Being faced with an employee who bends the truth or lies outright is a tough managerial situation to be in. It can stir up the expected reactions of hurt and anger and cause you to lose faith in your team. If an employee is being dishonest with you, start by trying to figure out why. Once you can see what the employee is trying to accomplish by lying, you can move to action. The author describes the three most typical motivations for employee lying based on decades of consulting — and tips for what to do about them. First, a dishonest employee might be afraid to upset someone or trigger conflict. Second, they may not want to expose their own inadequacies. Third, they may just be looking to serve themselves.
When you’re a leader, you rely on your team members to tell you the truth so you can make thoughtful decisions and feel confident that you know what’s going on. Most of them repay your trust with truthfulness (marked, on occasion, with a bit of self-serving spin). But sometimes, you’re faced with an employee who bends the truth too far, or who lies to you outright. This is one of the toughest managerial situations to face, because it’s hard to be sure what’s really happening, or because you tell yourself that you must be mistaken.
Source: HBR
