Originally published in the Unashamedly Ethical newsletter, August 2024.
“I strive to commit to be entirely truthful in all I say.”
The hardest word in our first commitment is not “truthful”. It is “entirely”.
Most of us consider ourselves honest people. We do not lie about the big things. We would not falsify a contract or invent a story to harm someone.
But “entirely truthful in all I say” closes the doors we usually leave slightly open.
The half-truth that is technically accurate. The convenient omission. The CV that rounds up. The report that is softened before it reaches the board. The “I will get back to you” that we have no intention of keeping. The project update that says “on track” because no one wants to be the first to say otherwise, until the whole team has learnt that this is simply how reporting works.
None of these feel like dishonesty in the moment. That is exactly why they are dangerous.
The truth that misleads
In my years in labour law, arbitration and mediation, I have listened to a great many people describe the same events in very different ways. Outright lies were less common than you might expect.
What I encountered far more often was selective truth: facts carefully arranged to create an impression that was not true. Each statement could be defended on its own. The whole was misleading.
The law has long recognised that a person can mislead without saying anything false. A half-truth can deceive as effectively as a lie.
Ethics asks the same question the law asks: not only “Was each word accurate?” but “Did I leave the other person with a true picture?”
Truthful does not mean tactless
This commitment is sometimes misunderstood as a licence to say every thought out loud, however unkind. It is not.
Truthfulness does not require us to disclose everything. Confidentiality, discretion and privacy are all compatible with honesty. Choosing not to share something is different from creating a false impression about it.
Nor does truthfulness require harshness. The way we tell the truth matters. A difficult truth spoken with care can build a relationship. The same truth delivered carelessly can break it.
The line this commitment draws is simple. What we say must be true, and we must not use our words to make people believe something that is not.
Why it comes first
I do not think it is an accident that truthfulness is the first of the ten commitments.
Every other commitment depends on it. We cannot be faithful to our families, fair to our colleagues or accountable to our communities if our words cannot be relied on.
Trust is built on one basic assumption: that when you tell me something, it is true. When that assumption fails in a workplace, decisions are made on bad information. When it fails in public life, people stop believing anything they are told, and cynicism fills the space where trust used to be.
We are living with that cost in South Africa. Rebuilding trust will not begin with institutions. It will begin with people whose word means something.
Where it is tested
This commitment is seldom tested on a stage. It is tested in ordinary places.
In the sick note. In the expense claim. In the promise made to a child. In the reason we give for a missed deadline. In what we say about a colleague who is not in the room.
And, perhaps most of all, in what we tell ourselves. Deceiving others usually begins with deceiving ourselves about why a small untruth does not really count.
Being entirely truthful is demanding. It will sometimes cost us an easier conversation, a quicker deal or a better impression.
But it gives us something far more valuable: a name that people can trust.
If this commitment speaks to you, make it your own. Read all ten commitments and sign at unashamedlyethical.com/commitment.
Yours in ethics,
Ilene Power