9 Absolutely Disgusting HR Leaders — And What You Can Learn From Them!
by Alan Collins
Like most folks, I awaited and was stunned by the outcome of the Casey Anthony trial (pictured left).
Look, I don’t know if she really killed her baby or not. But I do know this. She was a sleazy liar. And, for that, she was found guilty.
Her situation reminded me that we have sleaze-buckets throughout society…and HR is no different. And, it reminded me that, when we encounter them in HR, we need to call them out…and also learn from them.
And I’m going to do both in this article
First up, Stephanie Jensen.
Stephanie was a rising star with a great track record in HR. She was so good she became Brocade Communications Systems VP for Human Resources in record time. She had come a long way and had a lot to be proud of after starting off in an entry-level position at Apple.
Unfortunately, her career took a detour that she hadn’t planned. You see…
Stephanie, this high potential HR executive…was sentenced to
four months in federal prison and fined $1.25 million bucks.
You might wonder…WOW!, what the heck happened?
Unfortunately, she was found guilty of conspiring to backdate employees’ stock options. And, along with the President of the company, she was convicted about lying about the impact of these actions had on the company’s finances. So not only were her actions as an HR leader found to be illegal, she was also caught lying to the FBI.
As much as I’d like to say that this is an isolated case, it isn’t. Courtesy of HR Executive magazine, let me introduce you to…
Eight more HR leaders you’ve probably never heard of, who were charged
or convicted of criminal behavior…in just the last 3 years!
William Sinclair Jr., an HR executive with the Library of Congress, was charged in December 2008 with conspiracy, wire fraud and identity theft for allegedly stealing names from the agency’s database and passing them on to his cousin.
Gregory Horton, former executive VP of HR for America Online, pled guilty in 2009 and did time for scamming AOL and others by billing for millions of dollars in phantom services.
Nancy Tullos, former HR vice president for Broadcom Corporation, pled guilty to the role she played in an illegal stock-option backdating scandal involving Henry Nicholas, co-founder of the company, who was convicted in 2008.
Gary A. Ray, former vice president and head of HR at KB Home, pled guilty in February 2009 to falsifying reports and conspiring with CEO and Chairman Bruce E. Karatz to obstruct a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into yet another case of stock-option backdating.
Dennis M. Dowd, former senior manager of corporate benefits for Hitachi America, pled guilty in March to setting up a fake bank account and stealing $6.1 million from the healthcare plan between 2000 and 2008.
Elizabeth Billmeyer, human resources manager at Agriprocessors, a kosher meat-packing plant, pled guilty after being charged in March to harboring undocumented alien workers for profit.
Alejandro Urrutia-Garcia, HR manager for Universal Industrial Sales Inc., got 36 months of probation in February for helping undocumented workers get jobs.
Christian Deeb Rahaim, a former human resources executive at Enron, was sentenced to five years and three months for wire fraud in 2007 after scamming nearly $3 million from the company. His crimes were committed years after Enron went bankrupt following what is now considered the mother of all ethical meltdowns — the accounting scandal at the then-energy giant that was revealed in October 2001.
Granted, chances are (hopefully) you’ll never rise to this level of stupid criminal behavior. And, clearly when the company you are a part of partakes in obvious illegal activity, it’s time to not only to say no, but time to find a new company.
But, that’s not the point.
The point is this: we all can learn from these nine little worthless scumbags.
Here’s the lesson…
Every day in your HR life there are itty-bitty opportunities to: shade the truth, hide the facts, misrepresent how much progress you’re making on a project to your boss, or breach your client’s confidentially by gossiping…to name just a few.
One of my early bosses in HR told me to not worry about this: “These are just the little white lies that come with the HR territory. We all have to tell them.”
With all due respect to her: She’s full of crap and nothing could be further from the truth!
Nothing can derail a promising HR career quicker than falling into these little traps. I’ve seen too many great HR folks get exposed, disgraced and shown the door because they lied or played loosy-goosy with the facts.
It goes without saying that as an HR professional you have an inherent ethical responsibility to your leaders, employees and stockholders (or owners) to always do what’s right….even if it costs you your position.
A division president I reported to once told me…
“As our HR leader, I expect you to be the conscience of my organization. Your ethical standards need to be higher than anyone else on my management team. Yes, I know that’s not fair, but if you can’t accept that, then let’s talk about finding you another job.”
