"Unfortunately, there are many CEOs and corporate executives who have done the wrong thing and have been rewarded down the line and given similar positions or sometimes even better positions," said Mike Paul, president of New York-based MGP & Associates PR, which specializes in the growing field of reputation management.

[...]

Entrepreneurs "believe that getting ahead means doing things differently from ordinary people -- finding a back door to success that others may have not been smart enough to spot on their own," wrote Roderick Kramer, a social psychologist at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, in a recent Harvard Business Review article.

"Unfortunately, this disdain for the rules puts risk-taking leaders on a very slippery slope," he wrote. "They may consider themselves exempt from the rules that govern other people's behavior. Even more dangerous, leaders who want it all, and who break the rules to get it, often develop contempt for those who do play by the rule."