CEO Loyalty Test

Leaders come and leaders go, but it is the way that they come and go that can be truly telling about an organization, the leader and the board.

I read with sadness about the removal of Cornell William Brooks as president of the NAACP.  It isn’t because I have strong feelings about Mr. Brooks, as I don’t as I don’t know much about his three year tenure in that role.  What has engendered the sadness is what seems to be the “read between the lines” message of the board in making this decision:  he wasn’t appealing to millennials—or at least not quickly enough.  Black Lives Matter, the board believed, was pulling millennials away from what the board assumed would otherwise have been support of the NAACP.  So, the board is calling for a “refresh” of its strategy, beginning with a new paid leader.  In the meantime, the board president and vice-president are taking over running the NAACP.

As so many of us did as parents of millennials, we as a society seem to be doing everything we can to make them happy, to empower them and let them control.  In so doing, and our rush to cater—or should I say kowtow—to millennials, are we throwing the baby out with the bathwater—or, in this case, the more experienced, perhaps sager, maybe even grayer, out with the bathwater?  There is a difference between making organizations “millennial-friendly” and turning over the controls?

Locally, Carolina DiGiorgio, the CEO of Congreso de Latinos Unidos, an organization with a mission to strengthen Latino communities through a variety of means, is in the hot seat.  Thus far, it is Congreso staff and leaders from sister organizations and the Latino communities in the region who have put her there—not Congreso’s board.  Apparently, when she was hired at the beginning of this year, everyone knew she was an immigrant from Honduras and a registered Republican, married to the chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party.   What people apparently didn’t know was that she would go to a Trump rally, stand behind him and to the right at his recent speech in Harrisburg, applaud and smile, as he hit his favorite talking points:  building the wall, bashing Democrats and the media, the dangers of immigrants, and more.  In response to the criticism, she has said that a person’s politics are personal, and should not be a factor in one’s ability to do their job.  And that is absolutely correct.  Democrat, Republican, Independent, Libertarian, non-voter, whatever, should not be a factor in considering someone’s fitness for most jobs.  But one’s actions are a very different thing.

Cornell William Brooks got himself arrested earlier this year at an NAACP sponsored sit-in at Senator Sessions’ office, protesting his nomination as Attorney General.  This was a classic act of the NAACP, an act true to its history and its values.  This was an action in total sync with the mission of the organization, and not a factor in his removal.

Carolina DiGiorgio, on the other hand, goes to a rally for a man whose policies have left many in the Latino communities here and around the country quaking and fearful; whose policies have children crying and afraid to go to school for fear their parents won’t be there at the end of the day; whose policies have caused many not to get medical help too anxious that they will be rounded up and deported.  This is the leader of an organization with the express mission of strengthening Latino communities through “social, economic, education and health services…and advocacy.”  Should that be grounds for removal?

There is a larger issue here.  There is no question but that it is the board of directors’ job to determine when it is time for the executive director/CEO to be removed, just as it is the board’s job to hire that leader in the first place.  But on what evidence?  Under whose influence?  In consideration of what sacred cows, if any?  Surely, one sacred cow for each and every organization must be 100% loyalty, demonstrated in words and in actions, to the mission.  That is absolutely necessary.  Is it sufficient?