Unethical influencers are rarer than most people assume. What is far more common is the professional operating on the fringes of integrity without quite realising it. The line between influence and manipulation is rarely a bright one, and in practice it shifts depending on the pressure, the stakes, and the story being told at the time.
Integrity means different things to different people. Right and wrong descend quickly into ‘it depends.’ That ambiguity is precisely why most professionals avoid examining their own practice too closely.
In The Ethics of Influence: Five Rules to Live By, the principles that underpin ethical influence are set out clearly. What follows is a different kind of test: not rules to follow, but questions to sit with. They are designed to surface the gap between the influencer you believe yourself to be and the one your stakeholders are actually experiencing.
Consider a key influencing situation you are working on right now. Then work through the questions below.
- If the target of your influence knew everything you know, should they still do it?
- If you were in their shoes, would you do it?
- What are you not telling them, and why?
- Have you told them exactly what you will gain from their yes?
- Do you believe that they are willingly doing what you want them to do?
- To what extent have you exaggerated, omitted or conveniently interpreted the facts?
- Are they going to be happy with their decision to say yes in six months’ time?
- What do you not want them to know? What are you holding back?
- Be honest: have you deluded yourself into thinking it is right?
- In the cold light of day, will you be pleased with what you have done?
- Does what you are seeking to influence make the world a better place?
- How have you manipulated the argument?
- Is this going to cause them harm?
- Have you shared your views about how they may be disadvantaged by saying yes?
- If you had to make a full disclosure of everything you know, would you be embarrassed?
- To what extent are you using confidentiality to your own convenience?
- What shortcuts are you taking?
- Can you look them in the eye and honestly say that saying yes is the best option for them?
- What is the balance between your gain and theirs?
- Does what you are doing breach any of your ethical or moral values?
- What have you lied about?
Not many people reach the end of that list without finding something worth examining. Some questions will pass without discomfort. Others will not. The ones that do not are the ones that matter.
This is not about achieving a perfect score. It is about knowing precisely where your line is, and whether it is actually holding under pressure.
Colin Gautrey, January 2013
How the landscape for unethical influence is shifting, and why these questions matter more than ever, is explored in Is This the End for Unethical Influence?