“The whole world is only about money, nothing else.”
That quote comes from Phyllis Golden-Gottlieb, one of the many women who accused former CBS CEO Leslie Moonves not only of sexual harassment but of sexual assault. Moonves stepped down earlier this week after The New Yorker ran a Ronan Farrow detailing the accusations against Moonves.
Farrow, you may recall, won a Pulitzer Prize for his expose of Harvey Weinstein’s horrible sexual behavior.
How do horrible men like this get and stay in power? Their acts weren’t mysterious and unknown. Weinstein had a clause in his contract that said if he “treated someone improperly in violation of the company’s Code of Conduct,” he would only have to pay the legal fees and would otherwise be in the clear. In other words, the board knew exactly what he was doing and they were like, “eh, he makes a lot of money.”
Hopefully, #metoo has brought that to an end. We never should have ignored bad behavior from star earners. And now, it’s time for companies to make it clear: No matter how much money you bring in, you must behave properly at work.
We need revised contracts
Most Americans are “at-will” employees. This means they can quit or be fired for any reason or no reason, as long as that reason isn’t prohibited by law. So, for instance, you can fire someone for spilling spaghetti sauce on her blouse, but you can’t fire someone for their race, gender, pregnancy, etc.
To keep reading, click here: It’s Time To Demand Ethical Behavior from Our CEOs
I do believe that we should demand ethical behavior from our leaders, all of our leaders, in every segment of society. That being said, I don’t believe that the proposal to pay zero severance to someone accused of misconduct is realistic. Part of the rationale for so-called “golden parachutes” is to incentivize executives to depart without an all-out fight. I do support, however, the idea of deducting from those severance payments the amounts paid to the alleged victims and the costs of the investigations. If those “meters were running,” the accused leader would be more likely to leave sooner, rather than delay their departure.
That was an excellent comment by grannybunny because of the method of reaction by the company to the person accused of misconduct is to the detriment of the victim and the accused of misconduct gets to take away their pre-determined severance pay if they leave. The victim (the accuser) usually gets transferred or demoted to a lesser position. Like grannybunny stated the accused needs to understand that misconduct will result in a monetary loss even in a pre-determined agreement.
I’ve come to the conclusion that most big time CEOs and politicians are narcissists. That’s how they got where they are.
close…you need to go to something with “path” at the end and socio or psycho at the start….think about moves and tv shows that are popular….the characters, stars, etc are all, potentially sociopaths….watch, seriously
Why? What was our expectation before?