Intro: This is the extent of the failure of leadership behind the door. We have no idea what he’s doing. If this is the standard of our leaders today, we’re in trouble. Help us. So what kind of leader are you aiming to be? Holy Mackerel. How’d you do that?

Good leaders, remember, they are people first.

Leadership is hard.

Let me name those three things in a succinct way. Now we are taking leadership to a better place. Thank you for being with us on the Leadership Listening Podcast.

Suzanne: So if you are the C-Suite person having the difficult conversation, you might want,somebody who is there to potentially give evidence as to what was said from the point of view of the senior personal C-suite person who is the recipient of the conversation.

That can backfire.

Lawrie: Today’s guest of leadership listening is Suzanne McKie KC, the founder and managing partner of Farore Law, specialising in employment law and senior executive law. King’s Council traces back to the late 16th century when the English crown began appointed. Trusted barristers to act as its senior legal advocates.

Certain barristers were granted a patent, giving them precedence in court and the right to wear silk gowns, the origin of taking silk. From this point, they became the senior tier of the bar. They were expected to refrain from acting against the crown without special permission. Thus reinforcing their status today.

It’s an honorific for top tier barristers. The practical meaning of Casey is simple. You’ve reached the highest level of courtroom advocacy. So Suzanne, I hope a suitable introduction, and Farore law is certainly an unusual name. Where did the name Farore Law come from?

Suzanne: Well, when I stopped in independent practice and wanted to start a law firm.

I struggled to find a decent name for it because everything had been taken and my son happened to be a bit of a gamer at the time. Still is unfortunately. There was a game called Princess of Zelda, which is about a very strong woman. And at the time I thought that was a message that I wanted to send out to the world.

So that actually comes from the Princess of Zelda. So it is unusual, but it’s memorable, I think.

Lawrie: Suzanne, you have been in this business for many, many years, a lot of experiences. Tell us a little bit about the kind of matters in which you get involved.

Suzanne: Well, we, at this firm, and traditionally I have acted for senior executives companies as well, but I’d say it was an 80% senior executive, 20% company split in terms of what I do and the senior executive field in which I practice.

We focus a lot on whistleblowing. I mean, that’s probably predominantly what we do. And misconduct cases, also discrimination, obviously, things like restrictive covenants and contracts and settlements and exits as well. But in terms of the disputes themselves, we find it’s mostly whistleblowing and,misconduct, misconduct of all kinds.

But I’d say 50% of it is, is financial and Sexual misconduct. I’m bracketing those two together and obviously not necessarily, they don’t necessarily go together, but those are the main areas of misconduct that we cover.

Lawrie: I certainly think we are gonna have an interesting conversation. So when cases reach your level

what are the most common leadership failures behind them? because it’s the leaders that we’re trying to know more about and illuminate

Suzanne: on those occasions, when you act for the company, you see behind the curtain in the sense of the people who have made the decision. That has led to the dispute. So you’ve got the C-suite over here when you’re acting for the company and how they have managed the run up to the dispute occurring and how they deal with the dispute once it’s started and is ongoing

and then you see the other side of it when you’re actually acting for the C-Suite individual. In terms of the C-Suite individuals there’s not one common theme that runs through it, but it is perhaps surprising given the level of seniority they’ve reached, how much emotion comes into the manner in which they handle their own disputes?

So you might expect that someone with that expertise and level of experience might come at their own dispute in a quite a dispassionate and logical way, but they don’t. I find it’s just as emotional, just as stressful for them in many ways. Uh, particularly if they’re regulated people as it is for people who are not at that level why they enter into disputes and why companies enter into disputes often comes down to my experience.

Two things. Failure to communicate companies aren’t always good at explaining their rationale for decisions, so you will have a C-suite individual who’s excluded from a committee. Or there are conversations with that person about their performance, but the rationale doesn’t always come through in that communication so that the C-Suite individual is left not knowing exactly what they’ve done wrong, why what they’ve done wrong is such a big issue and

it’s almost as if sometimes those on the other side of it, I, the CHROs, the chief people officers who are in the position of explaining this to the senior person, want to hold back on the communication, want to hold back on the reasoning because they don’t want to give too much away. But that leaves the individual speculating, speculating what the true reason is as to why they’ve

been excluded or about to be excluded. So that’s the main reason. On the C-suite side, again, there’s an element of of lack of communication in that they can make assumptions that everything they’re doing is okay and because of their seniority, sometimes arrogance bleeds into how they handle other people and not always understanding the tone in which they should communicate with other people.

And not reading the room, that that often leads to difficulties. But of course there is the other side, you know the other aspect of it, which is the misconduct side of it, which we see a lot of. Which is, which are individuals who are caught out, if you like, doing things they shouldn’t.

