Have you ever been advised by a fellow employee or supervisor to lie about a situation? How did you handle this ethical dilemma?

"During a particularly difficult year of fundraising, one of my teammates, the corporate fundraiser, asked me to fudge a bit in my line items. He had not met his quarterly fundraising goal, and I had exceeded mine by a few thousand dollars. He suggested I allow him to add a thousand dollars to his report and remove that amount from mine. He assured me he would have the funding by the next report. I told him I could not participate in that offer and encouraged him to seek the counsel of our department head, who is gifted in procuring last-minute donations of that size. After meeting with her, the corporate fundraiser was able to fulfill his quota and apologized for his behavior."

"I was working on a research project in the Phillippines with a fellow researcher when we were both employed with an NGO studying the effects of tsunamis on coastal communities. As we integrated ourselves into their society, my fellow researcher made connections with representatives from the local government who had information about governmental responses to natural disasters that my associate could not resist. They offered him this privileged information in exchange for omitting a few key details regarding their negligence in providing proper assistance to impoverished districts.

My associate knew this would boost his career as well as mine, so he offered me the opportunity to partake in this information, even though it was unethical. I refused, but my associate kept insisting. Because of his persistence, I had no choice but to report his activities to our immediate supervisor, who insisted I attend a virtual meeting with human resources to make a statement about the situation. Although it wasn't easy to report a friend and co-worker, I knew it was the right thing to do to preserve the integrity of our organization's global image."

Instead of focusing too heavily on the negative behavior of your co-worker or supervisor when you share this experience, highlight the specific ways you engaged the person asking you to participate in the lie. Then, talk about the steps you took after denying the request.