There will be many times in your career where you have to choose between the organisation and the employees.

I worked with an organisation that had an executive leader that was brilliant in their field of expertise, but they were rude, made sexist comments, undermined people on their team. Would engage in behaviours that were not appropriate for the team, which lead to several complaints. I spoke to the CEO and COO about my concerns, around the fact that it was a court case waiting to happen as well as the risks to the company.

The decision was taken after yet another incident to have business supported coaching. I knew this was not enough, but I ensured that I completed all paperwork and process in regards to complaints and insights about the individual, I called out their behaviours if appropriate in real time in meetings and followed up 1:1 fully documented.

The business chose to keep this person within the company due to their expertise, something I disagreed with, but ethically, I had followed through and completed every process correctly in case that decision changed which it did within 18 months, feedback from glass door, mass exits from the team, which could have been avoided documented during exit interviews behaviours that were not appropriate of a leader, my previous documentation and history helped to tie everything together. I just wish they hadn’t waited which lead to alienating the team members, delays on work, additional work for the HR team investigating numerous complaints and having good staff leave.

I say all this to say, keep the receipts – one of my old managers coined that phrase, flag concerns early, follow the process, document everything, communicate with clarity to those impacted and do not delay in sharing information and updates. As long as you are working ethically and have done all you can, sometimes until the message is ready to be received it is all you can do to balance between the employees and organisation.