The Subtle Issue of Dishonesty in the Workplace
Dishonesty in the workplace sounds like a straightforward topic, but the line between honesty and dishonesty—and what makes any of us honest or dishonest—is sometimes a little blurry.
One of the most serious forms of dishonesty in the workplace is stealing. This might include cash, credit cards, or the contents of someone’s wallet, or a laptop, smartphone, or proprietary company data. These thefts are dishonest, if not downright criminal. But what about taking a few pens or magnets from the supply cabinet, or a printer cartridge or a flash drive for your home computer? Is there a point at which the taking of such items morphs from OK to theft? Is such theft any less dishonest if everyone else does it as well? Or is it always dishonest (and, if so, might you yourself be a thief)?
One of my favorite books in the Dilbert series is Building a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies. Whenever I mention the title to audiences, people laugh. Some, I’d guess, are laughing not just because it’s a clever title but because they feel a twinge of guilt about their own office thefts.
The other serious form of dishonesty in the workplace—and much more subtle than stealing—is lying, and this goes well beyond lying about whether you swiped a Sharpie from the supply cabinet. Studies show that the average American lies once or twice a day, and many of these lies are at work. Dishonesty in the workplace takes numerous forms, such as embellished resumes, rumors about colleagues, calling in sick and going to the beach, cheating on expense reports, making false claims about company products, and withholding information such as the status of a failing project—or, for that matter, bad news of any kind.
Without a doubt, honesty is the best policy for the workplace. And by honesty, people usually don’t mean tact, which refers to a level of sensitivity in dealing with others so as not to cause offense. Tact may entail deliberately withholding ideas or opinions—not being honest, in other words. Lies start out small and innocuous, but left unchecked, they can grow and evolve until lying becomes the way work is done.
If your workplace permits and supports dishonesty, you could be taking a big risk to speak out; by remaining silent, you’d be behaving dishonestly about everyone else’s dishonesty. Then again, if these practices are so deeply entrenched as to be cultural norms, you might consider whether it’s the place you really want to be working.
