TATTLETALE

(The following scenario actually happened to a colleague, but below I put myself in my colleagues place, examining how I might feel or react had it happened to me.)

While on a business trip I witnessed a senior level executive violate one of the core marketing guidelines by which my company stakes its reputation. As we produce, market and import products for use by those 21 years of age or older, all employees agree to take all possible actions to ensure that no one under this age is given access to our products. However, on this business trip an executive not only broke the law by providing access for her underage daughter to a corporate-sponsored event at a venue that requires all guests be over 21, but she also allowed the minor to have access to our products. Not only had the head of the department responsible for enforcing our corporate marketing code herself broken the code, she’d also broken the law. Worse, she was my boss.

The occasion for this breach of conduct was a global summit of our company’s corporate and brand communications executives. During the summit we discussed best practices in brand (product) public relations, the corporate code that governs the work we do, and the intersection between this work with our corporate communications and social responsibility standards. It seemed ironic, then, that a few days into this summit of excellence that my boss would break one of the basic rules of our company – never provide minors with access to our products. In my mind I had two choices – ignore the situation by keeping my manager’s misconduct secret or follow our corporate code of business conduct, which encourages employees to report misconduct when we see it.

I believed as our corporate code of conduct reinforced, all employees of my company should be held to the same standard. Therefore, if all are held to the same standard then one person who chose to ignore the standard should not be excused simply because of his or her rank within the company. Choosing to make this breach known – to human resources, senior leaders within our company or the press – could possibly put my job at risk.  However, when debating the situation, I believed that asking my company to hold an executive to the standards it asked the entire business to adhere to would in the end produce more trust and respect for the leadership among the workforce than ignoring my boss’s misconduct, or attempting to protect my own job.

As the Universal-Humanitarian communications ethics outlines, I believed that a universal truth existed in this scenario – consequences for misconduct should not be reserved for lower level employees, but employees at all levels should be treated equally. Believing that to be the case, I then determined that my boss, her daughter and myself could potentially be hurt by the release of the misconduct; but also that the latter and myself might benefit from this action. I determined that the harm to my boss would be in the form of a reprimand by our senior leaders and perhaps feelings of guilt for her daughter for inadvertently causing her mother trouble at work. For myself, I risked the stigma of being a whistleblower if anyone were to learn that I’d been the one to report the misconduct.

Putting the situation in context (Contextual Communications Ethics) I chose to release this information to the appropriate executives within my company, but not to the press or other industry insiders. When reviewing the situation I determined that there was no real harm done to the public by my boss’s decision to break our internal code of conduct since as a mother, some would argue, she also had the right to determine what was and wasn't safe for her child. I also believed that making the situation known to the public would unnecessarily jeopardize my boss’s credibility with the media and within our industry.  If I had shared this information with the media or industry insiders I may have also jeopardized my career as a communicator as whistleblowers are often admired and reviled for their actions.

Following the reporting of the misconduct, my boss unexpectedly resigned her position and although procedures are in place within our company to protect those who report misconduct, the fact that I did so did not remain a secret. I was transferred to our London office and later let go during a round of layoffs a few years later.

As a media professional I don’t believe that there is any way to avoid secrets. Rather than ask ourselves how we can avoid becoming entangled in secrets I believe that a communicator should ask his or herself whether they want to be communicators at all as learning and managing secrets is part and parcel of our jobs. As public relations professionals we keep to our breasts the bad behavior or new innovations of our clients. As investor relations professionals we guard news that could affect a company’s stock price. As journalists we gather secrets to provide readers with the truth behind a given situation. The better question is – would there be a need for communicators without secrets?

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