When last did you check the meaning of honesty? According to Wikipedia, “honesty is a facet of moral character that connotes positive and virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, straightforwardness, including straightforwardness of conduct, along with the absence of lying, cheating, theft, etc. Honesty also involves being trustworthy, loyal, fair, and sincere.”

Wow! Sounds rather far-fetched when judged by today’s standards.

Despite all the dishonesty and deceit, though, check any company’s values statement and you’re bound to find words like “honesty”, “integrity”, “ethics” and “trustworthiness” lurking. The question is: how much of those values is actually embraced and practised? And, are they values written on people’s hearts or simply values written on the company’s wall?

Dishonesty and deceit have become so much a part of business practice that it seems that some business people have substituted the word “deceitful” for the word “smart”. In other words, if you can lie, cheat or deceive your way to millions, you’re being quite smart. To their minds, that’s just smart business practice.

Then, when they get caught out, they protest their innocence with the innocence and angelic faces of choir boys in the church choir. Have you ever wondered why that’s so? How is it that crooks, liars, cheats and thieves issue such convincing, straight-faced denials?

There’s a very simple reason. When someone sets out to deceive others, the first person they deceive is themselves. And once they’ve deceived themselves, they lose touch with reality as it is, and then anything goes!

Put another way, once you’ve started lying to yourself, it’s easy to lie to others. And you don’t even realise you’re doing it!

Let’s look at Donald Trump’s “the election was stolen from me” statement. This is a statement that has been found in over 60 court cases by competent judges – some of whom were appointed by Trump – to be a false statement (in straight talk, a lie). Did that change Trump’s stance? Not at all. Why? Because he has deceived himself and chosen to believe it himself.

Now, those who view the statement impartially from a distance and are not under Trump’s influence, can see it for what it is. But he can’t.

Just for the purpose of an exercise, put yourself in the shoes of a liar. I’m not suggesting you’re a liar, just asking you to do some role playing!

Imagine that you’ve been selling lies to all who will listen. There are some who will believe your lies but there are others who will see through them and see you for what you are. You, however, won’t know that, because you’re a victim of self-deception, and they certainly won’t say anything.

Liars don’t realise that there are people who can see through their lies because they lie at a level that they think will fool themselves so will obviously fool others. Remember when your four-year-old tried lying to you? To a mature adult, it was funny because you had the intelligence to see through their childlike attempt to deceive you. Well, liars don’t realise that there are people who are smarter than them who will see through their attempts to deceive them.

So, while thieves and cheats may escape the long arm of the law because the wheels of justice turn v-e-r-y slowly, there will be many who will see them for who and what they are.

Because of their self-deception, liars and cheats don’t think for one minute that there’s anything wrong with themselves as people. They consider themselves to be good, upright, honest people.

While genuinely honest and ethical leaders remain silent and don’t expose the liars, cheats and thieves for who and what they are, they will continue to lie, cheat and steal.

If you consider yourself to be a genuinely honest, ethical leader, have the courage to, in the appropriate way, expose the liars, cheats and thieves for who and what they are.

We need honest, ethical leaders to be more vocal about honesty and dishonesty so that we can return to a time where honesty is not just a nice-to-have but an essential quality of business. The alternative is too awful to contemplate.

Never before has it been more relevant that evil prospers when good men and women do nothing. Please raise your voice where and when necessary.

Alan Hosking is the Publisher of HR Future magazine, www.hrfuture.net and @HRFuturemag. He is a recognised authority on leadership competencies for the future and teaches experienced business leaders as well as millennial managers how to lead with empathy, compassion, integrity, purpose and agility. In 2018, he was named by US-based web site Disruptordaily.com as one of the “Top 25 Future of Work Influencers to Follow on Twitter“. In 2020, he was named one of the “Top 200 Global Power Thought Leaders to watch in 2021” by peopleHum in India.