Let’s be honest: Stating what the company’s values are is easy. Integrity, quality, passion, accountability, collaboration—they’re in mission statements from one coast of Corporate America to the other. CEOs and board directors rattle them off all the time, to anyone who’ll listen, with all the confidence of an ad executive pitching a hot new client.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal,...