Over the course of my career, I’ve had plenty of moments where I disagreed with a decision. Most were straightforward situations where I put forward my position, someone else made the call, and while I didn’t like the decision, I got on with it.
The harder moments were the ones when I wasn’t sure whether getting on with it was being professional or compromising something that mattered to me.
And that’s where the challenge lies.
Most of us like to think we know what we stand for. We can explain the values that matter to us and probably predict, with reasonable confidence, how we would behave if those values were tested.
The problem is that prediction is not always reliable. What feels clear in principle can become much less clear when pressure is high, and the consequences matter.
The Gap Between Intention and Action
That gap between what we think we will do and what we actually do is something Professor Ann Tenbrunsel and her colleagues set out to understand.1
Their research suggests that people can overestimate how ethically they will behave, behave differently when the situation becomes immediate, and later remember their conduct in a more favourable light.
They call this the ethical mirage, and explain it through what they term the want/should conflict.
Your ‘should’ self knows your values and can recite them when asked. It is more prominent when you’re imagining a future decision and looking back on a past one.
Your ‘want’ self is the part of the decision-making process drawn to immediate pressures and incentives: keeping the boss happy, retaining the client, hitting the number, or avoiding a difficult conversation. Those motives are not inherently unethical, but they can crowd out ethically relevant considerations.
What this means in practice is that the state of mind in which you make statements and promises about your values is not always the state of mind in which you act on them.
Think about the last time you thought about your values. It was likely in relatively calm conditions: at the offsite, during the coaching session, while doing personal reflection, or over coffee with a friend. In moments like that, your ‘should’ self is strongest, and the pressure is lowest.
The harder test is recognising what is happening when the pressure arrives.
Know When Commitment Becomes Cover
At work, there will always be decisions that you don’t agree with.
For example, you would have sequenced the project differently, chosen another supplier, another structure or another market or engaged stakeholders earlier.
Reasonable, capable people can look at the same information and reach different conclusions. So, you may not like the decision, but assuming it’s legitimate, you can get behind it.
The situation changes when the issue is no longer simply whether you agree with the decision, but what you are being asked to do as a result.
If carrying out that decision requires you to knowingly mislead someone, conceal material information, breach an obligation or allow someone else to carry a high cost they have little knowledge of or say in, then getting behind the decision is no longer so straightforward.
At that point, ‘getting behind the decision’ can become a way of avoiding the harder question of whether carrying it out would make you complicit in conduct you believe is wrong.
When The Ethical Line Becomes Harder To See
Professor Ann Tenbrunsel and David Messick describe a process they call ethical fading. This is the process by which the moral aspects of a decision become less visible or salient, so that the decision is considered primarily as a commercial, operational or practical problem rather than an ethical one.²
Language can contribute to this process. For example, a situation may be reframed as:
- It’s not a fairness issue; it’s a commercial reality
- It’s not misleading; it’s positioning
- It’s not hiding information; it’s managing the message
- It’s not withholding information; it’s keeping the message focused
- It’s not cutting corners; it’s being pragmatic
None of those phrases makes a decision unethical. The issue is what the language allows you to stop examining and feeling. As well, once everyone around you is using the same softened language, it becomes harder to notice that you’re doing it too.
Professor Albert Bandura’s work on moral disengagement highlights other ways we make questionable conduct easier to justify. We shift responsibility upwards, spread it across a committee or reassure ourselves that someone else is doing something worse.³ These justifications make it harder to see the ethical dimension of what’s happening.
In time, with softened language and justifications, the unethical decision can start to feel more comfortable.
So, how do you make the grey a little easier to see?
Strip The Language Back
Start by describing what you’re being asked to do in one sentence. Use plain language and avoid jargon or the terminology your organisation, profession or industry normally uses.
For example:
- Instead of “adjust the framing in the board pack”, describe what information is changing and what conclusion the board is likely to draw as a result
- Instead of “manage the customer’s expectations”, ask what the customer will believe after the conversation and whether that belief is accurate
- Instead of “manage someone out”, describe the actions being taken and whether the person understands what is happening
The aim is not to strip language of all nuance, but rather to see whether it describes the reality of what’s happening.
If the plain-English version makes you more uncomfortable than the corporate version, pay attention.
Ask Who Carries The Cost
Next, examine where the consequences land and who carries the cost.