Lawrie: Now what are the favourites?

Suzanne: what are the most prevalent cases in terms of?

Suzanne: Lawrie, I would like to say post ‘Me too’, that sexual harassment is less of an issue than it was. I don’t agree that it is. I think it’s been called out more, but it’s still happening more than you’d expect it to. drug taking, surprisingly, amongst C-Suite people, you wouldn’t expect that necessarily, but it happens

particularly in financial circles, in my experience. And the other aspect that I see a lot of are people, senior people not reading their own policies. And you may think, what does Suzanne mean by that? What I mean by that is they may have even had a role in drafting these policies, but they don’t seem to either read them sometimes or think that they apply to them.

So we see quite a few cases where C-Suite people download documents. They shouldn’t send documents, highly confidential material to third parties because they haven’t read their IT policy. People who don’t read social media policies and don’t realise when they’re giving interviews at the C-suite level to journalists what they should and shouldn’t say, and other aspects of policies that that can or are meant to confine your conduct onto the right side of the line.

Lawrie: I suppose if you compound that, then with ignorance of the law, so ignorance of your own stuff. Combined with ignorance of the law, may be backed up by one of the words that you used earlier. Arrogance of leadership thereby hangs the problem.

Suzanne: I quite agree. I think that when you have somebody who is self-regarding, if you like, arrogant, they don’t always listen to the people around them.

Maybe it’s partly because they have entrepreneurs here or whatever the rational or reason might be. You have to listen to what people are advising you. I mean, this bleeds into another topic, arguably, which is the strength of your HR team. How many HR professionals are willing to stand up to A CEO or a CIO, or A CSO and challenge their behaviours.

I’ve met a lot of C-suite people who do know the law. I’ve met quite a lot who don’t seem to think it matters that somebody at some point will explain it to them as and when it’s needed. But of course, that’s a reactionary situation, so. As just one example, you have to understand if you’re running a business, what disability discrimination is.

You have to know that you have to make reasonable adjustments in certain situations, otherwise you’re gonna create a misstep. And personally, I think that if I were a C-suite person in a large organisation, I’d make sure that I did understand these things because you cannot always rely on your HR people to advise you at the right time or want to challenge you if you’re doing

Lawrie: something wrong.

So, what do we think actually happens to these senior people who become a CEO and, and lots of them are marvellous CEOs, but the ones who seem to sort of take a wrong turn at that highest point of promotion, and as one of my clients says, consumes their own smoke, you know, they’re a legend in their own lounge.

Suzanne: Yeah. You can see that quite a lot in misconduct cases. So you see people, it’s not necessarily ignorance of the law because they know they shouldn’t be taking drugs.

Lawrie: Yep.

Suzanne: They know that they shouldn’t be sexually harassing somebody. But there is this belief that in some, that they won’t get caught or that they have the ability to do what they do because no one will challenge them.

And there’s also an element of not understanding. That they will get challenged in this day and age. And the surprise you see Lawrie, in some people who, some CEOs who do get challenged, that they’re really shocked that someone has the temerity. To make allegations against them. It, it’s quite extraordinary.

And the self-belief can bleed, can be specific and bleed into the financials. So if they are turning the company around, if the turnover’s gone up 50%, if they’re doing a fantastic job, they don’t think that they should be touched. That sometimes comes across. Yeah, so it’s extraordinary on occasions when you see the wealth of the evidence that could be deployed and is being deployed against these individuals and they still fight.

Lawrie: They still can’t accept that they’ve done anything wrong. Does that bring me to a rule that I find myself all too often quoting to clients that in this day and age, everything, and I think, I mean everything is discoverable,

Suzanne: but it’s surprising how many people don’t know this. It is surprising how many times you have conversations

with highly intelligent people and you say, well, who you know, will have a chief people officer who’s advised them on other cases, perhaps in the past will even have a, a general counsellor in the same building, who say things like, oh gosh, are WhatsApp’s disclosable? I didn’t think text messages would be disclosable.

And you, you have to wonder at that because that again is basic training that should be available to people who entered the C-suite, the number of C-Suite people I have met who will say to me, oh, I recorded that meeting about a while ago. I acted for a head of compliance at a bank, and he got dismissed for recording internal meetings.

And you think, but you are the head of compliance. Why have you done this? and they say it to you. Thinking that doesn’t place if they say to me in a difficult position. Well, it does because I now know the document and it is a document. The recording, the transcript is a document for the purposes of, of court procedure.

