Susan recently onboarded at ZanTech, a security technology firm. Susan was tasked with getting a comprehensive report detailing a competitive analysis by contacting various companies. She was told by her manager Mr. Moon to represent herself as a MBA student rather than as a worker of the company. This leads Susan to enter an ethical dilemma about if she should misrepresent herself or if she should follow her direct superior’s asks.
When someone contradicts an ask from a superior, they risk a bad reaction. After all, no one likes being contradicted and if you’re going to be a superior, you would expect that your asks should be followed by the people that you’re managing. However, Susan is put in the extremely awkward case of there not really being a win. If she misrepresents herself, this action could backfire on her in the future if she is audited by a future employer or it could lead to potential burned bridges if she wanted to advance in the future and these actions were found out. Thus, she has no great options to continue and must simply make the best out of the situation at hand.
My advice for Susan is to follow a three-step plan when reacting to this situation:
- Susan should ponder about the possible risks of speaking up and the possible risks of executing Mr. Moon’s ask. If word were to come out that employees at Zantech were misrepresenting themselves, that would most likely reflect badly on the company as a whole—especially since their entire company mission centers around integrity. Bringing up this issue prevents possible long-term consequences.
- Susan can also work towards identifying her words and opinions with an open honesty in a respectful manner. She can do this by framing her words in a very careful manner—rather than coming off as hostile and critical. If she is firm on her ethical beliefs, yet respectful and seemingly committed to the job, Mr. Moon may look past this ask for her.
- Susan should look towards what are potential alternative paths to take: perhaps there is still a way to grab important data without misrepresenting oneself.
