If I were in Susan’s shoes, I would be with a lot of anxiety and not know what to do it at first. The situation is difficult because I would like to still have the trust of my manager and the team, but on the other hand, I know that going along with pursuing an ethically dubious task feels wrong and is not something I would follow. I think I’d probably worry about how speaking up could impact how others see me at work, maybe as the one “who is confrontational” ,create rumors about me or even risk my position. Nevertheless, I think that at the end of the day, I would face the problem, no matter what others may think of me.
What realistically would happen at first is that I think I would probably just sit down with that bad feeling for a while.Then, I would ask myself something like: “Can I just live with this?” or “What does that say about our company if no one feels comfortable talking about this?”
Once I finally settled through those self-reflective questions, I would think about how I could communicate my feelings with the manager. I think I would probably speak around our mutual interests: “I want to see our company succeed, but I’m not so sure the plan is the best plan. I am concerned that it is going to hurt our legitimacy.” or something along those ideas. Then my next thought would be some open-ended questions, like, “Is there a different way we could put the information together?” or “Have we thought about this impact on how others will view us?” Just to keep the dialogue more constructive than confrontational.
If I didn’t feel comfortable raising it so directly, I might talk to someone I trust, like a friend or mentor, but if the situation goes to higher levels, maybe someone to HR. I think for these situations is very important to always be prepared, with evidence and a very detailed timeline of what happened.
In the end, I think I would also remind myself that doing the right thing is not about one single opportunity; it’s about the type of person and professional I want to be. It’s not always easy, but I’d want to have the ability to look back on the situation and know I lived into what I believed was right.