They don’t realise that if I’m asked that question, I have to, my first duty is to the court. I have to say, yes, A recording exists. Yes, you have to disclose it. Yes, of course it’s relevant, so. Those kinds of basic training for any C-suite person who potentially is involved in disputes, whether it’s their own obviously or so, more often other peoples.

They have to understand that trying to hide information in WhatsApp isn’t gonna work

Lawrie: and is best advice. Therefore, against all of this background to chief executives best advice that they should almost insist from their chief people officer that they get the absolute standing and reality, best quality feedback of them, their habits, their leadership, their strengths, their weaknesses, the things they should do more of or less of.

Suzanne: in terms of getting regular feedback on how they’re performing.

Absolutely right. I do wonder at the lack of training generally for people who are elevated up to CEO level, because, you know, I recently acted for an individual who is A CFO and he gave an interview to a business journalist and it was a bit of a car crash. And no one had actually given him any media training.

The marketing department had allowed him out there to discuss whatever was going on. And of course, his defence when the allegation was put was, I didn’t say any of that. I didn’t get the proofs to proofread, read. and you have to say to them, well, it’s an independent journalist. They’re not necessarily going to give you the proofs to approve.

Did you ask for them? Do you get any, do you know? The key thing, I guess, when you are communicating to a business journalist is, you know, these are the wonderful positive things about the company. I’m so privileged to be there. If that’s tempered with a bit of negativity, that’s fine. But the problem is with journalists, as you know, Lawrie, they might just pick on the negatives that you’ve said, but I was shocked that this individual had had no training whatsoever.

So it isn’t just feedback, it’s training them before they get to a point where they are in error.

Lawrie: I think I learned probably more than 40 years ago as a young executive. beginning to deal with the media, and apologies here to all of our media friends, but they’re looking for a headline, and if it comes at your expense, then so be it.

I guess then, Suzanne, if we are looking at these kinds of circumstance and a person who’s a CEO begins to see that the game is up they’ve got a choice then of resigning or battling on, and there are all sorts of circumstances that I’ve heard of, maybe wrongly, you know, never resign.But what are the merits and demerits of resignation versus entering battle?

Suzanne: I’ll come onto a story of an individual CEO. I was acting for the company on that occasion. It was a global, a big, big company, and this CEO is well known. I’ll come onto that in a moment, but it is important always to think about the boring things. I’m afraid, like the good leave, bad leave provisions in your contract or your share options scheme of your long term incentive plans, because.

If you battle and you are sacked for poor performance or misconduct, you know, you could potentially lose a great deal of money. If you can come to an accommodation with the company that allows you to resign with dignity, why wouldn’t you do so? You need to listen to your lawyer, get a good lawyer. Don’t, don’t get a middle ranking lawyer.

Pay for the best because they’ll tell it to you how it is. And you need a lawyer who’s been in court. So if you wanna fight, you have to be able to say to the CEO who wants to fight, this is how it’s gonna land, this is how it will end. This is what the judge will conclude with all of this evidence. It’s not sensible to fight on and, and so obviously you have that, but you have the contractual provisions as well.

You’ve gotta think about that. So this particular, individual, was accused of sexual harassment and he, as I say, I was acting for the company, thank heavens, on this occasion. He actually brought a sex discrimination claim against the company on the basis seemingly, that had what he is alleged to have done, been done by a woman

the reaction would not have been the same. He wouldn’t have been dismissed. And, you know, in another life, if I’ve been representing him, I would’ve said, read the music in the room. This is not gonna go well. This is, not a good way to go so resignation with dignity, with an agreed exit strategy with an agreed public statement, it’s so important.

That reputationally, that aspect of it.

Lawrie: So out there in the market, we have this thing called strong leadership, which has got a myriad of questions around it in this day and age but how does strong leadership then factor relative to bullying or harassment in the eyes of the law.

Suzanne: I mean, some might say that the definition of bullying has changed a little over the years.

Some might say that finding, making a finding of bullying is easier to make now than it used to be. Mm-hmm. But for me, it comes down to probably about three things bullying consists of if you are persistently targeting somebody. If you raise your voice in any way, that it will not go down well, that will probably amount to bullying, particularly if it’s persistent and where you are targeting an individual with reference to personal characteristics.

I don’t necessarily mean discrimination, but, but in terms of challenging their personality as opposed to a constructive feedback. So those three things together bleed into that. I would suggest however, that most, most C-suite people I come across do understand the difference and I think that that has been a result of a lot more in the media about bullying and about investigations into bullying.

I see sometimes the opposite problem, Lawrie, which is CEOs not wanting to challenge people so the problems build up and they build up and they build up. Mm-hmm. With problems like that building up, it can spill over into a situation that can amount to billion because they, the CEO, loses their rack after putting up with it for nine months.

