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

“Just the Facts, Ma’am”

In order to fully protect himself, Bob must document his entire conversation with his boss in writing and talk to another supervisor about it (or the human resources administrator, preferably someone at or above his boss’s level). Bob should tell this person that he needs to have a confidential conversation, and then reveal the entire occurrence with his boss. Bob must be absolutely professional in his presentation. He has to stick to the facts and focus on the dilemma and the potential consequences to the company, without getting into a discussion about personalities and turf wars. Again, Bob needs to document the date and substance of every conversation.

Bob’s refusal to support his boss’s lies may be interpreted as disloyalty and may signal the fact that his relationship with this boss will soon be forced to end. This is probably the inevitable outcome with ethically impaired managers, anyhow, and Bob is certainly better off working for someone else.

Of course, we always have the option of resigning our job at any time, even though it is not fair that we have to give up a good job with benefits because someone is acting unethically. Margaret H. Caddell, CPS, of Tuskegee, Alabama, reminds us that “there will always be ethical issues in the workplace. You’ll likely encounter similar ethical dilemmas at your next job, so it’s best to learn to resolve them.”

Here are a few more dilemmas relating to lying.