"I worked at a company in upstate New York. And my boss was in upstate New York. But we also did business in Washington DC and he had a whole second family in Washington DC.
Depending on which city I was in, I had to go out to dinner with him and his wife and kids in both cities, but make sure I never mentioned the other family or anything while I was with him. And it was a very awkward situation for several years.
What brought it to a head was he had to have surgery up in New York. His wife from DC called me to find out how he did and I told her and she said, well, how do you know that? And I said, well, they told me at the hospital and she said, they would never tell you you're not family who told you how he did? And she kept harassing me, I finally said, you know what his wife up here did. And that was the end of it.
I knew that I would never tolerate it again. I would say: this is not how I live my life and I can't be part of living your life this way. It was a horrible situation. He was a very senior guy in the company and he ended up losing his job over it.
It was an ugly time. But I learned what not to do. You never put anybody in situation you wouldn't want to be in. I think I have the happiest employees in the world. We have a booming company in New York and we got the happiest people."
Forcing employees to cover personal deception is a deep breach of trust. It’s emotional labour they didn’t consent to and corrodes workplace culture. Leaders who blur personal ethics with professional expectations rarely last.
Yes. Clearer boundaries between personal and professional life — plus a culture where staff can safely say “no” — would have stopped this.
That’s why we built the Work Personality snapshot — a 60-second quiz that helps people reflect on their style, strengths, and blind spots at work.
→ Find out what kind of boss you’d be