 These stresses don't excuse behavior like spying on or sacking employees, but they can help us understand what propels it. Conventional wisdom suggests that greed alone is driving the boss's behavior. The problem is that a few avaricious bad apples are ruining things, right? This is the simple moral logic of many common children's fables or popular parables. Think of the greedy farmer who killed the goose that laid golden eggs because he wanted all those riches at once.