Many years ago, I inserted myself into a situation that was clearly sexual harassment; unintentional, but sexual harassment nonetheless. Because I was a director at the time, I felt an obligation to do something about it, even if it was just to talk to both parties and encourage the director to make a big time apology to the employee, who worked in another department and was clearly embarrassed by the episode

I think about that situation often because I wonder if I've applied that same sense of doing the right thing in other aspects of my job. I know I haven't applied it outside of the workplace often enough, slipping as often into the "it's not my business" mode as most people do when they see something going on with people they don't know. When I know one of the participants, I've always gotten into it, sometimes against the person I know, because I figure I might have to see that person again. And that's not quite right, is it?

I came across this blog post by Tom Magness at Leader Business where he mentioned a quote his leaders at West Point used to utter: "New Cadet, never walk past a mistake. If you fail to make a correction, you have just set a new standard." It makes one think about this issue a bit deeper, because, as I see the world today, with so much violence and hatred and the lack of respect for each other, I wonder if all of us have caused it because we haven't stepped up to the plate at all times and worked toward maintaining the standards we already had.

In the workplace, we can't afford to let these standards collapse; in the world, the same thing may apply, but we can't control all of that. We can only control ourselves. And I'm going to have to think about this one some more.