When there's no "right thing" to do at work, you still have to make a choice -- unless you no longer want a leadership role Dear Bob …I’m in a situation. I can’t describe it in detail, because if I did it would be obvious who wrote you and what company it was about. So I’m going to have to give you generalities and hope you can still give me good advice.[ Also on InfoWorld, Bob offers counsel on “evil” managers and executives — and what to do about them | Get sage IT career advice from Bob Lewis’ Advice Line newsletter. ] Here’s what I’m faced with: Nothing but bad choices. Our business is hard against it due to the economy. I honestly think the CEO made only one mistake, which was failing to see it coming. Other than that, he’s done a pretty good job, given our situation and market position.He’s a tough guy, though, utterly dedicated to the company (it’s his; we went public shortly before the bottom fell out) and not, shall we say, perfectly scrupulous.Put plainly, he’s been known to skate pretty close to the edge. Now he’s asking me to skate with him. What he’s asking me to do isn’t illegal, so far as I can tell, but it’s in territory I’m not comfortable with. On the other hand, I don’t see alternatives that are more likely to lead to business success, and my alternative appears to be “leaving the company to pursue other opportunities.”My family situation doesn’t allow for this: Due to one of my children having serious medical issues, we don’t have the financial cushion left to ride out an extended period of unemployment, and you already know what pre-existing conditions would mean to private medical coverage.So what should I do? If I stay I’ll feel like a coward, but leaving would be irresponsible, given my family obligations. And standing up to the CEO would be pointless, for two reasons: It wouldn’t work anyway, and I have nothing to suggest to him that would be more likely to save the business than what he’s asking me to do.See any loopholes?– Conflicted Dear Conflicted … Nope. No loopholes. What I see is one more version of the ethical challenge every leader faces from time to time: dealing with nothing but bad choices and having to pick the least onerous. Anyone who accepts a leadership role should understand that this is part of their job description, written or not.And it won’t be. I’ll qualify what follows with a disclaimer: I’m not a professional ethicist and took only a couple of philosophy courses back in my college days — and that was back in the 1970s, so my training is hardly current.My opinion: The ethical calculus is based on outcomes, not actions (officially, this means I’m a consequentialist, not a deontologist; deontologists consider actions themselves to have moral content). So your immediate decision depends on just how much harm you’ll do to how many people by carrying out the CEO’s instructions, compared to the known harm you’ll do your family by resigning.It isn’t quite that simple, though; if you resign, the CEO will still find a way to carry out the same plan, whether you’re his agent or not. Add to that the important factor that the CEO isn’t asking you to do something illegal, and you also have to consider the ethics of refusing to carry out a legal action that’s instructed by your manager and is within the bounds of your job description. I’d say your obligations to do the job you were hired to do and to support your family in challenging circumstances probably outweigh your discomfort with what you’re being asked to do.That isn’t an absolute. If you’re about to (for example) take advantage of a loophole to legally pollute the local aquifer in a way that will end up causing thousands of deaths or birth defects, then it’s time to leave and, if you have the courage, to call the local newspaper to blow the whistle.If the consequences aren’t dire — if, for example, it involves spinning the public perception (but not falsifying the results) of the company’s prospects — then I’d suggest you do your job after you consult an attorney. If the attorney advises you that it would be illegal, you’re on solid ground refusing to participate. Most of the situations I can envision lead me to conclude you should go ahead and do your job as instructed.And that you immediately start finding a better one, because you aren’t the sort of person who should report to a manager who habitually skates close to the edge.– Bob This story, “On the job and surrounded by bad choices,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Technology Industry