with critical issues elsewhere in the business.

Second, unhappy employees are unable to leave their current roles. In a normal economy, if an employee does not like their boss, they can leave. However, today unsatisfied employees are unable to move because of limited opportunities. This results in what we estimate to be about a 7 percent productivity shortfall in most companies as a result of low engagement levels.

Third, employee disengagement is particularly pronounced with the highest potential employees within an organization. These employees are three times as likely to leave as a normal employee once the economy improves. Most business plans I see are built around the commitment of those employees most likely to leave.

So with a huge 9% performance boost to be had, but a “perfect storm” making it difficult for managers to seize it, what should leaders be focused on?

First, ensure consistent messages and ethical behaviors at all levels. Companies claim they employ best practices by using their CEO to reinforce ethical principals in a video or town hall meeting. Companies also need their individual managers to reinforce and demonstrate the appropriate behaviors and values of the organization. Organizations need to make sure that every layer of leadership in the company communicates the same ethically grounded priorities and then lives up to them.

Second, help employees understand how their role contributes to company strategy One of the most important things for an employee to know is how his or her behaviors and actions makes a difference, and that his or her work is connected in some way to the strategic goals of the enterprise. CEOs have spent a lot of time over the last year thinking about survival in another day, week or quarter. That has clearly been the right strategy for this past year, but now it is time to lift up again, and reinforce employees’ connection to the enterprise.

Third, help employees re-forge personal networks. Having a personal network at work is a key support mechanism for ensuring ethical behaviors. These networks were certainly disrupted by the rounds of corporate downsizing this past year. And rebuilding them has become more difficult in a world where people are scattered across geographies, with work following the sun 24 hours a day. A lot of organizations are working to make sure their employees are forging connections that transcend where they are physically located.

At CEB, we serve – and learn from – the world’s best companies every day. These companies have taught us that ethical behavior can drive productivity and performance in a measurable way, and needs to be managed with the same intensity as the strategic moves that have helped companies survive the economic downturn.

From an employer perspective, these actions create a much more engaged work force, and increased productivity. If you need an additional reason to implement these ideas, you can also think about this: it’s no fun to have a box of business cards for positions and companies that don’t exist anymore.