That is what makes the true HR professional so critical and so valuable…the ability to be the trusted compass of the organization.
But let’s face it: s–t happens in Human Resources. Nobody’s perfect. We’re all human. I’ve screwed up more times than I can count. I’ve shared lots of my mistakes on this blog. We all mess up.
But lean in and listen closely.
Here’s the one lesson you should take from all if this….
If You Mess Up, Fess Up. Fast!
And tell the WHOLE truth. Tell the truth to anyone you can fess up to: your boss, your people, your clients, the receptionist, your bartender, your cat. Everyone. THEN, GET ON WITH YOUR LIFE, with a clear conscience.
Yes, fess up.
Do it on little things.
Do it on big things.
It doesn’t matter.
If you haven’t finished that turnover report your boss asked for – fess up, fast.
If you made a mistake calculating the salary increase for an important senior executive – fess up, fast.
If you’ve already told 2,000 employees…by mistake…about a great new backup day care program they’re now not going to get – don’t try to take back or lie about what you said, just fess up, fast.
(And to answer the question you no doubt are asking: Yes, I’ve had to fess up to all of these things).
And you should too. No excuses. No “re-positioning” of the facts. No CYA.
But, let’s be clear: “telling the truth” is not an easy and painless thing to do. It’s uncomfortable as hell and from personal experience, I’ll admit that you may walk around for days feeling like a brainless idiot. However, it’s a whole lot better than walking around in a 12 by12 jail cell or in a nice looking outplacement office.
Often in HR we have to deliver bad news. Especially during tough times. It’s fine to put a positive spin on a very unpleasant situation, but you must always be clear, honest and upfront, even in the toughest circumstance. There’s a line between conveying things in a positive way and lying. And, you don’t want to cross that line.
Telling the truth ASAP may be the most career enhancing thing you can do after a screw up.
People have massive amounts of forgiveness in their hearts for sins — including stupid sins. But they hate the crap out of folks who won’t come clean with the truth. You need to look no further than Bernard Madoff, Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, Pete Rose, O.J. Simpson, Bill Clinton, Kelvin Sampson, Roger Clemens…and now Casey Anthony, to see how not telling the truth killed their reputations overnight!
If you don’t want to be the HR person that joins that group… or the nine awful HR leaders mentioned earlier…when you mess up, fess up, fast.
It’s one of the best career decisions you’ll ever make.
I’d love to hear your comments, thoughts and push-backs on this article? Share them by commenting HERE.
About the author: Alan Collins was Vice President – Human Resources at PepsiCo where he led HR initiatives for their Quaker Oats, Gatorade and Tropicana businesses. He is now President of Success in HR, Inc. and the author of the HR best seller, UNWRITTEN HR RULES . His new book, BEST KEPT HR SECRETS is now available on Amazon.
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Great post Alan. Completely support the fess up philosophy and believe it applies to all professionals, especially when dealing with mess-ups with external clients. As you said s__t happens, and it’s always best to just own it, apologize, and then wow them with a fix or recovery that is a step above what they might expect.
I agree with everything you have said… except.. “let’s be clear: “telling the truth” is not an easy and painless thing to do.” In fact, I believe it is the easiest thing to do! Yes, it takes courage, but the weightlessness of it creates peace and calmness in knowing you are doing the right thing. Always put the whole truth on the table first! That way any mistakes or issues can be dealt with in a timely manner. Be upfront. Lies and half truths just waste a lot of time because eventually, through digging and searching… we always get to the truth in the end! Choose wisely.
This is an excellent article. I dont know if it is the stardom, the need to fit in that compels individuals to compromise their integrity. I left an organization after working there for 7 years after they were practicing bullyism and favoritism. HR stood by and watched the top executives get their way regardless if their actions were just. Individual were being written up for anything little thing. Some individuals were being written up, never presented with the write ups however they were being threatened with being fired. This was the last straw and I decided to just leave because as an HR professional I expected HR to step in follow the oath that they took. Profits are important but now when they mean torturing, abusing employees rights. Not when it means subjecting them to inhumane treat where you hold their jobs over their head. I dont believe that anyone should work in that type of environment. HR is supposed to step in and correct the problem not over look it and or justify the behavior. I hope never to work for another organization that promotes this type of behavior. For those that are willing to compromise their integrity, what do you stand for?
