You've Got to Be Kidding!: How to Keep Your Job Without Losing Your Integrity

The “Old Loyalty” Is No Longer Relevant

In the bygone world where all assistants were called secretaries, loyalty to the boss was always blind and one-way only—meaning that assistants complied unconditionally and without thinking or questioning their manager’s requests. It was even standard operating procedure for some bosses to blame a mistake on the secretary. In fact, a boss who stood up for his secretary was so uncommon that reciprocal loyalty often was suspected as evidence of hanky-panky!

The consequences of blind loyalty present us with familiar drama. Faneuil joined the ranks of not only Fawn Hall, but U.S. President Nixon’s secretary Rosemary Woods as well. Some 40 years ago, Woods testified under oath that she erased those famous 18 tape-recorded minutes so critical to the Watergate hearings “accidentally” by a “slip of the foot.” Whether it was indeed an accident will never be known. However, what was obvious was the unconditional loyalty she exhibited to her boss, the president. Like so many other anonymous assistants who subscribed to the loyal-no-matter-what philosophy, these high-profile employees suffered severe personal losses.

I am happy to report that the unconditional loyalty embraced by yesterday’s assistant seems to have gone the way of the manual typewriter. The “just-do-it-and-shut-up-about-it” expectation is still out there, but it’s less common. This is due to the fact that assistants nowadays realize they are at higher risk for suffering personal and ...