May 8, 2026
Hi Everyone,
The University of Washington looked at how ethical compromises build over time. People exposed to gradually increasing temptations cheated far more than those who faced the same large temptation all at once.
Your brain adjusts its own standards downward with each small exception, and the next one barely registers.
But the same study found a fix. When participants paused to think about risk and consequences before a decision, the escalation stopped.
A weekly check-in creates exactly that pause. Here are five questions to run before you leave today.
Did I soften or hide bad news?
PwC's 2024 Trust Survey found that only 44% of C-suite executives trust their fellow C-suite peers. Filtered information is a big reason. When one person softens an update, others do the same. The leadership team ends up making decisions based on a picture nobody fully believes.
If you left something out of an update this week, share the full version in your next one.
Did I make an exception for a high performer?
Max Bazerman at Harvard Business School calls this "motivated blindness" — overlooking behavior because ignoring it benefits you. The rest of the team recalibrates what the actual rules are every time an exception goes unchallenged.
If you bent a rule this week, ask whether you'd be comfortable if everyone on the team knew.
Did I avoid giving honest feedback?
Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor, spent ten months telling an underperformer his work was great because she didn't want to upset him. When she finally let him go, he asked why nobody had told him. Scott calls this "Ruinous Empathy" and says it's the most common feedback failure she sees at the companies she advises.
If you held back this week, go back to the person before the weekend.
Did I agree to something I don't believe in?
After Netflix's Qwikster disaster in 2011, Reed Hastings asked his team what went wrong. One VP told him he had serious doubts, but didn't speak up because Hastings seemed so convinced.
Most of the senior team felt the same way, but nobody knew the others disagreed. Netflix now requires executives to rate major proposals on a -10 to +10 scale before decisions are made. The goal is to catch dissent that a verbal "any concerns?" will never surface.
If you went along with something you don't support, bring it up at the next meeting.
Did I promise something I can't deliver?
Tony Simons at Cornell studied 76 Holiday Inn hotels. He found that the alignment between what managers said and what they did was worth roughly $250,000 a year in extra profit per hotel.
No other management variable in the study had that kind of financial impact. His follow-up research showed the damage travels two levels down — even people who never heard the original promise lose trust in the leader.
If you made a commitment you're not confident about, flag it now while there's still time to adjust.
Before you leave today
Set up a private recurring calendar event for Friday afternoons. Fifteen minutes, just for you. Mark it private so your team doesn't see it.
Put the five questions in the invite description so they're there when you need them:
1) Did I soften or hide bad news?
2) Did I make an exception for a high performer?
3) Did I avoid giving honest feedback?
4) Did I agree to something I don't believe in?
5) Did I promise something I can't deliver?
Start today and commit to four weeks before you decide whether to keep it.
Go deeper
👉 Farnam Street: Ethical Breakdowns — Why Good People Often Let Bad Things Happen – Bazerman and Tenbrunsel's research on why well-intentioned leaders miss unethical behavior in their own organizations
👉 PwC: Trust in US Business Survey – 2024 data on the widening trust disconnect between executives, employees, and customers
👉 Association for Psychological Science: The Slippery-Slope Effect – an accessible summary of the Welsh/Ordóñez findings on how small ethical compromises escalate
👉 Kim Scott: Radical Candor – where the "Ruinous Empathy" framework comes from, with advice on giving feedback that's both honest and kind
Coming up on Monday
On Monday, we're breaking down why some cost programs build trust, and others take years to recover from.
Have a great weekend!
P.S. If this was useful, forward it to your leadership team. It works better when more than one person does it.