Ethics in the Workplace: Is It Ever OK to Lie at the Office?

By David Demers

If your boss came to work in new attire that you thought looked hideous, would you lie or tell the truth? If you’re like me, you’d lie.

Afterward, you and I wouldn’t experience much guilt. Almost everyone tells white lies to protect others as well as ourselves from truths that could cause them or us unnecessary pain. In fact, a national survey revealed that 40% of people lied at least once during a 24-hour period.

If you met someone for the first time and wanted to appear likable and competent, would you tell a lie to make yourself look better? Most of us would, according to a University of Massachusetts study, which found that students lie two to three times during a conversation when they want to impress someone else.

If you were healthy but needed to take the day off, would you call in sick? A SimplyHired survey of 1,000 workers found that more than six of 10 of us have done that.

And would you lie or backstab to keep your job? A Harris Interactive poll found that nearly four of 10 workers between the ages of 18 and 34, and more than a fourth of all workers would do that. Two percent also would take credit for someone else’s work.

Even convicted criminals say they have morals

If you haven’t ever committed any of the lies mentioned above, my compliments to you. You’re in what I call the “halo club,” which, as you can see, is fairly exclusive.

But even if you’re guilty of committing one or more of those misdeeds, you likely still see yourself as being a principled person. Research even shows that convicted criminals see themselves as being more moral than you and the general population.

You read that right.

British researchers asked 79 prisoners in southern England to compare themselves to a hypothetical average prisoner and to an average citizen in the community in terms of kindness, trustworthiness, honesty, dependability, compassion, generousness, self-control, and law-abidingness. The prisoners rated themselves as being superior to the average prisoner on all traits, and even superior to the average citizen on every trait except law-abidingness, where they saw themselves as equal.

“The results showcase how potent the self-enhancement motive is,” says Professor Constantine Sedikides of the University of Southampton, the lead researcher on the study. “It is very important for people to consider themselves good, valued, and esteemed no matter what objective circumstances might be. For anyone who doubts this, ask them if they think that their children are perfectly average.”

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How principled are you, really?

So if prisoners believe they are more moral than the general population, how do law-abiding individuals like you and me compare ourselves to others in our communities? Of course, almost all of us believe that we are more moral, too, according to a University of London survey of 270 ordinary citizens.

“Most people strongly believe they are just, virtuous, and moral; yet regard the average person as distinctly less so,” the researchers concluded. Using a special mathematical formula, the study also found that “virtually all individuals irrationally inflated their moral qualities.” In other words, most of us see ourselves as more moral than we really are.

But does this mean we are less likely to live up to our principles when the stakes are really high? What about ethics in the workplace? If you learned, for instance, that your managers were violating securities laws and they asked you to lie about it, would you participate in the cover-up? How about if they offered you money?

Although no one can predict what any one individual will do, recent business scandals and my own work experiences as a professor suggest there is a very high probability that most of us would also abandon our principles under these conditions, too.

In just the last three decades, thousands of business people have violated the law or refused to report wrongdoing because they personally benefited from a scandal or were afraid of losing their jobs. This includes accounting scandals like the 2001 Enron scam, which covered up massive losses and led to the collapse of the company and the accounting firm Arthur Andersen.

More than 100,000 people lost their jobs. Only a couple of executives went to jail. One executive who could have exposed the scandal, but didn’t, killed himself.

Set the example for an ethical workplace

The lesson here is that there are always conditions that could lead us to abandon our principles. Most books about leadership and power talk about the importance of integrity and principles, truth and justice, but that’s where it ends. The assumption is that workers will incorporate those principles into their thinking and actions.

Naturally, I want you to do that, too.

But I also want to impress on you that it’s a lot harder than you think. You’ll be tempted to set your principles aside by many distractions, including friendship, envy, money, greed, loyalty, ambition, love, and fear. And there are some conditions where violating your principles might be justified (like protecting your family from harm). But fealty to principles and filing whistleblower complaints when real crimes have been committed takes a whole lot of courage, which many of us do not have, because there often are serious consequences for doing the right thing.

I’m not suggesting that you turn into a whistleblower when you find wrongdoing. Nor do you always have to tell the truth when your boss asks for your opinion about their new clothes. But lying about your job performance, participating in unlawful scandals, or taking credit for other colleagues’ ideas hurts others as well as you. You may go to jail or, at the very least, lose the respect of others.

Your goal is not to be perfect all of the time, but to behave ethically in the workplace to the best of your ability. If you do that, you’ll have fewer regrets, sleep better at night, garner more respect from others, and build your personal power in the office.

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