Resources 7 Paths Blog Leading through a scandal
Leading through a scandal
I tried not to write on this topic.
Last weekend the story broke that a former Penn State assistant football coach was arrested and charged with abusing boys who were part of a nonprofit for at risk boys that he had helped found.
When I heard the news I felt sick. It brought back memories from the early 1990’s when I was leading an organization that was swept up in a scandal. One of the founders of the organization, a highly respected man, disclosed that he had been involved in sexual misconduct including sexually abusing boys.
That’s the reason why I wanted to avoid the topic. But as you can see, I chose to write on the topic and I want to give you a heads up that this post is longer than my usual post. Leaders need to know how to lead through a scandal because scandals happen.
Like the former Penn State assistant coach, my colleague managed to keep a victim silent for many years.
When he disclosed the abuse to me, the abuse had occurred enough years ago so that the statute of limitations had expired. That law has since changed.
I led the organization through the scandal. I am not an attorney and can’t give you legal advice but I did learn three things about how lead an organization through a scandal.
First, the shame is overpowering. Organizations have self-images. The self-image never includes “we are a place where a highly respected leader can abuse children”. When the evidence emerges, as it did at Penn State when a graduate assistant saw the coach abusing a boy in a locker room shower, the shame explodes.
The graduate assistant reported what he had witnessed to the head coach. The head coach passed the shame along to his supervisor, the athletic director.
When shame is passed from leader to leader in an organization, one likely option is denial. At Penn State, denial for one leader took the form of redefining the abuse as “horsing around.”
Shame is explosive in a highly respected organization and severely tempts leaders to cover-up. To go public with the scandal seems self-destructive to the organization and to the leaders.
Shame blinds leaders’ ability to think clearly. At Penn State one or two leaders met with the assistant coach and told him to stop bringing boys from his nonprofit to the campus. I’m sure that at the time they thought they were protecting the university and their highly respected football program.
That brings me to my next point.
Second, when sexual abuse happens within an organization, the organization will deal with it. It’s just a matter of time. An ancient teacher said, “That which is done in secret, will be shouted from the roof top.”
Shame induces delusional thinking. Leaders think they can deal with the issue quietly or cover it up. Such efforts work for a while, but then, as Penn State is discovering, “That which is done in secret, will be shouted from the roof top.”
By the time you, as a leader hear of abuse, the scandal has already happened. A leader reporting an event to the authorities does not create the scandal. The scandal happened when the abuse happened.
Leaders attempting to deal with the issue quietly or cover it up, pay the price. Even in the midst of the shame and the press coverage, remind yourself that by being forthright, you are being honorable. Honorable because you are protecting the least powerful.
By the early 1990’s I knew several people who had been sexually abused as children. I saw how they were silenced as children but eventually they grew up and told someone in their family of origin. Almost inevitably the families resisted the information, sometimes even cutting the person off from the family.
While families didn’t always handle the information well, they had to deal with it because children who are abused grow up and refuse to be silenced.
When I first learned of the abuse by my colleague, shame swept over me. Fortunately, I was able to keep in mind the guiding principle that we as were going to deal with the abuse as an organization. It was a question of whether we were going to deal with it immediately and faithfully or not.
Third, who are you, as a leader, going to protect? When the information flows to you that abuse by another leader has occurred in your organization, you are faced with a decision. Who are you going to protect?
Are you going to protect your organization? Are you going to protect your highly respected colleague whose image is being threatened? Are you going to protect the victims? Are you going to protect yourself?
Often leaders have the closest relationship with their fellow leader and are tempted to handle the situation in such a way that protects their colleague from humiliation. Perhaps the person needs to lose their job but why not do it quietly? Also, by handling the situation quietly the organization can be protected as well.
The first people you are duty-bound to protect are past victims and potential victims.
If you protect the victims first, in the long run you will protect your organization and your colleague.
I am a mandated reporter. When information comes to me that a child connected to an organization where I am a leader has been abused, I am legally required to call the state abuse hotline. Three times I have picked up the phone and made that call. After I have made that call, I contacted the person alleged to have done the abuse or to the parents and told them that I have made the call and they could expect an investigation.
As a leader, I protect victims first.
In the case of my colleague in the 1990’s, he was in therapy when he disclosed his misconduct and his therapist verified to me that he (the therapist) had called the hotline. Our legal reporting responsibility stopped there, but not our moral responsibility to protect past and potential victims.
Over the next few months we systematically informed the leaders of every organization in which he had leadership roles for nearly two previous decades.
He had access to children in the organization that I was leading at the time. We arranged for a consultant to meet with parents to prepare them to talk with their children to see if they had been abused.
He was also employed by another organization at the time and traveled nationally for them. When they received the information, they published in two national publications that he had been involved with sexual misconduct including abuse of a minor and that he had been immediately suspended. They did this to make it possible for further victims to come forward. No new victims emerged.
Scandals and scars happen to good leaders. I hope that the painful lessons I learned will be of help to you.
To summarize, the following principles will help you lead through the scandal.
First, the shame will be overwhelming and tempt you to deny that abuse has happened. Second, scandal has already happened and your organization will deal with it sooner or later. Third, protect past and potential victims first.
Wisdom for the week: You can honorably lead your organization through a scandal by remembering to protect past and potential victims first.
Several years ago I was discussing with a university sociologist what forces kept individuals from involvement in devient behavior in our society. We dealt with guilt and its limited role and then he said something that has remained with me for over forty years. He thought that shame was the strongest individual controlling force within the individual and a society; fear that others will find out what we are considering doing, or have done. In my sixteen years in Law Enforcement, I have found that most people who commit deviant acts are more concerned about what others - significant and community - will think about them than they are about internal guilt for what they have done. Denial and covering up are the typical responses to potential shame. As Rich wrote, covering up is a temporary response, particularly in our age of global communication. Nothing stays hidden. Fortunately, society also has a deep capacity to understand and forgive, if you are honest and take appropriate steps to rectify the situation. I remember in particular a conversation with a community leader who had been arrested for a moral crime. His concern was how would his family and the community respond to what he had done. I assured him that there would be a public outcry and gossip about it for a few weeks; at least until the next gossip-worthy incited occured to take its place. Our society understands weakness and failure if it is not covered up, particularly if the coverup is meant to protect the powerful at the expense of the powerless.
Bruce, thanks for your reflection. I was especially struck about the sociologist’s comment that shame keeps us from deviant behavior. It’s interesting that shame is both a force that keeps us in line and once we’ve crossed the line, shame keeps us from being honest about what we’ve done or what another has done on our watch.
Thankfully, even in the face of seemingly overwhelming shame, we have a choice and can choose the honorable route.
Just wanted to thank and compliment you on this particular piece, Rich. As difficult as it was for you to write, and in doing so…relive…your first-hand experience in working with and through an organization impacted by a major scandal you have written a wonderful statement and have sent a valuable lesson to all your readers. Thank you, and Good Job!
Thanks, Charlie. I hope the people in need of learning from my experience find this piece.