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iQuestions Faculty, Ron Price 
 
 
Question: 
 
My immediate supervisor is an okay leader but does unethical things. 
I'm concerned about reporting him for fear of retribution. What can I 
do? 
 
Answer: 
 
A lot of us get into situations where we work for someone who we 
admire and in many ways we think they’re doing a great job—they’re a 
good supervisor—but there may be behaviors or activities that we’re 
not quite sure if they’re ethical.  
 
The first thing I would recommend, because they’re an OK supervisor, 
is that you go ahead and talk with the person and say to them, “I 
value you as an individual and I appreciate this or that about you.” 
You set the stage where you show that you’re supportive of them, not 
critical of them.  
 
Then you go on and say, “I do have a couple of questions, because I’m 
not sure that I understand all of the circumstances about something. 
And in order to support you fully, I’d like a little bit more information.”  
 
They’ll invite you to ask that question, and you can go ahead and bring 
up the specific situation and say, “I know that you’re ethical. I know 
that you care a lot about doing things the right way, so help me 
understand what I’m missing about this particular set of 
circumstances.” 
 
Often the case is that they have information you didn’t have. In some 
instances they might say, “Now that you bring it up, I realize that 
 
 
maybe I should adjust this a little bit this way.” Most of the time that 
solves the situation.  
 
You may get into a couple situations where you have somebody that 
you don’t feel comfortable talking with about your concern. You’re 
afraid that it’s going to create conflict or tension in your relationship 
with your supervisor.  
 
If you work for a large enough company, they will have a human 
resource department, and the folks in that department have been 
trained to help you navigate through that situation or circumstance.  
 
And then finally, there may be situations where it’s really a serious 
ethical or legal issue, and you feel an obligation to let the company 
know about something that could really put them in a bad spot or 
could reflect very negatively on their future.  
 
In that case, I recommend you go ahead and set up an appointment 
with the supervisor of your supervisor, or the leader, and just share 
with them that you don’t want to criticize anybody but you feel an 
obligation to let them know what’s going on, and ask them how they 
think you should deal with that particular circumstance going forward. 
Price -2- 
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