So I think it’s so important that people understand or get training too. Learn how to send out messages regularly to people and do so in a constructive way. But I have met a lot of C-Suite people who just do not like to confront people, do not like to challenge them. Some might say, and some have said to me recently, it’s because they don’t know what to say and whether what they say will actually result in some kind of legal action against them. ’cause of course you can personally mm-hmm. Sue individuals. So, C-Suite people are often added to court claims or tribunal claims as respondents if there’s discrimination or whistle blowing. So that there is a bit of a fear there as well.

But it is so important that CEOs in particular are people people and therefore are able to have those conversations and often, you know, quite often they. They can’t or they avoid them and leave it to other people, which is never ideal.

Lawrie: Yes. I’ve seen a lot of that myself, putting it off until another day.

I don’t feel comfortable about making this conversation interesting as to whether the more difficult conversation, Suzanne, should be made by a C-Suite member. But in the presence of, at one level, I suppose no presence, maybe then the presence of a human resource person. Maybe even, I suppose the possibility of in the presence of a legal person,

Suzanne: the extent to which you might, if you are the C-Suite person having the difficult conversation, you might want that backup. You might want somebody who is there to potentially give evidence as to what was said. You might want to even want the meeting recorded from the point of view of the senior person or C-suite person who is the recipient of the conversation.

That can backfire in my experience, so I’m in two minds about it in the sense that my clients who are C-Suite people who are confronted with a gc and the CHRO, general counsel, really react badly to it. So this wasn’t necessary. This is a conversation you and I could have had alone.

Why are you elevating it into something that’s almost quasi disciplinary by the involvement of these people? And of course they’re outgunned, aren’t they? You’ve got three against one in that scenario and it does not start a meeting. Well, and I don’t feel it’s necessary. Whoever’s having the conversation that the CEO should be able to have that conversation with somebody.

Keep notes afterwards if need be of what it is you say, follow it up in an email, bring in, bring in the, the, the gang. Only when it gets more serious would be my advice.

Lawrie: An employment lawyer who I think is known to both you and me once said that, keeping contemporaneous records wherever you are in this behavioural, bad, behavioural scene. Keeping those contemporaneous records is an important thing to do, and I’ve heard that one of the things that supports that is to send an email to yourself. Immediately after you’ve had an intervention or a meeting. because it’s timed and dated. Is that defensible?

Suzanne: I think that’s fair enough. Obviously don’t go back in and amend it. It’s a later stage because the metadata will show that that’s happened. I think that’s always useful. You will still get people who challenge the veracity of it because all notes can be self-serving in certain situations, so they, they don’t necessarily mean that they’re accurate on both sides.

People should retain notes. They are, of course, disclosable and my advice to those making the decisions is don’t just record what is said. Record your rationale. Very early on in my career, it was a chief constable who said this to me, and I can’t remember the case. It was I was involved in, and he said, I always keep notes of my rationale.

So it isn’t just what it, I said in this meeting, it is why I said it, what my thoughts were, what my agenda was before going into the meeting, and what my next steps were. Because when you’re faced with an allegation. That you are discriminating or meeting out detriment because someone’s whistle blown or whatever it happens to be.

You can evidence what your thinking was at the time.

Lawrie: That’s so important. And just by way of information, I’ve certainly had a client who was an e-discovery firm. So if somebody clever on the other side says, well, here’s the general ledger and there are 87 billion entries, you find it, um, the e-discovery firm will find it.

Yeah. And they will also find the half second that has been clipped out of a recording. Maybe so e-Discovery is perhaps not known by the C-Suite or CEOs out there universally?

Suzanne: No, absolutely and some, there are some law firms out there who I think, still believe when they’re acting for the company, defending a case brought, let’s say, by a C-suite person, that if they disclose as little as possible, that will help them.

And if there’s a smoking gun, well, of course they should disclose it if it’s relevant, but, but not everybody does. Right. But if you cannot evidence why you made a decision, why the female CFO is not paid the same as the male CIO, how are you going to persuade a court that you are thinking at the time you made the decision as to what salary to give them?

How are you gonna persuade them that that what was in your mind was about their performance and ability as opposed to their gender?

Lawrie: And how do you then go about working with your immediate client, then the, the individual who’s under the Kosh. What are the, what are the big tutoring coaching things that you might apply? as they advance through the case and perhaps get into formal settings?

Suzanne: Well, often what I do is, you know,I can be dealing with people who are taking part in the subject of allegations and therefore part of a disciplinary process. I also act for a lot of people who seek my advice when they are the whistleblowers.

