Tell the truth about the nap; integrity has no exceptions.

observation — attributed to Seth Moulton

Moulton takes afternoon naps because he does not sleep much at night. His team, embarrassed, told callers he was in a meeting or on a phone call. He shut it down. Do not lie. You do not have to announce that he is snoring like a banshee. You can say he is unavailable. But integrity is one of the office's core values, and the first time you say we are committed to honesty but we can be dishonest this one time, you have set a new standard that honesty does not actually matter. The example is small. The principle is structural. Small lies are how cultures of integrity become cultures of convenience.

For senior leaders and managers responsible for the small daily integrity decisions of their teams. The observation is most useful as a corrective to the assumption that low-stakes lies do not count.

integrity, honesty, small-lies, team-culture