Honesty
Of supreme importance. Without it there can be no trust. Without trust the repercussions can by horrifying, as in the story.
I choose to believe I am being treated truthfully, until it is proven otherwise. Interestingly, I had a friend who would often say “Let me be perfectly honest...”. I finally decided to tell him that when using those words it caused me to wonder how many of his words were dishonest. Astounded by this statement, he changed behavior and I noticed that he never prefaced a sentence with these words again.