Gaining and Losing Respect
A lifetime of effort can be erased in a moment
JP Morgan has been in the news lately regarding the banking services they provided for the serial sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. According to reports, employees warned senior management that there was likely criminal activity going on four times over five years. Senior leaders ignored these warnings, ostensibly because Epstein was a profitable customer who referred other wealthy customers to the bank. As I write this, it’s unclear whether the fallout will eventually reach the bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, one of the most powerful and well-respected leaders in the banking industry and beyond.
I have noted before that one of the things that makes a CEO’s job difficult is that CEOs are often dealing with novel situations while in the public eye. Like live TV, there are no retakes. The cameras are running and the world is watching. CEOs are human, of course, and should be expected to make a mistake now and then. However, anyone who has been in the role will tell you that the consequences of making a mistake can be severe. Public company CEOs are never certain how secure their positions are, given that conversations among members of their board can take on a life of their own. You can bet that as I write this, members of JP Morgan’s board are talking.
Big company CEOs can turn to their public relations experts to lend a hand in doing damage control when the need arises. Smaller company CEOs may have fewer ready options at hand. It can be frustrating, from the point of view of the CEO, to realize that a career-long effort at building one’s credibility could be lost if the explanation of what just happened isn’t convincing. To shareholders and the public, the CEO’s call to look at all the good things they have done before now is like the thief, who after being caught, asks for forgiveness because they never did anything like that before.
Understandably, CEOs are concerned about their reputation. The way to build a solid reputation is first and foremost to produce consistent results, which follows from making good decisions about a wide range of things, such as the company’s strategy and business model, key talent appointments, the design of the organization, and proper investments in the future. Occasionally, throughout a CEO’s tenure, there are moments of truth, such as the opportunity to make a major acquisition on which CEOs bet their reputation. If the acquisition goes well, the CEO buys some time; but if it goes poorly, the reputational harm may be irreparable.
Less visible but equally as important are the everyday behaviors that the CEO engages in while performing the job – and sometimes, even while off the job. As the center of attention, everything the CEO says and does is watched by others and taken as an indication of the CEOs intent and character. Does the CEO behave in an ethical manner? Respect employees or criticize them in public? Are board meetings well planned and executed or an arena in which gladiators do battle? When answering questions in a town hall, does the CEO admit when they don’t know the answer or make something up that people know isn’t true? When told by a board member to do something they don’t agree with, do they push back or acquiesce? When presented with opportunities to reveal their true selves, is the CEO known to be a nice person or a horrible one? Such are the everyday transactions that go into building one’s reputation.
In the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey, played by Jimmie Stewart, is saved by his customers and others in his town following a scandal because he developed a reputation as a caring person who always put others first and assumed responsibility for whatever happened on his watch even if he wasn’t the one who made the mistake. The movie makes us all wonder if we are doing enough every day to ensure that people around us would come to our aid if the need arose.
Irving Goffman’s classic book, Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, helps us understand that we all have a self that we are trying to present to the world, a way that we would like to be seen and regarded. Goffman exposes the behaviors we engage in to mask our true self, for fear that others won’t accept us or be impressed by us. CEOs are not immune to this. If you make a list of what you would like to be known for, you can make notes next to each entry concerning such things as, “How difficult or natural is this for me?”, “How successful am I being in convincing others that I should be seen in this way?”, and “What will happen if I fail at this?”. It could be that some of the things you want to be known for aren’t really that important, or that you need to adopt some new strategies to attain your goals.
A favorite game people like to play is to “catch the leader out,” to call attention to the gap between who the leader purports to be and the actions they take that indicate the opposite. The more perfect we pretend to be, the more noticeable it is when we do something we shouldn’t. We might try to convince people otherwise by telling them they aren’t seeing what they think they are seeing, but usually those efforts are futile. The real us shines through. At the same time, we can’t simply be ourselves if we need to do some work on our ethical or interpersonal standards.
What should leaders do to protect their hard-earned reputations? Much of the advice may be what you have heard before. Get ahead of the problem; be in control of the narrative instead of reacting to what others have to say about you. Know what you need to do next to restore faith in you as a leader. If you were wrong, say so and then do your best to make things right. Apply penalties to yourself before others decide what they should be.
The problem with these remedies is that they are reactionary and may be seen as such, no matter how sincere your contrition. What’s really important is to work on your reputation every day, George Bailey style. If each person you meet comes away impressed by your caring, honesty and desire to be a better person and a better leader, the support will be there when you need it most.