You are the manager of a candy factory and are overseeing the loading of 500,000 candy bars into a truck bound for several big box stores across the state. The shipment is running late already and your supervisor is not happy, but you still have not received a quality assurance report for all of the batches. Rather than wait for the quality assurance report, you tell the crew to go ahead and begin loading the delivery truck. Just as the last of the boxes are loaded after three hours of hard work on the part of your employees and yourself (as a leader, of course you assisted), you receive a call from the quality control manager of the chocolate division. The manager tells you that he was late to work today and did not read the quality control reports on this load of candy bars until just now. It appears that over 30% of the candy bars may contain slightly less chocolate than the label reads due to a malfunction in the bar-making machine.

The big box contract is worth millions and the owner of the company will want to know why you allowed the product to be loaded prior to receiving the quality control report. At the same time, your supervisor has been pushing you to meet the deadline to have the product delivered. It is very likely that your job will be at risk if this shipment is delayed. It is also very likely your job will be at risk if someone at the big box stores has a complaint from customers about the size of the candy bars. You are close friends with the quality assurance manager and know that he will bury the report if you ask him to. What do you do?