To create a positive workplace culture, top leadership must model civility and the expected behaviors. (Part 1)

 

Before jumping into today’s topic I want to highlight an excellent, informative and inspiring podcast produced by Elizabeth Hart, founder of the organization Tailored for Success, it’s a nonprofit that works with jobseekers in transition. Elizabeth’s podcast is called Pivot Point: Success is a Journey. Pivot Point provides career and personal advice and inspiration for listeners pursuing their own journey for their success. Elizabeth interviewed yours truly on her podcast. The title, Workplace Bullying: Fired for Speaking Up, the episode was posted on March 8^th. It was a great conversation, do check out Elizabeth’s organization, and podcast, and our chat!

Governor as leader – accusations against Andrew Cuomo of poor treatment of employees and others

Bosses or organizational leaders have been all over the news lately for misconduct against their employees. Could a conscious company practice of civility change these behaviors? Maybe civility could be codified into a code of conduct that everyone from the top down is expected to follow, no exceptions.

Many of us have heard about the hot water that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is in for quite a few things, including his administration’s accounting for the number of people who died in nursing homes in New York at the height of the pandemic. I’m going to talk about what’s been said about his communication and management style. I’ll stick to things I can talk about.

Journalist Morgan Pehme wrote in the New York Post about his experience with the Governor’s staff member who called to berate him when he was about to publish a story that could implicate the governor’s administration in graft. Or cheating. The governor’s aide called the journalist at 4:30 in the morning and “threatened to destroy” his career. Here’s what Pehme said about the experience:

I remember vividly how I felt: scared. I had no reason to think these were idle threats. I was fully aware of the governor’s volcanic temper and track record of vindictiveness. If he wanted to crush me, he could and likely would.

This was a serious gut check for me. I worried about losing my livelihood, damaging my future, letting down my wife and daughter. But fortunately, I had bosses and colleagues who stood by the quality of our work. So we published the piece, like the press is supposed to do in the face of intimidation.

I’m no hero. The members of the Albany press corps regularly endure abusive calls like I received. And sometimes those calls come from the governor himself.

Pehme says that Andrew Cuomo likes “talking tough”, and says Cuomo thinks it’s a virtue. He also says Cuomo’s private abuse works in keeping a lid on negative coverage of his administration. And that’s really what abuse is, it’s an exhibition of power and wielding it over others. What other purpose does it serve other than for the practitioner’s ego?

Another article from the Washington Post is titled: Cuomo’s behavior created ‘hostile, toxic’ workplace culture for decades, former aides say.  The article refers to Cuomo’s “aggressive” style. In speaking with 20 of Cuomo’s former aides and advisers they described “a toxic culture” where the governor verbally attacks subordinates. “Some said he seemed to delight in humiliating his employees, particularly in group meetings, and would mock male aides for not being tough enough”.

Two former male aides shared names he called them that won’t be shared on this family-friendly blog.

A senior advisor for the governor, Rich Azzopardi, issued a statement that said that he never heard the governor use course language like the former male aides said he did.

Yeah… OK. Who believes that? And that’s why people like Cuomo get away with such behavior for too long. Enablers, defenders, and people who will lie for them. People who adopt his behavior like the aide who called up that journalist with threats at 4:30 in the morning.

I’ll end this story with this paragraph from the Post article.

Longtime aides described Cuomo as having a Jekyll and Hyde personality, alternately charming and raging with anger soon after. One person said, “You didn’t know which Andrew you were going to get”. Once he yelled at her so loudly that workers checked on her after. She said, it was so over the top, her own parents had never yelled at her like that.

Cuomo is given credit for having a strong work ethic and working late next to his staff. I think he could be that person without the abuse and disparagement of his staff. A strong work ethic doesn’t counteract decency… … does it?

You know, you could say, none of this is proveable. Except people have been saying these things about Cuomo for years, and the large number of people telling the same stories really has to make one think.

The modern workplace has to change. There are workplaces that do treat their employees with fairness and dignity, but what I’m trying to sound is that this is not the norm. Workplace misconduct and abuse are widespread. You wouldn’t know it from the upbeat LinkedIn articles teaching people how to be great leaders, etc. I suspect there’s a bias in LinkedIn where people who are inclined to manage the right way put themselves out there. I mean, who’s gonna post, “Ways to be an abusive leader”?! But the reality of what happens behind the curtain and within the actual organizations is another story.

Next post: Human Resources organizations’ survey results of widespread management misconduct.   

Materials and information referenced / links:

·       Pivot Point: https://anchor.fm/elizabeth-hart/episodes/Workplace-Bullying-Fired-for-Speaking-Up-eqmfre

 

·       Tailored for Success:  https://www.tailoredforsuccess.org/

 

·       Cuomo’s office terrorized me for doing my job as a journalist. By Morgan Pehme February 22, 2021: https://nypost.com/2021/02/22/cuomos-office-terrorized-me-for-doing-my-job-as-a-journalist/?utm_source=email_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons

 

·       Cuomo’s behavior created ‘hostile, toxic’ workplace culture for decades, former aides say. By Amy Brittain, Josh Dawsey, Hannah Knowles, Tracy Jan. March 6, 2021: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cuomo-toxic-workplace/2021/03/06/7f7c5b9c-7dd3-11eb-b3d1-9e5aa3d5220c_story.html

  

·       R.M. Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, 3^rd ed. (New York: Owl Books / Henry Holt, 2004).

 

·       EVERFI & HR.com HR Research Institute White Paper, Preventing Toxic Workplaces: http://info.everfi.com/rs/410-YCZ-984/images/Preventing_Toxic_Workplaces_Research_Report.pdf

 

·       SHRM Reports Toxic Workplace Cultures Cost Billions, Sept. 25, 2019. https://www.shrm.org/about-shrm/press-room/press-releases/Pages/SHRM-Reports-Toxic-Workplace-Cultures-Cost-Billions.aspx

 

·       Pfeffer, Jeffrey (2018, May 2) How your workplace is killing you. BBC.com. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180502-how-your-workplace-is-killing-you

 

·       Pfeffer, Jeffrey (2018). Dying For A Paycheck. HarperCollins.

 

·       Mastering Civility: A Manfesto for the Workplace. Christine Porath. 2016, Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

 

·       Powell, G.N. (1998) The abusive organization. Academy of Management Executive, 12(2), 5, 95-96. https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.1998.650520.

 

·       Your Co-Workers Might Be Killing You, by Jonah Lehrer   Wall Street Journal online, August 20, 2011.: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903392904576512233116576352

 

·       Ebeid, Fred; Kaul, Tej; Neumann, Kathleen; Shane, Hugh (2003) Workplace Abuse: Problems And Consequences. Workplace Abuse: Problems And Consequences. International Business & Economics Research Journal (IBER), 2(6). https://doi.org/10.19030/iber.v2i6.3811.

 

·       Estrin, C. B. (1996, March/April). Emotional abuse in the workplace. Legal Assistant Today, 1(2), 78-79. 

 

·       https://www.ethics.org/

 

·       https://www.shrm.org/