"Early in my career as a Manufacturing Engineer for a small organization that produced plastic medical parts, I started with the company during a transition to a new line of products. The timeline for the project to be up and running was less than six months away. I was put into a lead role on the project and at a meeting with our supplier of one of the key materials needed for production, we found out that the project would need to be delayed one month due to lack of supply when we were looking to start. Right away, I approached our CEO and COO to let them know of the delay so we could begin planning right away for a delay. With a long-term contract signed with the supplier, our options were extremely limited. For a young engineer in the lead of this project, I knew this would be a difficult conversation to have. I planned ahead with the facts from our supplier and an action plan to be up to speed on production three months into the roll out of the new line. The conversation went well and my plan of action to be caught up on production worked flawlessly and our customer satisfaction of the new line was impressive."

"In my role now as a Production Supervisor with a large manufacturer, there have been many times that I have had difficult conversations with my staff in the name of transparency. I fully believe in transparency and as a supervisor, openness and honesty with my staff is a top priority. Having worked through staffing layoffs and mass hirings in the five years in my role, last year we had a mass layoff that was announced at a management meeting by our Plant Manager. Once I knew the effective date and what areas were to be effected, I worked with our supervisory staff on announcing to our teams. In times like this, transparency helps our staff plan ahead for potential layoffs and it also helps the entire staff because I often get volunteers for layoff as well. By planning and obtaining facts and bringing them forward to the team, a potentially bad situation is handled much better."

"In school, I realized there was an error with the grading system, and I received perfect scores prior to submitting the assignment. I could have kept quiet and continued to receive those grades for work I didn't complete, but I knew that was not the right thing to do. I made my professor aware, and he thanked me for my honesty because it appeared that the error was widespread and happening to several other students."