Email newsletter

HR news and jobs direct to your inbox

Recruitment Marketing Awards

The 2012 Recruitment Marketing Awards launch in February – check out last year’s winners

Jobs - HR job search

International HR jobs
HR manager jobs
HR director jobs

Site map

Search and Subject Links

Quick links to subjects:

Search People Management

This site is the online magazine for the CIPD Opens in a new window

Home > All site sections > HR essentials > Law at work > Legal developments

Captains of industry should learn to fear being caught offside

Comment

Comment on the blogs

Become a member

Lou Burrows

16 Feb 2010 | 15:31

Forward to a colleague

Colleague’s email address

Your name

Your email address

Personal message
(Maximum of 120 characters)

Articles more than one month old can be viewed only by CIPD members or PM Subscribers.

When football is being discussed in the workplace, I normally tune out. I’ve never watched a match, I don't know any of the teams and I definitely don’t understand the offside rule. But it was impossible not to join the debate about John Terry in our office.

Most of my colleagues were clear that you must maintain high standards and expect to be under scrutiny once you become a high-profile leader. Trust was clearly incredibly important to them – pretty much everyone could cite an example of a former boss who had let themselves down with an indiscretion or misjudgment.

When the England skipper was stripped of his captaincy one of my colleagues said: “Quite right – if more CEOs did that when leaders stepped out of line, perhaps people would learn that you can’t do whatever you like; you've got responsibilities.”

I must say I agree. I’ve seen a few examples where a senior manager was relieved of their leadership role for failing to live up to it. Although such decisions shocked people at the time, they had positive effects in the long term.

In Terry’s case, of course, there was no hiding the story from the media, so it had to be dealt with and not brushed under the carpet. My firm has its own version of the media: an in-house mag called ?Whatever! You can guarantee that, if anyone here steps out of line, they will make the headlines in the next issue. It is probably one of the most widely read documents in our office – particularly by leaders hoping that they have dodged a bullet.
A friend asked me recently: “How can you let this rag go out internally?”

I replied: “Well, if you’re an innovation company and there to promote freedom from fear, you’ve got to make room for freedom of expression – I don’t actually know which people are on the editorial team; they don't publicise it. And I love it because it keeps us all on our toes.”

To post your comment you have to login

Username

Password

Forgotten your log in details?

Not registered on PM or CIPD?

To post a comments you need to be a CIPD member of PM subscriber
Registration will be on the CIPD site

Bookmark and share

What are these?

HR blogs delivered to you by RSS
What is RSS

Links open in new window

Get listed: To include your own link here contact the PM advertising team.

About the specialists

Apprenticeships that work

New guidance to help you in developing high-quality apprenticeships

HRD Conference 2012

Add value to your business with practical L&D solutions from HRD

Links open in new window

People Management neither recommends, nor is responsible for, the content of external sites listed here.

Your link here: contact the PM sales team.

In a really interconnected world with long supply chains and connections between different regions we are all going to be affected, potentially, by anything that happens anywhere in the world

Lyndon Bird, technical development director at the BCI, Specialist HR