Fantastic article, one that I think that every HR professional should read. Lies will only lead to more lies. It is much better to come out clean and keep your integrity.
Great article. You sure tell the truth in what your saying.
Alan, very well put. HR must be the conscience of the organization and always be above reproach.
I agree with Ezinne Obiora! Fantastic article!!!
Ahem, you never fessed up to eating the pizza that Mike McCormack and I ordered at the Hyatt in Lisle. For Shame!!!
This is going in your permanent record.
I remember as a child, being the youngest, and the only girl, I got in trouble a lot. My father was in the Navy then and whenever he came home from being overseas he would bring back African statues, souvenirs, all kinds of interesting stuff. And of course, being the bratty, little girl, that I was, I never missed an opportunity to play with and touch all the cool things my father told me only to look at – no touchie.
Well, invariably, whenever I ‘touched’ one of the statues, for some reason it would always break . And the first time this happened, I tried to lie with silence. When my father asked who done it – my lips were sealed with pop-tarts and popsicle as my stoppers. Because my two older brothers could never be the culprits, it always got pinned on the kid – that would be me. And the first time this happened, my father gave me a lashing that stayed with me even til this day – oh the stinging on my bum..
Suffice-it-to-say, I learned my lesson. So, from that moment on, whenever I broke a statue (because of course I still had to touch them) I fessed up immediately. And it didn’t just stop with my father’s things, I fessed up to everything, because I found that in my father was a soft-hearted man that loved the truth, and I was not penalized for fessing up. And fess up I did.
Those behaviors were instilled in me early. When I mess up as a thirty adult, I understand that I am accountable for my actions, and people appreciate and respect the truth . So, I totally agree with what you’ve said here.
Crap happens, and it’s senseless to try and cover it up with lies. Because we all know that one lie equates to more lies to cover up the lies you’ve already lied about.
Thanks Alan, great article.
@HR Writer Gal – awesome story and extremely well-conveyed. Thanks for sharing it. Great lesson for us all.
@Barb – On the pizza. I fess up. But puh-lease don’t put that in my permanent record.
Okay, Okay, I’m fessing up…One time, in the not to distant past, I ummmm . I ummmm, , I took some sticky notes from my desk and used them at home – they were just so bright and pretty – I couldn’t resist…
Wow, I feel so much better now – whewww…been dealing with that for a while now…gee, sure hope the ethics people aren’t looking at this …
Hey, this fessing up thing is contagious.
lol…I needed that laugh.
Great Exposure, Allan.
But, these were the drop in the ocean that got caught. What about those that got away and still at it.
How come they got caught whilst the rest remain at large?. Corporate governance s..ks ! That’s because the only audit shareholders, directors of board, regulatory agancies are interested in is, Financial.
Yes, we can appeal to the HR people not to follow these people’s path, but what about doing something drastic and revolutionary in calling for greater transparency and truth seeking by institutionalising Best HR practices. How about if we make HR Audits mandatory and as important as Comapny’s Annual Reports.
Are business leaders and CEOS willing to walk the truth of HR. I doubt it because the truth hurts the ego.
Great article Alan. It is so difficult to be this ethical bastion when your senior leaders shade the truth–especially for their personal situations. In HR, we are often asked to “help out” and you can see this in the list of HR folks you chronicled. At times we are labelled “not a team player” and that’s when we have to be the strongest. There is so substitute for integrity.
Alan,
You highlight the essence of good H R. The compensation, benefits, development, coaching etc. etc. are all guided by this fundamental truth. “You (we) are the conscience of the organization.”
The first CEO that I reported to explained it to me in this simple way.
“You are responsible for making sure that WE know to and have the right people doing the right thing at the right time.”
I have had many discussions on this simple yet powerful statement.
Best regards
Jim
Good article, Alan!
You are right about owning up for our mistakes – works for me. Every time!
It can mess things up in the short run but is the best thing to do.
As for the “scumbags”, its one big unholy mess they’ve created! I hope the new HR Managers learn from this and avoid going down that road again!
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I am a senior level HR leader. I agree whole heartedly with your article.
Sylvia Washington