Who are going through the investigation process. And I’m sometimes asked for advice by people who are simply witnesses to an investigation process and at that stage, before you get to litigation what is quite surprising is how much, perhaps not to you, Lawrie, but to some people, how much assistance those C-suite people need.

To navigate through that process, it’s rather more stressful than people might imagine. It may be your complaint, it may be your grievance, it may be you that’s whistle blown, but you have to be able to answer questions put to you by the investigator. You may feel as though the company is not supporting you enough.

You may feel as though the investigator is just a hired gun trying to get the answer that the company wants. That that happens more often than not. What I find slightly strange in my older age is that the clients I’m speaking to every day are not the ones in litigation. They’re the ones going through internal processes, and you do occasionally, despite my early rate, veer into counselling, but it’s welcome in the sense that sometimes you have to say to your clients, get a good night’s sleep because you’re not performing.

So I will have a sort of one-to-one session with them before an investigation meeting, before their disciplinaries and I may end up saying something as basic as that to them and say, look, you, yeah, you, you’re stumbling over your words. You don’t know your bundle. You haven’t got the references. Right. And it becomes a way of really making them realise that it is about performance.

If you don’t have everything in order and you don’t try to resolve this feeling of stress and anxiety that you have before the big day, it’s not gonna work out well for you. Mm-hmm. you, there’s also a lot, quite a lot of handholding in the sense of, you know, you can’t say it’ll be fine because it often isn’t.

But you do have to say things like, look, don’t expect the data subject access request you’ve put in to throw up all these fantastic documents because it won’t. They’ll be heavily redacted. Don’t expect the in so-called independent investigator to come down on your side. They are paid for by the company.

Don’t expect necessarily that they will listen to everything that you say and you may have to do a lot of your own homework. You may have to email them afterwards. You may have to produce your own statements. You may have to put together a bundle for them. And sometimes people find that surprising that they have to do a lot of their own work to get the points across.

So that’s partly what I’m trying to help people navigate during these processes.

Lawrie: What one of my clients describes as people who live in glass houses should not get undressed in front of the window says it all. If we talk about, then you’ve mentioned whistle blowing. Yeah and that’s beaen in the news a a growing amount it seems to me in recent times.

Mm-hmm. what are the sort of bullet points that we might put into play as regards whistle blowing and leadership in particular, and their response to whistle blowing.

Suzanne: Well, I won’t go into the legal side of it, Lawrie, in the sense that I don’t think I need to explain to your listeners what whistle blowing is necessarily, but, I will say this, it whistleblowing is not where you’re expressing concerns.

If you are a chief risk officer or A CFO and you or A-C-H-R-O and you are expressing concerns about something that’s happened in the organisation, that’s probably not going to amount to whistle blowing because all you’re doing is your job to say, this is when it gets to the point where you’re, where you say, this is a breach.

We are breaching it. This is serious. You have to listen to me. Then that potentially becomes whistle blowing if it’s done in the public interest. The way in which companies handle it is, in my experience, not. Great. On many occasions, there is a often a knee jerk reaction to how, how dare they, that that’s, there’s a bit of that.

There is no, we have to get rid of this. Where is this gonna land? Where they’re regulated? Do we have to tell the regulator now? And that’s a really critical question for leadership to decide for CEO to decide. At what point is our duty to the FCA, for example, crystallised by the action of this whistleblower?

And you know, those are critical decisions that will come out in the wash later down the road. Don’t put pressure on the person who’s whistle blowing. Don’t demand that they attend 15 interviews with an independent investigator in the space of two weeks and not consider wellbeing. It, you have to look as though you are being reasonable as the company, as the CEO managing this.

You have to look, hopefully you are interested in the truth, but you certainly have to give that impression that you are not, not bouncing people into difficult back to back interviews. Uh, and I, I want this investigation done in two weeks. It’s gotta be done in two weeks. Well, no it doesn’t, right? Mm-hmm.

Choose your investigator well, gosh. They don’t always choose the right investigators. That’s quite critical. You know this. If it’s a serious whistleblowing allegation, disclosure, the CEO should, in my opinion, be involved in the choice of the, the investigator to decide whether they think they’re the right person to do this.

Not Don’t rely on your law firm to do it. Don’t necessarily rely on, you know, somebody else on exco, meet the investigator. Certainly look at their cvs, consider whether they’re the right person to involve themselves in this situation, because if you get that wrong it all falls apart really.

Lawrie: When we sort of move along in a linear way here, we get to the point where it’s all finished for somebody and we come to the matter of leaving statements, which might be regarded as a sort of final valedictory, very bland you know, what’s best practice? Are these things for the most part, disingenuous? And, you know, what should happen?

