Is honesty the most important consideration?

A healthy and sustainable relationship lies in a variety of qualities, including being loyal, supportive, generous, thoughtful, and so on. What quality should be valued the most depends on the context and the people involved. As a friend and coworker, I argue that always telling the truth is the most important consideration in any relationship.

To begin with, honesty brings about a sustainable relationship. Mutual trust, the glue for two unrelated persons, is vulnerable to deceit. Once one side chooses to be dishonest, such a relationship is severed immediately and forever. For example, I used to have an intimate friend in college, and we always stayed together on campus. One time, as the deadline for a final report approached, he asked for skimming through my draft for more inspiration so that he could meet the deadline. Because of his sincere words, without a second thought, I agreed to his request and lent him my half-finished draft. However, after the semester ended, I was noticed by the professor to explain why our reports looked similar, and what is worse, I submitted mine later than he did. Fortunately, I successfully vindicated myself by showing the evidence to the professor. Afterward, although he sincerely apologized for lying to me and plagiarizing my work without permission, I could never eliminate my suspicion over his words thereafter, which utterly destroyed our friendship. Once suspicion is incurred, friendship vanishes.

Furthermore, honesty makes for collaboration. Teamwork requires every member to be absolutely honest about themselves so that everyone can be on the same page and collaborate as a team. In case anyone lies about their ability or contribution, efficient teamwork becomes unattainable and the entire team is jeopardized. Take me for example. I used to work at a software company with a group of amazingly intelligent engineers. One time, we were requested to deliver a product to our clients in a month, and as time passed by, one of the engineers encountered insurmountable technical issues. He could have asked for help; however, unfortunately, he decided to lie about his progress during each meeting. Because it was too late by the time we realized that his part had stagnated, the lead of the team had no choice but to apologize to the clients and pay our compensation for the breach of contract. Apparently, deception can indeed be disastrous and cause an enterprise to fall apart.

To sum up, always being honest is the rule of thumb for any type of relationship for the sake of sustainability and collaboration. Hence, I suggest all people put honesty in their code of conduct. Otherwise, mutual trust or collaboration will be unattainable and the relationship will be doomed to fail.