The best-performing employees in the office often prove to be the ones more prone to unethical behavior.
Key Details
- Ernst & Young’s “2022 Global Integrity Report” suggests that 42% of board members agree that unethical behavior among senior staff and high-performing employees tends to be tolerated within their organization.
- 34% of fraud is committed by executives and management, Fast Company reports.
- University of Lausanne Professor Guido Palazzo warns Fast Company that success breeds addiction and pressure to push beyond ethical boundaries for personal gain.
- “[Success addicts] become successful by working more than others. They believe they have to keep up that pace to maintain their astronomical productivity,” says Harvard Professor Arthur Brooks.
Why It’s Important
It may seem strange that the most effective and productive employees at an institution may also prove to be its most underhanded and destructive, but success is a liability as much as it is a benefit. Research suggests that high performers are more vulnerable to ethical risks than lower-level employees thanks to their ambition, power, and sense of impunity—and many board members seem to overlook these problems despite being aware of them.
“Because unethical behavior is far more likely to be tolerated when an employee is considered high-performing. According to research, when top performers transgress ethical expectations, the ‘preferred’ moral conclusion is to tolerate high-performing employees’ unethical behaviors because of the overall value they bring to the organization and to the workgroup. In other words, if they’re really good at their job, many leaders look the other way,” writes Fast Company contributors Richard Bistrong, Ron Carucci, and Dina Smith.
Companies that are not careful to prioritize integrity and avoid incentivizing corruption could find that the high praise they award their best employees fosters a lack of humility, a drive to desire more, and an atmosphere of entitlement and moral license. The cost of this failure can be tremendous for companies, with financial losses being six times higher than smaller employees and reputation damage by high-value employees becoming quick front-page news that can harm organizations.