Suzanne: I recently acted for A CFO who was extremely keen on exit, because it was done quite swiftly after start of employment that there be an explanation that was agreed and that went out there to control the narrative.

I think where speculation is likely to be rife, an agreed statement may well be helpful so I don’t think they’re all awful things that are disingenuous. Often in my experience, I have an element of truth in them it’s simply about making sure that if you are just departing C-Suite person gets the point across, whether it’s you’re departing for personal reasons or whether you are leaving to, you know, pursue other avenues, there may well be truth in those.

So we can’t assume that there aren’t. I think if you just have a situation where there’s silence, that’s not always a good thing. And Lawrie, you know, these days that we have what, what we call tombstone references for everybody, almost no one produces a reference that says anything good or bad. I mean, subject to the senior manager’s regime in certain sorts of situations, whether where you have to give the truth.

They can be very anodyne and it can be, they started at this state, they ended at this state. This is the role that they had. So in those circumstances, an agreed statement is often what my clients want as part of the any settlement. So you’d think they, they might start with a figure, and often they do start with the figure, but, but the second ask is about an agreed statement.

How do we manage that? What do we say? And it’s important that it is tied up really well so that the who, whoever has knowledge within the organisation and that has to be kept tight anyway, does not orally say anything different from that. Agreed. Seven does not deviate from it. In this day and age, I actually think they’re more important than they ever have been.

And if people want to speculate that they’re not true, well so be it. You know? Mm. But it’s better than the wording of it is we, as the company he is leaving for these reasons. It’s, we have agreed between as X, Y, and Z.

Lawrie: So it’s very much joint. Absolutely. It must be

Suzanne: otherwise. Yeah.

What is it telling the world? It’s telling the world the reason from the point of view of the company, not from the point of view of the, if this, if the departing c. If, if their voice is not in that agreed statement, exit statement, then it will look as though they’re disgruntled and they didn’t want to go and they’ve been pushed out.

That’s not a good luck. Mm-hmm. It just isn’t.

Lawrie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Suzanne: So, yeah, I think they’re quite important

Lawrie: and I guess it’s important also for the employer. To be seen as a good employer in the sense of trying to get the next CEO if the CEO is departing.

Suzanne: I think where it gets that, that I absolutely agree, and I think as part of any agreed statement, for example, you might, the company might want to say, well, you know, we’re replacing.

It’s personal. We’ve decided to restructure and appoint this fabulous new individual from this company, and that can be all part of the same agreed statement. I think where it gets tricky is misconduct, where where I see some of my clients who have been, I won’t say found guilty of misconduct, but where the evidence is pretty strong or the investigators found against them.

Trying to extract any kind of greed statement from the company is really quite difficult. And I do get that when I’m acting for companies. You can’t be putting out something that suggests we’ve brushed this under the carpet or that it didn’t, it wasn’t that significant what he did because there’s always the fear that it will come out because of course, the alleged victims that the, that those against whom he has perpetrated his crimes.

Aren’t covered by an NDA necessarily. Mm-hmm. So it could come out later down the line and then, and then the press are gonna track back to this agreed statement and wonder, well, why did you allow that out? Mm-hmm. In those situations, silence is probably better.

Lawrie: So if we move to preventable cases what’s the, the case that you might remember where good leadership might well have stopped it before it got to you. So in a sense, preventing employment disputes actually starting,

Suzanne: I, there’s been so many.This involved a CEO who just could not keep his emotions, could not control his emotions in the sense that when the individual employee made a,complaint internally.

He took it extraordinarily badly and strangely. The grievance was not about the CEO, but he had a reasonably close relationship with the alleged perpetrator, and he didn’t like the fact that reputationally, it looked bad for the company. He did not keep his emotions in check. He got very, very angry about it, but unfortunately she recorded him and he lost his rag with her over the phone.

And of course in that moment when you lose your temper and you see the red mist, do you actually consider that a person might have the temerity to be recording you? That recording of course, was admissible even though he didn’t know it was happening. And it was game over. Absolutely. Game over. So good leadership is about not taking grievances personally, whether they’re whistle blowing, whether discrimination, whether anything else.

And taking a step back and looking at what it is you may have done wrong or the company may have done wrong. How could we have managed this differently? How do we manage. Both the person against whom the act accusations have been made and their wellbeing, and the individual who’s making the allegations.

Mm-hmm. But for goodness sake, don’t react emotionally. It’s hard at times. I know, especially with founder CEOs, founder CEOs, I mean, you know, you’re destabilising the company. This is a disgrace. How dare you? Um, it, it is about putting. You know, a dry hat on, if you like, and, and being measured about it.

