Last night, on my way out of class, my prof told me to enjoy my new purchases (I’m starting a new job Monday and needed a bit of wardrobe refreshment). I replied, “Thanks. Now I just have to hide the receipt for the shoes from my husband.”

Her reply was, “Because of the principled leader that you are, of course.”

Now, my MBA program* has this tagline: Educating Women for Power and Principled Leadership. I’ve done my best, through electives, to really emphasize the leadership piece of mine–effectively concentrating in “principled leadership”. I also mention in a few of my posts (like that one On Honesty) that I hold myself and my staff to high standards of principled behavior.

And my husband already knew that I had spent a ridiculously huge amount on this pair of shoes–I called him right after I bought them.

I found myself thinking, “Does she really think that I wouldn’t tell my husband how much I spent on a pair of shoes?” (This coupled with the thought of, “Well, this time is at least better than when I bought that pair of $460 Dior sandals but thought they were $160 until I got the credit card slip thanks to messy handwriting on the label…”)

I think I can take a lesson from this: be careful with my jokes! I know that, at core, I’m a very honest person who would never hide the cost of shoes from her husband, but have I ever made that clear to my prof? Probably not–the class has 40 people in it, and I love cracking jokes and making controversial statements.

How people might perceive me is directly related to what I say. I think I might try to be more cognizant of that in the future.

*With which I’m almost done–one more class, nothing left to turn in! Woohoo! Ahem. That last paper ate last week, hence the blog hiatus…