An Employee Relations cautionary tale...

There's a rather telling sub-story running underneath the News International/News of The World scandal this week. And it says a lot about leadership, management and company culture. 


Listen to this recording of News International CEO, Rebekah Brooks, lamenting to her staff about how sorry she is about the paper closing, reminiscing about 'the good old days' and assuring them that she would employ any of them again in a heartbeat. Followed by one of her staff (quite rightly) tearing strips off her for sullying their professional name and arrogantly assuming any of them would want to work for her again after this.


Brooks denies the arrogance, but its plainly evident. If only in the fact that she thought her (ex) staff would be daft enough not to see through her blatant derriere-covering nonsense of a goodbye speech. 


Rule no.1 of leadership & management: People are never as stupid as you assume them to be. They are, in fact, very often smarter than you. So attempting to pass off your latest management debacle as anything other than it evidently is will not win you any ardent followers. Being honest and having humility about your mistakes will always earn you more respect than insulting people's intelligence by trying to cover it up.


Which leads rather nicely on to:


Rule no.2 of leadership & management: Your employees' bullsh*t filters are finely honed. Even when they aren't a team of investigative journalists well-versed in sniffing out stories from PRs, celebs and politicians, they have a highly acute sense of the what is actually going on here. I've held enough exit interviews and heard enough employee grievances to know this is true. So you may as well talk to them like adults - 'fess up, say it like it is. 


Rule no.3 of leadership & management: Treat them fairly. If you don't, it will come back to bite you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for as long as employees hold grudges or employment tribunals exist. Brooks fired all 200 News of the World staff without so much as a consultation or attempt to redeploy. And if you've been paying attention, you'll know that's illegal. Not that Brooks & legality are the closest of bedfellows...


Rule no. 4 is slightly more complex: YOU create the culture. YOU steer the ship. Your actions and behaviours beget their actions and behaviours. If you want your company to be seen as honourable, talented and pioneering then for God's sake you better be those things yourself. If you are a self-serving, dissembling, dishonest low-life then this is what they will believe they need to be in order to survive. Those of them who have a behavioural preference for dissembling low-lifery will flourish, those who don't but have a keen survival instinct will adapt and follow suit. Before you know it, you are a company accused of dissembling, self-serving, low-life tactics. And it will be true, so there's precious little point then declaring that you knew nothing of the low-lifery just because you happened to be playing golf at the time. Your company is a mirror of you. This is why Virgin is risk-taking, brash and glamourous and why Amstrad is stuck in the 1980's. 


So there you have it; a little vignette about how not to lead, manage or create an enviable company culture courtesy of Brooks, Murdoch and News International. CEOs take note - I fear hers is soon to be a cautionary tale.


Oh, and it seems my hunt for a female role model continues....