Shades of grey

One of the most difficult tasks in life is to maintain being moral. I do not mean obeying the law which most people do their entire life. I do not even mean being ethical outwardly which again most of society manages with little trouble. I mean being able to live with a fixed set of moral code throughout one's life in society.

Let me give an example:

Lying

As stated in the past, I do not mean putting things in a different light. I believe in saying "I am fine." even when I am not and greeting people "Good morning" even when they clearly have a hangover. As long as there is not motive to exploit the situation, I am even willing to allow people to change sport teams or be less critical of the rival sports when it suits them. I am not going to be a rotten person and tell soldiers that their sacrifices are for nothing even if they fought for the wrong side. Or at least not on my first few meetings. 

For those self righteous people, I also do not mean being honest so that you can hurt people or insult them in their face. I see the motive as a willingness to force people to listen to you. Or to deliberately spoil things for others. Saying people are fat or putting on weight is one way. (Medical personnel doing their job are exempted.) If the only kindness that you offer is this form of "honesty", then it is better to keep one's peace.  

I mean lying when telling the truth about your shortcomings or failures. (No, I am not including humblebrag) I am including being economical with the truth and sins of omission like telling people the truth only when it is too late to do anything. Rightfully all customers have a right to know about the vendor's ability to deliver the project or the true picture of the risk or trade-offs. Yet more often then not, the true cost is never revealed. 

I understand that some people will exploit information to your disadvantage. Others will do their best to retaliate or even perform a preemptive strike aka "getting your retaliation in first". This quickly leads to a lot of bad blood and the people forced to lie are caught in the middle. (Most leaders expect their people to support or repeat their lies. It makes their lies more convincing.) And with such experiences in mind, one becomes cautious when talking. And soon one become those they despise..

Not leaving people behind 

I am not taking the stance of being the last person out of the door every day. I am also not taking the stance that people need to be hand held. I am taking the stance that when things are dangerous, are you willing to share the danger.

Some leaders have unearned reputation as war fighters. They do it by declaring a truce as they are there to "parley". Kick the can down the road is also a common theme. Coming only to fire the first few shots in battle or promising to drop in at a unconfirmed time is a favourite of these people.

The saddest part of leaving people behind is the economy of necessary. It is better to cut off a limb to save the rest of the body. But leaving people behind is never easy even if their own fault them or if there are extenuating circumstances.

So what happens when you are faced with a conflict of morals? You need to pull an underling out of the fire that he is responsible for. At that point, revealing his mistake will usually cause more difficulties. So do you lie and save the underling or tell the truth and then face the music? If facing the music is a cost to high to be paid?

At the end of the day, we all have to recognize that we have to shake hands with the devil and decide to work with the lesser evil.  

"Si guarda al fine" Machiavelli, The Prince. Often mistranslated to "the ends justify the means". Actually means that "one must consider the final result". As there are no referees in life so the final result of all action is the sole point of judgement.