Edit: if you want trust and fast quality execution you can help the team develop best case, median, and worst case timelines.
I once gave a detailed estimate of a project I thought would take 2-6 months. I called out the major blockers, explained the highest variability parts of the project, and made suggestions about how we could reduce variability.
Rather than address any of the points I made, the managers focused on nailing me down to a single estimate. Presumably they had to sell it as a quarter-long project.
I sat in the office of the engineering manager, and explained that any single estimate would be a lie. He told me that it wasn't a lie, it's just my best guess. I said my best guess is 2-6 months. He asked for 3 months. I said he can use whatever he wants, but my estimate is the same. I think they ended up using 3 months.
The ordeal complete drained my energy and the project went no where. My future estimates went through the roof and they eventually stopped asking. Now projects don't have any believable plans.
I don't want to belabor the point, but I had been ignored on previous project estimations as well. Management was going to use whatever estimate they wanted.
My focus was on the blockers and risks.
- Some workers will see through the lies and adjust while others won't. The general version of this problem is that there are many lies but only one truth, and lies don't have any self-correcting mechanism built in, resulting in more variance, and in extreme cases, chaos.
- If you mislead people into always-on crisis mode, they will get desensitized and won't trust you, which is especially important when there is a real crisis. The general version of this is crying wolf.
The fact that a cultural phenomenon is irrational and self destructive is perfectly compatible with success, because of noise. Cultural norms do not converge towards optimum quickly, there are too many other factors at play, and social evolution is veeeeery slow. Evolution is probably the most misapplied theory ever proposed.