The HR Integrity Trap: Coldplay Cringe

On what it often takes to be at the top of the HR food chain

A bonus post tonight inspired by my salacious Instagram feed and digitally scribbled on my phone.

I scroll through quippy captions about the Coldplay concert catastrophe—large tech CEO and CPO caught on a kiss cam—and I can’t help but feel a little bit sick and not even the slightest bit surprised.

Having exited the corporate HR space not even two months ago, I definitely have a bad taste in my mouth.

I stare at these images, and I think, of course.

I won’t go into detail, at least not anytime soon. I am determined for this to remain a professional, growth-oriented space.

But I have found myself more than once in senior level HR roles where the greatest source of unethical actions came from a reigning corporate ethical being.

There is no HR for HR. I’ve held that role myself—so I know it’s a trap.

In reality, senior leaders with integrity worry for their livelihoods, knowing the power their Chief People Officer holds regarding every single person’s fate.

Listen—I have had CPOs who are kind, genuine, caring people. I don’t typically see them at Kristin Cabot’s level, or at the size and scale of a company like Astronomer. In my experience, these authentic and integrity-driven leaders thrive at smaller, values-based organizations.

Where they don’t have to feel like shitty people to keep their jobs.

Don’t agree with the level of transparency the CPO allows with employees?

You’re out after a restructure. Your job is posted a week later.

Keep the secret that your CPO is having an affair with your CEO?

Get promoted.

If anyone was wondering why I’d leave a seemingly cushy job in corporate HR, it’s because I personally experienced behavior like this too often to feel I had any integrity left.

Also, they laid me off.

Which allowed me to trust in myself and my instincts, and go for all this.

I told a boss who I once loved that if I ever felt I had to act without my integrity, that’s when I’d have to leave.

She told me she supported me and felt the same way.

Not a year later, I suspected she lied about me to cover up her own failure to get a project off the ground. I’ll never know for sure—she “restructured” my role.

I’m unsure what her relationship with her integrity is like today, and I’m glad that I don’t ever need to find out.

So here I am, writing my words, building my business, trying to connect with those who don’t just wear integrity like a veneer.

I want to work with executives who care about their people, their values, and their authenticity. Who don’t cover up affairs or use employees as human shields to keep their high paying jobs.

At this same company, while the person who was “HR for HR” turned out to be a nightmare in clown make-up implying compassion, there were several other amazing leaders who inspired me.

Leaders who were quirky and caring and held their teams (always high performing) accountable.

Leaders who I wanted to impress for the pure goal of impressing someone so fabulously impressive.

If you are that type of leader, or aspire to be that type of leader—if you knit a thread of humanism through all you do…

I’d like to know you.

I’d like to work with you to shift the energy at the top.

If we want it, we need to build it.

And I am trying.

Let’s talk!