Should You Be Honest in Your Job?
Whether you’re a wide-eyed graduate or a grizzled corporate veteran, there is one dilemma that you will consistently come across: to speak the truth or to lie. It can be about your performance, your mistakes, your views on corporate policies, and so on. The list is endless. And so are the temptations to lie.
I will go through some of those temptations and prove that they are, surprise, lying to you. I will also give you five ways in which speaking the truth is a much better strategy for your long-term career.
SUBJECTS & TEMPTATIONS
Let’s start at the roots. What do people lie about at work? Let’s call those Subjects. And why? We’ll call those Temptations.
There are five main Subjects:
Performance and Results Individuals may sometimes lie or intentionally misinterpret the truth about their overall performance or the results of a particular task or project.
Contributions of Others This mostly refers to the choice of not giving due credit to people who deserve it. It also covers giving undue credit to certain other people.
Mistakes This is an obvious one. People hide their errors.
Risks & Benefits People may sometimes exaggerate the expected benefits of certain opportunities and downplay their risks.
Corporation This refers to adjusting your opinions on the structure, policies, and culture of the corporation you work in.
So, why would people lie about all these things? In general, it’s not because humans get a kick out of deceiving others, though such individuals also exist. The temptations for not speaking the truth hide in the perceived benefits of lying. Again, for the sake of symmetry, I will give you five major Temptations to lie in the workplace:
Desire for Advancement If you believe that twisting the truth may get you that promotion or salary bump faster, you will be tempted to do it.
Fear of Consequences If you believe that speaking the truth will land you in trouble, your natural instinct will be to lie.
Saving Face When even a chance of feeling embarrassed is terrifying to you, the temptation to lie to save face will be strong.
Avoiding Conflict Conflicts and even minor disagreements may be scary and stressful for some people. They will lie just to avoid such situations.
Power & Control When you believe that misinformation allows you to control other people, you will again be tempted to lie.
Now, if you put the Subjects and Temptations in columns next to each other, you may notice a funny thing. Each subject can be fed by either of the five temptations, or even all of them at the same time. Hence, one Temptation can also lead to you lying about all five subjects.
SUBJECTS TEMPTATIONS
Performance & Results Desire for Advancement
Contributions of Others Fear of Consequences
Mistakes Saving Face
Risks & Benefits Avoiding Conflict
Corporation Power & Control
For example, when you desire to advance your career, you will be tempted to lie about your performance, exaggerating every little success you’ve had.
You will also not highlight the contribution of your colleagues to those successes unless, of course, they are important people who you believe may help you climb the ladder faster. Then, you will give them credit they do not deserve to make them appreciate you more.
You will, of course, hide your mistakes. Because you have to be perfect to get that promotion. Even better if you can softly redirect any potential blame to others.
If you are working on some long-term projects, why not inflate their importance and somewhat downgrade their risks? If you play your cards right, you will be promoted to a higher job before you are held accountable. And at that point, other people can be blamed.
And, certainly, you agree with all the corporate policies and culture. Yes sir! Those things are sacred and faultless, every time, all the time. Let me just get that nose deeper up your ass.
BODY OF LIES
Ironically, all the promises that these temptations give you are complete bullshit. The more you give in to them, the more they corrupt your career and, what’s way worse, your character.
Lying is like giving in to the urge of eating junk food, boozing too much, and skipping workouts. Before you know it, sitting on a couch and stuffing yourself becomes a habit. As it does, you only get fatter and lazier, and it becomes harder to get off your ass and work yourself back to prime condition.
As that unhealthy body of lies grows, so do the risks of catastrophic failure. In our metaphor, that means critical illness, disability, or even death.
Let’s put that in perspective.
As you speed your way up the corporate ladder by inflating your achievements, covering your mistakes, and f*ing people over, the only true competency you develop is lying.
The other skills suffer as a result. You cannot become an expert in your industry or become better at anything, be it managing people, running collaborative projects, or building a piece of business entrusted to you if you fake your way through it.
The lack of skills will catch up to you constantly, and the only choice you will have is to plug the gap by shovelling even more bullshit into it. The more you do it, the higher the risks.
You will get caught. Maybe on small and insignificant things first, but as chinks start appearing in your credibility, the real you will start spilling through the cracks. Your risks of having a career-ending blow to your reputation will grow exponentially.
That is not to say that you can’t successfully bull*hit your way to the top and never get any obvious repercussions for it. Some rare people are good enough at faking to do just that, especially if they buy into their own fiction.
I guess, in this case, it comes down to what kind of person you want to be. Every time you replace truth with lies and self-improvement with subterfuge, you become less. You become more petty, afraid, and insecure. You become someone who, deep down, knows that you never made a true difference.
Does that sound inspiring to you? Is that the kind of person you’d like your kids to look up to?
THE TRUTH
Telling the truth is the better way to build your career. It may not always be the faster way, but it is a more sustainable one.
So, buckle up; I’m about to drop some obvious wisdom. Here are the five ways in which speaking the truth can boost your career:
Personal Brand
This is possibly the most important career asset you have. Your reputation will follow you wherever you go, not just in your current company. If your reputation says that you succeed with integrity and expertise, you will be way more valuable to people considering hiring you or doing business with you.
Building Trust
In the corporate world, which is often full of brownnosing yes-men, one of the easier ways to stand out is to speak the truth. Do it consistently, even when it’s not convenient, and you will build a reputation as someone reliable, someone people can trust. That means trust with bigger projects, bigger jobs, bigger money. Don’t take this to extremes, though. Speaking the truth doesn’t mean being negative and criticizing everything. Then you’re just a loudmouthed asshole. Identify issues and offer solutions without tearing other people down.
Leadership
If you’re in a leadership position, you’re only as strong as the culture of your team. When you’re honest and take responsibility for your vision, your decisions, and your mistakes, when you are not afraid to share credit with deserving people, your team will feel safer to do the same. That will mean better motivation, teamwork, innovation, and therefore better results. Unlike the efforts spent maintaining a façade of excellence.
Learning & Development
Speaking of real excellence, you can only get better at things when you attempt them. And when you attempt doing things, you will inevitably make mistakes. That’s okay. That’s how you learn. Like I said, hiding your mistakes instead of owning them will only improve one skill: spinning bullshit. Owning up to your responsibilities and mistakes will make you good at everything else.
Efficiency
Don’t you hate all those meetings or email chains where everyone just dances around the big smelly elephant in the room? When people are just afraid of saying the wrong thing, throw around passive-aggressive messages, and just take ages to do simple stuff. Try cutting through that by getting to the heart of the matter in simple and direct language. You may chafe some of the more sensitive egos, but if you do it consistently, the gains in efficiency will be massive. And if you do it consistently, people will appreciate you for it more and start behaving more like that too. Just remember that being honest and direct does not equal being rude and abrupt. The former is good for you; the latter is bad.
And here’s a bonus one for you:
Stress Management
Lying is way more stressful than speaking the truth. This constant hiding and slithering is taxing on your mind, and as fears of being found out pile up, it can get exhausting.
In contrast, speaking the truth is uncomfortable at first, but it gets easier the more you do it. It is very liberating for your mind and makes a big difference to your mental health.
So, next time you face the Truth or Lies dilemma, stop and think. It may well be, that being honest is the one career hack that you’ve been missing all along.