Lawrie: I’ve often said that founder syndrome is not far off the most powerful force in employment dynamics that I’ve ever encountered. Absolutely. You know, lethally in a sense, powerful because they will do almost anything in order to sort of hold onto the baby that they created at all costs.

Suzanne: But how many founders, Lawrie, have actually had good training to become good C-Suite people? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, you know, particularly if they have a majority of the shares, who is gonna challenge them? Who is going to tell them that this is not an appropriate way to behave? Yeah. It comes back to this issue about strength.

With HR people, and I’ve actually noticed over the years that sometimes having an external HR person is better than having an internal one, particularly with people who, who are a bit of a challenge and who don’t tend to listen. Because I think that an external one may be more willing enough and I have seen been more willing to say, stop it.

This isn’t gonna work out well, this is gonna end badly. This is the gonna be the outcome of what you do if you keep doing it. Yeah, internal. There’s all those dynamics. There’s the fear of what’ll happen to you if you challenge this individual. Um, so I, I think that’s how you get founder CEOs to, to take advice externally.

I’m not entirely sure. Sometimes you need to be in a litigation dispute before you learn your lesson,

Lawrie: and it’s certainly the case that the behaviours that you are describing. Happen, if I may say so, to consultants as well. And it’s certainly the case that we get invited to coach somebody on a remedial basis.

That is very often the case. Yeah. So in summary, I think. Susan, are we looking, as I might say, for chief executive bandwidth, you know, having, yes, the analytical and strategic and operational administrative technical qualities, but also having that empathy for circumstances and applying appropriate empathy depending on what those circumstances are.

It’s a big ask though, isn’t

Suzanne: it? It’s a big ask to get all of that in one person.

Lawrie: Yeah.

Suzanne: particularly in smaller companies. I think that that is, it’s hard to get everything right, but then it’s not necessary to get everything right all of the time. What’s necessary is to learn from what has happened.

And to change things going forward and to be seen, to be doing so, but we all make mistake.

Lawrie: And how has practicing at this level changed you and how you view leadership yourself? you know, I’ve often heard that, it’s easy to become cynical, but one doesn’t become cynical in the kind of job that I do.

And I’m guessing the kind of job that you do. I’ve also heard that a cynic is a frustrated enthusiast.

Suzanne: I think for me, I have changed quite a lot since I gave up independent practice and started my own law firm because. As a KC, you’re very much working in a silo. Yes, you’ll have your team of solicitors who will be helping you, sometimes a junior, but you go in a case, you come out of a case and that’s it.

What I’ve learned in the last seven years since I’ve started this firm is how to manage people better, how to communicate a hell of a lot better, how to see everything from start to finish and how things can be. Dealt with better. Right From the off you lose you. You still have, dare I say it, assertiveness or aggression when you’re negotiating, but your style is definitely nuanced.

By having staff, you become a better person almost. I have to, I don’t know if Casey’s out there horrified by what I’m saying, but I think it, it brings out a different side of you. It brings out softer skills. Which, you know, some people talk about it as if they’re not important, but I think they absolutely are.

It’s trying to encourage people. It’s trying to be uplifting. It is confronting them when they need to be confronting them on a regular basis, but also being as inspiring as you can be so that people do understand where you are going and why you are going, and the fact that you are bringing in them along with you.

I have to say I am not sure I was any good when I started. And that comes back to my point about training you if you’ve never, if you’ve never managed staff before or if somebody comes out of a certain sector and then goes into an entirely different one, you can’t assume that that, that they’ll just happen overnight or that by some osmosis they’ll become great leaders.

It takes a lot of effort, skill, and training to get there.

Lawrie: So if you could outlaw one phrase from hr, what would it be? This is to our HR colleagues out there, and I started originally from the planet, HR went into consulting, and now the podcast,

Suzanne: I think I’m gonna have to go with two, Lawrie.

Lawrie: Okay.

Suzanne: The first is the policy says no.

Don’t be over reliant on policies just because the policy, which is generally not contractual anyway, it’s just a guidance document. You know, consider the exercise of discretion, albeit as mentioned earlier, keep a note of what your, your rationale for exercising your discretion in a certain way, but don’t be hemmed in by a policy that leads to unfairness.

But there’s too much of that black and white thinking, I think in, in some HR professionals, which is we’ve gotta abide by this policy. We have to abide by this policy. We have to abide by policy. The second expression I don’t like, even though I’ve used it myself, is we are where we are. Oh, which you hear an awful lot.

Lawrie: Or lessons must be learned.

Suzanne: Yeah. But they never are. They never are. Right.

