Lies and Posture

Jeffrey L. Seglin in his book The Good, the Bad and your Business; chapter 8 on ‘True Lies’ notes that lies and deception harbors extensive consequences that haunt the liar in the long run. In business terms, the leaders of the organizations ought to know that they have a responsibility of guarding the image of the organization. Hence, they should draw a line between posturing and lie during business engagements.

Trust is necessary for any adequately functional economic system. In fact, a slight show of breach of a carefully guarded trust that has been established for years by business entities leads to an eventual customer loss to the consumers. Thus, there is always a need for the affected business entities to take concrete steps aimed at restoring the initial trust levels. Amazon, for instance, salvaged a situation that was almost getting out of hand through the exploitation of a weakness displayed by eBay, its closest rival.

As echoed in the Bible, lying is an immoral act aimed at intentionally distorting the facts mainly for selfish gains. If such lies are finally detected, the liars will cause an almost irreparable damage to their organizations as well as to the institutions and the business organizations that they are attached. President Clinton and the Microsoft’s Gates, in the past have been involved in lies and deceit that led to severe damage to their reputation. The latter’s business entity suffered a legal loss, whereas the former underwent turbulent times in his personal life. Resultantly, the subsequent decisions they engaged in after the revelations were highly speculated to be shrouded in deceit and ill motives. Given their status as leaders, the duo’s adverse actions have been argued to affect their junior’s activities.

There is a stark contrast to lying and posturing. Whereas lying is considered an immoral act, posturing especially by the business startups is widely regarded as a business marketing strategy aimed at defying all the competitive odds and ultimately gaining a market share. Posturing is an age-old strategy that has been utilized by business owners for centuries and has, in effect proven to be quite useful. It should be noted that the primary goal is to ensure tactfully business expansion, unlike lying that is aimed at the permanent distortion of fact with an ill intention.

Many studies that have been conducted have shown that it is easier for an individual to lie on a regular basis especially if they were successful at an initial instance. This has been viewed to pose a danger to the victims in the society especially is they are unaware of the liar’s habits. In fact, Psychologist Brad Blanton reveals that lie victims can suffer from stress that can be attributable to the lies that are subjected to them. It is also clear from some surveys that most businesses, especially startups hardly engage in absolute truth in their undertakings.

Many adverse effects are attributed to lies. Firstly, a liar gradually develops a notion that the business survival has its foundation on tactical intentional lies. Thus, there is an imminent threat of loss of market credibility in the end. Secondly, leaders engaging in lies breach the rules of business ethics, thus setting a wrong precedent for the employees to follow. Finally, lying can firmly be equated to laziness on the part of the enterprise management and usually leads to the utter destruction of the industry.

In conclusion, companies should aim at guarding the reputation of the firm by avoiding lies at all costs. Lies have the ability to hijack the main agenda of the company entity and thus can mislead its performance in the end.