A lot of corporations these days have excellent corporate values, especially around matters of respect and how employees treat each other. That’s great, that’s exactly how it should be.
But sometimes a disconnect develops between what those great values say and how individual leaders in the company want their group to operate. This creates a really bad situation for anyone working for such a corrupt leader. If the corrupt leader is preaching against the company values of respect, then all of their subordinates become trapped. Those subordinates are suddenly pressured to try to act within two conflicting sets of values. On one hand, their immediate supervisor wants them to be disrespectful, and on the other hand, the rest of the company requires them to be respectful. The corrupt leader wants their subordinates to be afraid and confused in this situation so that those subordinates can be made to believe that their only hope of keeping their job is just do whatever the corrupt leader says.
A corporation can and should prevent and combat those types of situations. First, leaders need to be rigorously trained in the corporate values and must demonstrate their understanding. Second, leaders should be required to preach the company values in a similar way that they should preach safe practices. Finally, leaders and the company in general should be monitored by periodic employee reviews of the company’s compliance with its values. With these simple steps, a good corporation can prevent and weed out corruption and thusly stay a good corporation.
Some signs of corrupt leaders:
– If they complain about “being too corporate.”
– If they complain about “having to be nice.”
– High turnover rates
– Frequent, preventable quality issues (caused by employees being distracted by the hostile situation)
