I try to assume ignorance over malice which is why I characterized our hypothetical middle-managers as clueless rather than intentionally using misleading data in my prior comment.

If the case is that they know the data is incorrect/misleading but they use it anyway to advance a cause that sounds like the kind of internal politicking that cripples many larger businesses' ability to make good decisions. So IMO that's worse than just being clueless and I no don't think it's very ethical.

Now maybe you're saying that it's possible to get the right idea from a misleading chart and get some value from it. That's true, but it's also true that you can get the wrong idea from it and make a poor decision.

ps. didn't downvote you btw.