The Test I Can't Confirm I've Passed

I sat down to write about integrity and relationships in business. Show up, be honest, don't force outcomes, let win-win happen naturally. I believed all of it when I started writing.

Then I tried to back it up with real examples from my own career, and most of them didn't hold up the way I expected.

The story I was proud of

Years ago, a manufacturer I worked with in Pakistan landed an international denim brand as a new customer. The brand had all the leverage — market access, scale, the ability to walk away and find someone else. The manufacturer didn't have the standing to ask for equal terms, so they didn't. They accepted unfavourable terms early, delivered on every commitment, put runs on the board, and over time earned the ability to push their own terms forward.

I told that story as proof that uneven relationships can still be honest ones — that you can accept a weaker position without resentment if you can see a real path to more even footing later, and if you actually deliver rather than just talk about the future.

I still believe that part.

Where it stopped holding up

But once that manufacturer got established, they started applying the same leverage against smaller, newer brands who needed them for the same reason they had once needed the international denim brand.

I wanted to read that as the arc completing — the underdog becomes the mentor, pays it forward, extends the same patience they were once given. That's the version I told myself, because it's the version that lets the original story stay clean.

Here's the honest problem: I don't actually know if that's what happened. I have no idea how that manufacturer treats those smaller brands today. I assumed the generous version because I liked the people involved and wanted the story to end well. The less flattering version is just as consistent with the facts — that leverage simply rotated, and whoever holds it now uses it the same way it was once used on them, and calls it "how business works."

I don't know which version is true. That's not a comfortable thing to publish, but it's the honest one.

The actual test

Everyone finds it easy to talk about integrity from the weaker seat. When you have less leverage, being fair costs you nothing — you don't have much to give away. The real test of whether any of this is genuine only shows up later, when you're the one holding the leverage that was once held over you. Do you extend the same patience? Do you let the newer, smaller party earn their way up the same runway you were given? Or do you just use the position because you finally can, and tell yourself it's fine because "that's just how it works"?

I can't confirm the people I learned from passed that test. I'm not fully certain I have either, in every relationship where I've had the upper hand. I'd like to think I have. But "I'd like to think so" is not proof, and I've learned through writing this that I've been substituting the first for the second more often than I realised.

What I still believe, and what I've stopped claiming

I still believe words alone can't prove intent — in a single conversation, all anyone has is words, which is exactly why relationships need time and repetition to mean anything. I still believe painting a picture of the future is only honest when it's backed by something measurable — a commitment, a KPI, a delivery — not just a persuasive story asked to stand in for one.

What I've stopped claiming is that "don't force outcomes and good things happen naturally" is some kind of settled principle I've mastered. It isn't. It's a direction I'm trying to walk in, and the clearest evidence of whether I'm actually walking in it won't come from how I behave when I'm the smaller party in the room. It'll come from how I behave the next time I'm not.

I don't have a tidy ending for this one. I think that's the point. If you're currently the one with more leverage in a relationship — with a supplier, a smaller partner, someone earlier in their career than you — I'd ask you the same question I'm asking myself: are you extending what you were once given, or just using what you finally have? I don't know my own answer for certain. I'm still finding out.