Never Embarrass Anyone

It was my first truly big chance.

I had just won a dream promotion. I was poised to build an internal communications department from the ground up in support of a non-profit mission I loved.

My soon-to-be new boss, Beth W., gave me a transition-period first assignment: craft a message encouraging staff members to meet a simple compliance deadline. Coming from a background in journalism where the facts were the facts, I sent an email to the team with a list of folks who needed to comply - not thinking it would be upsetting to anyone, given it was for a task that was super basic and practical, not cerebral nor personal.

Shortly after I'd hit send, Beth called me into her office and told me reviewing my message had given her pause regarding my ability to fulfill my new role. She was serious beyond serious - even had considered not moving forward with the transition period. I was utterly shellshocked - my first reaction was unstated defensiveness. I'd meant no harm and had a very big generally sloppy-to-a-fault warm heart. I wasn't someone who would ever deliberately harm my colleagues. Thankfully, my reaction was to quietly hear her out.

Beth told me she was going to move forward with my staying in the role, under one condition. I needed to immediately and fully absorb her first and most important rule: "Never embarrass anyone."

"I would never try to embarrass anyone. Far from it," I finally stated with both the full heart and total naiveite of a really young professional.

"I know that," she said. "But you have to think more deeply: could what you're about to say or do as a communicator harm someone's professional reputation or hurt them in any way? If the possibility exists, you need to rethink your strategy."

Beth went on to impart the underpinnings of the rule: someone else's definition of practical or embarrassing may be totally different than your own and therefore to be fair and decent, you must err on the side of extra thoughtful and careful. Always.

She blessed me by taking the time to explain that her focus on the "never embarrass anyone" rule was not only rooted in professionalism and leadership best practices, it was grounded in her faith. She was religiously obligated to honor everyone - and she took that obligation very seriously.

As a believing Christian (albeit one not terribly rooted in formal religious practice these days), I completely hold sacred a similar obligation. Likewise, as someone who had been bullied throughout my youth, Beth's rule fit me like a glove and settled immediately into my professional bones.

I am so grateful that Beth's "never embarrass anyone" has been a touchstone throughout my life and career ever since. The rule has never ever steered me wrong. The internal communications work I did under her leadership reshaped my career trajectory in the most positive fulfilling way: in communications, I found my element - even my calling.

Beth's rule has endured in my DNA, strengthened the quality of my communications, the value of my leadership, and my (knock-on-wood) skills in avoiding many a communications crisis before it happens.

A shifting world

There is nothing going that would cause me to shy away from Beth's mantra: Never embarrass anyone. But, increasingly, like many of us, I've found our discourse has shifted.

We live in a world where embarrassing one another in painful ways seems to have become normalized. Most of us are at least somewhat desensitized to witnessing public humiliation on the regular.

Guess what? Whether society has forgotten or not, Beth's rule stands: there's never anything normal about hurting people, about not stopping to put oneself in another person's shoes. Whether in the name of politics (don't get me started), ideology, religion, strategy, or any topic folks tend to get righteous about, people have become overtly vicious in ways that would have had us all clutching our pearls 15 years ago.

Horrible words, gratuitous profanity, evil phrases that cut deeply, profound bullying - we hear it and see it from the top down across situations. It's on our TVs and embedded into the series we binge watch online. It screams across headlines, it riddles social media posts, comments, and shares.

The groupthink of our current moment tends toward "You don't agree with me? I'll take you down, I'll take you out" - minus remorse - in a very public way that can never be fully taken back. And it's become easy. With the diminishment of journalism as a craft that required years of training and an honor code around objectivity, it's not hard for every single person with an opinion to hide behind a keyboard and self-publish the filth of mockery from a position of unearned authority like it's their job. There's no editor, no Beth, no nobody to say "Stop. Be decent."

Close your eyes and try NOT to think of at least three times recently when you've seen or heard someone ridiculed publicly. Trust me, you can't. We've become utterly crude.

As we enter a new year, most of us give some thought to a clean slate, a fresh page. We embrace the same vibe we got from a box of unsharpened pencils and an untouched Trapper Keeper at the start of grade school sessions. Newness abounds, in pop culture and within each of us. And maybe just maybe, a little hope still springs eternal.

For me personally, I'd love to see a world wherein we follow the rule: never embarrass anyone. Not even in the name of being right. Today, maybe I'd even state it as:

Never embarrass anyone. Even when they're wrong. Even if they have it coming. Take the high road.

While we may win in the moment, when our tactics of discourse are inhumane, we individually and collectively suffer. If each of us commits to work a little harder at conveying facts, we can prove important points without spearing our opponents like prey.

I love the quote from Anne in Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables: "Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it."

We can each press the pause button. In this new year, we can choose to actively unplug from anyone or anything that smacks of "it's OK to be a bully, to harm, to embarrass." We can turn off the show, ignore the post, resist the urge to retaliate in kind, and vote for the right folks.

With each passing year, I am increasingly more grateful for having had the privilege of a mentor like Beth who taught me early on to flag anything that could do harm and negate it as an option within good working and good living.

Never embarrass anyone. In 2026, as the Beach Boys said: "Wouldn't it be nice?"