Philandering CEOs Are Finally Getting Fired. Good.
Research finds that those who cheat at home are also more likely to cheat at work.
CEOs don’t always get fired for having romantic relationships at work. But Norfolk Southern’s Alan Shaw did.
Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
Having a romantic relationship with an employee didn’t used to be a fireable offense for CEOs. They would get canned for misappropriating funds to fuel the affair, or for not fully disclosing the details to the board when they eventually got caught. But it was rarely the relationship itself that got them fired — if they even got fired at all.
It was part of the trade-off corporate boards seemed willing to make. If you wanted a charismatic and creative CEO, then the thinking went that you needed to accept the boundary-pushing, big ego, aversion to rules — and occasional indiscretion — that could come along with it.