Aren't There Responsibilities in the Telling of 'Good News' Too?

Originally submitted by: The Itinerant Ethicist

The a2ethics.org panel discussion on February 8th on "The Ethics of Giving and Receiving Bad News," brought up several interesting side issues that I have been muddling through for awhile. One of the questions by an audience member focused on the difficulty of telling a person in power bad news about his or her own performance or skill at his or her craft. I understand how this is very hard, but I am wondering whether it is not made more difficult because the person in power, the star, the boss, the leader, has been told good news for too long, too many times and in a very cavalier and without consequenes way? That is, before the star became the star, he or she was getting too much good news from others that was not really thought out,was negligent and probably quite exaggerated. Sometimes it seems that we might be able to nip arrogance and inability to think clearly about one's own abilities if we were more truthful and less forthcoming with giving sloppy and flattering good news about a person's star potential. Good news telling has consequences too I think. As a result, by the time these same people do get into positions of power, they are incapable of accepting bad news about their own abilities that others can now see. So, while our focus in most cases is on the ethical perils of having to deliver bad news to people in power, shouldn't we also be thinking about how we deliver good news to them before they become powerful? Don't we have a responsibility to think about "the what and the how" of giving and receiving good news as well?