The root problem seems to be that committing to getting something done is somehow tied into honesty and dependability. I feel like in Software Engineering at least, we should be careful to not make that association right away simply because the nature of the work is kinda unpredictable, especially when working with new/unfamiliar systems.

It looks like a few people have reached somewhat similar conclusions and create frameworks around this idea (Agile, Extreme, TDD etc.) to formalize the processes. But it perhaps makes sense to realize that they are just that: processes and heuristics trying to make a hard problem (delivering software predictably on schedule) more manageable.