As a leader, you can’t assume your people will always know the boundaries. If you set a goal, especially an aggressive one, you must also define what can’t happen in pursuit of it.

I took a short course at Harvard Business School, one case in one of the modules stuck with me: a bank set very high sales/account-growth targets for its reps, but never clearly spelled out the prohibited behaviors. Predictably, some reps opened accounts without customers’ permission, manipulated records, or resorted to shady tactics. Management was furious when they discovered it, but the root cause was that the “rules of the road” were never fully spelled out.

This isn’t limited to banking. In your gym or small business:

• If you never tell staff, “Don’t have sex with clients,” you’re leaving a huge risk unaddressed (even if to you it seems obvious).
• If no policy says “Don’t poach staff from competing gyms,” someone might test that boundary.
• If you don’t explicitly forbid bad-mouthing competitors, someone will do that too.

It feels awkward, maybe even ridiculous, to write into your SOPs, “Don’t open unauthorized accounts,” or “Don’t defame competition.” But that’s exactly what responsible leadership demands. If your organization is going to be respected, sustainable, and trustworthy, you need these guardrails in place.

Ethics in business stem from your internal values

Your view of what’s right or wrong, shaped by life experience. Yet I’ve seen talented people join companies whose values are murky (or misaligned), and gradually their ethical standards erode under pressure.

If you want your business to last, to be trusted, and to attract people who feel proud working there, you need to make your ethics explicit. Don’t just preach your values – embed them in every policy, every training, every KPI.

Because in the absence of clear boundaries, people will test the edges. And that’s when reputations and entire businesses get torn apart.