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With heightened press coverage of corporate, Wall Street, government, and political scandals, the public has become increasingly concerned about the ethical behavior of the representatives of our important institutions. Therefore, if ever there was a time when ethical behavior for business and for salespeople was important, it is now. And it is vital to the health and credibility of American business to do the right thing rather than to do things right. Companies should perceive ethical behavior and doing the right thing as enlightened self‐interest because they preserve a company’s long‐term reputation, which is its greatest asset.

Doing the right thing and being trustworthy is not only the top priority for companies, but also for leadership. If salespeople want to get promoted and eventually be in a leadership position, they must be trustworthy. Adam Bryant, who wrote the weekly Corner Office column for The New York Times, interviewed 525 CEOs over the years for the column. In October of 2017, Bryant wrote a final column titled “How to be a C.E.O., from a decade’s worth of them.” In the column he wrote, “if you were to force me to rank the most important qualities of effective leadership, I would put trustworthiness at the top.”⁹ He goes on to write:

We all have a gut sense of our bosses, based on our observations and experiences: Do we trust them to do the right thing? Will they be straight with us and not shave corners of truth? Do they own their mistakes; give credit where credit is due; care about their employees as people as opposed to assets?¹⁰

If you substitute “customers” for “employees” in the last sentence, you have excellent guidelines for ethical behavior for media salespeople and their bosses.