First, avoid doing the wrong thing.

If you can’t face your kids reading about what you do on the Internet, you’re doing the wrong thing.

If it doesn’t align with your values, you’re doing the wrong thing.

If it you can’t tell your colleagues, you’re doing the wrong thing.

What is the right thing to do?

Ask yourself, will this action help my staff? My partners? My customers? My shareholders? As an entrepreneur, these are your stakeholders. The right thing to do is to help them be better off in the long run.

Doing the right thing is mostly easy, but sometimes it’s really hard.

Sometimes it means a bit of pain in the short run.

Sometimes you need to downsize your workforce in the face of recession to ensure your business survives the tough times.

Sometimes you need to recall a product and take a profit-hit in order to maintain the trust of your customers.

Sometimes you need to cut loose a partner that isn’t pulling his weight in order to ensure the rest of your team deliver 100%.

As cheesy as “values” sound, this is where they help. If you’ve spent time defining the character of  and establishing your ethical framework of your business, then navigating the “right” decisions is easier.

It all starts with defining your own character and ethics. What type of person you want to be will determine what type of business you build.

From then you’ll do the right thing, always.

And you’ll win.