Your discomfort and someone else’s harm are different problems, and conflating them will lead you astray in both directions.
Sometimes a decision creates more work for you, goes against your preferred approach or leaves you carrying a consequence you would rather avoid. That may be frustrating, but it does not make the decision unethical.
The central issue is whether the cost falls disproportionately on someone with less power, less information or little ability to influence what happens next.
To help work that through, identify who is impacted and then consider:
- What will they experience because of the decision?
- What do they know?
- What opportunity have they had to influence the outcome?
- Is the outcome fair?
Then ask whether you would describe what’s happening in the same way if they were sitting in the room with you. Next, consider whether you would want this to happen to you.
Decide Before The Pressure Arrives
The timing problem that I mentioned earlier in this article matters.
If the version of you anticipating an ethical decision is not necessarily the version of you making it under pressure, then knowing broadly what you value is not enough.
There’s a difference between saying “I value honesty” and “I will not knowingly allow a customer to make a decision based on information that is misleading”. The first leaves a lot of room for negotiation when the pressure is on, while the latter is something firmer to work with.
Similarly, “I believe people should be treated fairly” is important, but abstract, while “I will not allow someone to be held responsible for a decision I made without correcting the record” is clear and firm.
Take some time to think about the situations you’re reasonably likely to encounter in your work and identify the things you would not knowingly do or approve. This activity isn’t about producing an exhaustive ethical rulebook, but rather, doing some of the thinking before the pressure arrives.
Sort The Disagreement
It can also be helpful to sort the issue you’re facing into one of three categories:
- Preference: means you would have done it differently, but the consequence of that difference is immaterial. If that’s the case, commit fully, stop grinding and let it go. Otherwise, continuing to signal your reservations is not an act of integrity, but a drag on the people who now have to deliver on the decision.
- Principle: means the decision sits against something you hold to be important, but you can still participate without misleading, concealing or acting against a significant obligation. If that’s the case, state your position clearly and make sure the people who need to understand your concern do. Then, if the decision is legitimate and you can ethically support it, commit and play your part.
- Line: you reach a line when participating requires you to knowingly mislead, conceal something material, breach a significant obligation or contribute to harm that you cannot reasonably justify. If that’s the case, you need to consider your best course of action (and more on that later).
In the working world, those three boundaries will not always be clean, and that’s okay.
What this exercise forces you to do is distinguish between something you would have done differently, something that matters deeply to you and something you believe you should not participate in.
Make Your Position Clear
Finally, if something matters enough to be a principle or a line, say so.
Don’t assume people can infer your concern from your facial expression, silence or the fact that you asked a difficult question in the meeting. You want to explain what concerns you and why.
With a principle, sharing that perspective may be enough. You have expressed your view, the decision has been made legitimately, and you can still support it, even though it wasn’t the decision you would have made.
However, with a genuine ethical line, speaking once may only be the beginning. If material harm, deception or a significant professional or legal obligation is involved, the next question is what further action the situation requires.
That’s a different decision, and it’s where the next article in this series goes. For now, what matters is that you don’t let silence be interpreted as acceptance. Silence is remarkably easy to rewrite later, and while you will remember having reservations, everyone else may later only remember that you appeared to agree with the decision.
Where this leaves you
In general, ethical compromise happens gradually as language softens, responsibility shifts, and what once felt uncomfortable starts to feel okay and even normal.
Consequently, a crucial test is not whether you can identify an obvious ethical breach, but whether you notice the smaller moments when a compromise starts taking you somewhere you didn’t intend to go.
Getting you ready for tomorrow, today®
Award-winning author and global workplace expert, Dr Michelle Gibbings, helps leaders, teams and organisations unlock strategic influence to accelerate progress.
References:
- Tenbrunsel, A. E., Diekmann, K. A., Wade-Benzoni, K. A., & Bazerman, M. H. (2010). The ethical mirage: A temporal explanation as to why we are not as ethical as we think we are. Research in Organizational Behavior, 30, 153–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2010.08.004(opens in new tab)
- Tenbrunsel, A. E., & Messick, D. M. (2004). Ethical fading: The role of self-deception in unethical behavior. Social Justice Research, 17(2), 223–236. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SORE.0000027411.35832.53(opens in new tab)
- Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(3), 193–209. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0303_3(opens in new tab)