Lawrie: Yeah.

Suzanne: I mean, you know, so I think understanding, just putting yourself in the shoes of the person you’re speaking to and imagine it being said to you. And how you would feel about it is so important and we are way, we are is a way of saying, well, there’s not a lot we can do about it.

That’s one way of interpreting that expression. But of course there are things that can be done about it. Of course there are.

Lawrie: And Penultimately then Suzanne after a great conversation, just a little peer into the future for leaders and leadership. In terms of growth and happiness of staff, which might sound to some staff as a bit of a long shot I think in this day and age.

Suzanne: it’s interesting because I have recently been involved in a few redundancy and tube transfer exercises and what’s come outta that in the last year is, is a real understanding of how important certain aspects of. Practices certain ways of working have become really important to staff.

So I was reading an interesting article in the FT that was a bit doom and gloom saying, you know, we may have to downgrade our expectations for economic growth in the uk, but if a company is A-A-A-C-E-O sees that fantastic growth may be problematic, or it may not be possible for, for whatever reason.

Then I always think, look at other ways in which you can keep your staff, your troops happy. And it isn’t always about money. It’s often about something else. It’s about giving them the, giving them, empowering them more. The ability to choose certain things that they want to do, and teleworking home working hybrid working, I think, has become so significant for people.

It, it becomes sometimes the number one ask when I’m acting for, for, for C-Suite and advising them on contracts. You’d be surprised how many C-suite people say to me, well, you know, can I work from home two days a week? Why can I, can we get that put into the contract? So I think that where growth may be problematic in, in the financial sense.

Or it may not be predictable or visible. Then look at other ways to encourage your workforce and keep them happy. And I think that that is really important.

Lawrie: Terrific. so try not to litigate,

Suzanne: she says as well. Come outta the job. No. Well, yeah.

Lawrie: Finally, Suzanne, then a couple of you things, a pet hate and a secret.

Passion. Oh gosh. Pet hate. I didn’t know you were gonna ask me this Laurie.

Lawrie: Oh,

Suzanne: oh God, my pet. What is a pet? What? How would you define it? What’s it meant to be? Because I could say dishonesty, but that seems a bit,

Lawrie: yeah. Well, I think it seems too serious that something that comes up time and time again and makes your hackles rise and gets you angry and want to trample that person.

Suzanne: Um, I have to use a professional example, Lawrie, I’m afraid. Arrogant clients, arrogant lawyers on the other side. And I don’t know whether it’s because I’m blonde, Laurie, but sometimes people talk to me as if they underestimate me sometimes. So it’s rare, but occasionally it does happen.

Demanding things overnight, demanding answers, demanding that you comply with a certain deadline, and then in a sort of patronising way, reminding me of the law. That is my absolute pet hate. And if you’re trying to resolve something, and this is often in the context of settlement discussions, don’t irritate your opponent.

What aggression, I suppose is my pet hate in the sense that people default sometimes to, some people default, sometimes to aggression unnecessarily. I mean, you know what am I, how am I gonna react to somebody imposing an aggressive deadline on me? I could be rude right now, but I won’t be. But you can imagine it, it doesn’t wash with me.

So know your audience. What was the other Passion?

Lawrie: Uh, your secret passion. You know, when all is said and done , the you things that you like to indulge in and the reason.

Suzanne: I love art, and, and what I mean by that is generally original art, and I don’t mean very expensive stuff. You get, you know, I don’t mean the kind of 30,000 pound canvases you buy from these shops in places like Coum and Chelsea.

I don’t mean that. I mean art by interesting artists often coming up through the ranks, often unknown. And part of my love for it. Is what you can see in it. Every time I look at a piece of art, that kind of art I buy, I see something different and that inspires me. But also it’s a secret passion because I’m hopeless at it.

Hopeless. I went on an old painting course recently at Ari it was stick figures. That was as best as I could do, and I might’ve been depressed when I came out of it, but then I thought, actually, Suzanne. Now you know why you like art? Because, because I’m terrible at it and therefore I appreciate the skill.

All the more for that.

Lawrie: Well we are at one in that respect because on one of my very early school reports for the subject that is art. Only one word was put with an exclamation mark and the word was prehistoric so that was me, Suzanne. The conversation. The conversation this morning has been marvellous in the sense that I think it gives leaders a really clear insight into the world of the KC. Which is quite often one that’s a little bit opaque. Yes. There are plenty of points that they now need to pick up and think about and avoid doing wrong if they’re to be that thing, which is a good employer. So thank you for your time this morning. It was a real pleasure. We wish you well in all of your cases in the future.

Many thanks.