Your boss asks you to participate in an activity that makes you uncomfortable. What to do?

Despite any fear of losing their jobs, employees must stand by their personal code of ethics, both to ensure their job security and peace of mind.

“My sense, in this economy, is that people are under pressure,” says Richard Brenner, Chaco Canyon Consulting, Cambridge, Mass. Supervisors navigating a difficult business environment can exert pressure on subordinates, he says, “and that may include a push to violate principles.”

Employees should never participate in illegal activities. If pressured to do so, Brenner says, they should remind superiors of possible legal repercussions and bring concerns to another senior manager or the company’s human resources department.

While some activities are clearly out of bounds and easy to spot, other directives from a boss may fall in a gray area: changing a report or moving expenses from one account to another, for example. The transgression may go unnoticed, but in the long run, such actions are wrong and give your supervisor a dangerous degree of power and control over you.

“Once you cross [an ethical] line, you open yourself to having those who know about it use it against you or threaten to use it against you,” he says.

Brenner and other ethics experts recommend standing by your principles and strengthening them if needed.

Should a superior ask you to participate in questionable activities, Brenner says you have three choices beyond refusing straight out. Stall for as long as you can to see if the idea goes away or the scenario changes. Avoid confrontation but also avoid participating in the activity. Or work out another solution.

Speaker and consultant Bruce Weinstein, self-styled “ethics guy,” says that everyone benefits from doing the right thing.

He provides suggestions for developing a personal code of ethics in his book “Ethical Intelligence: Five Principles for Untangling Your Toughest Problems at Work and Beyond,” (New World Library, 2011).

The simple principles transcend time and seem innate. But Weinstein says that being ethically intelligent goes beyond knowing what is wrong and right.

“You have to have the courage to do what is right,” he says.

Here are Weinstein’s suggestions for conquering tricky dilemmas and developing greater ethical intelligence:

• Do no harm. This is pretty basic. Weinstein says this is a principle of restraint. You consciously opt not to do harm when you don’t involve yourself in office gossip or when you refrain from saying something hurtful. You should also consider doing something, rather than nothing, when harm is looming.

• Make things better. Ethics includes treating yourself with care, according to Weinstein, and finding a way to live a life with meaning. No one requires us to make the workplace a better place, he says, but ethical people try to find a way to do good in their daily lives, both on and off the clock.

• Respect others. Weinstein says that rude or offensive behavior that violates another person’s rights is a breach of ethics. Ethically intelligent people show respect by protecting confidentiality, telling the truth and keeping promises

• Be fair. With this principle you give others their due in three ways: allocate scarce resources, discipline or punish appropriately and rectify injustices. Essentially, you should allocate your time appropriately in a manner that creates work-life balance. Put aside irrelevant issues when handing out discipline. And respond in a way that shows your best self when someone has been unjust with you.

• Be compassionate. Show appreciation to the people in your life and your work. Recognize colleagues and superiors for their hard work. “Employees who feel appreciated do better work, and stick around longer than those who don’t,” he says.