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A CEOs canoodling with his companys human resources chiefcaught on the kiss cam at a Coldplay concertmade global headlines this summer. Beyond the memes and tabloid fodder, personal lives were shattered and a company was left in turmoil after its leaders sudden exit. The case, involving the AI firm Astronomer, may be the most visible of recent CEO personal scandalsthink sex affairs, drug abuse, or embarrassing behaviorbut its not an isolated incident. Just weeks following the Coldplay kiss cam incident, the CEO of Nestlé was shown the door for similar behavior involving a relationship with a subordinate. Personal scandals have been the top cause of CEO terminations in recent years. How do these scandals stack up to other corporate indiscretions, such as financial fraud? As a management professor, I knew that theres lots of research on CEOs financial crimes, but surprisingly little on personal misdeeds. So my colleagues and I examined nearly 400 CEO scandals involving either financial or personal misconduct. In this research, published in August 2025 in the journal Strategic Organization, we found that not all CEO scandals are treated equally: The type makes all the difference. Personal scandals are harder to survive For most people, personal indiscretionssuch as having an extramarital affair or abusing drugsare a private matter. But for CEOs, even scandals unrelated to business create doubt about their judgment, integrity, and leadership. The result is usually career-ending for the CEO, research shows, and can create lasting harm for the company. We found that CEOs overwhelmingly exit in the wake of personal scandalsfive times as often as CEOs who commit financial misconduct do, in fact. And strong business performance doesnt tend to offer protection. For example, Hewlett-Packards Mark Hurd, whos widely credited with turning around HP in the mid-2000s, was ousted following a very visible personal misconduct scandal 15 years ago. The fallout was swift: The companys stock fell nearly 10% immediately after the announcement, and with leadership in a tailspin, it dropped more than 40% within a year. Why bad numbers come with better odds Companies are also routinely accused of cooking the books. In recent months, several firms have been forced to restate their earnings after their financial statements did not add up. These scandals shake investor trust, trigger sharp drops in company stock, and often lead to the chief financial officers departurewith some CEOs following suit. However, while cooking the books is considered a severe form of corporate misconduct, our research suggests that it has fewer job-ending repercussions for CEOs than personal scandals do. Roughly half of all CEOs implicated in financial scandals survive, we foundbecause, unlike in personal scandals, CEOs can often shift blame. We also found that CEOs dismissed due to financial scandals tend to be replaced with outside candidates, which has been shown to stabilize a companys stock price and lead to stronger long-term performance. It might be surprising to learn that a CEOs personal misconduct can come at a greater costboth to the business and the executivethan outright financial fraud. Is corporate America overestimating the importance of CEOs private behavior? Or is it underestimating the importance of cooking the books? While I dont have answers to these questions, I think our findings show the need for more discussionand more research. Michael Nalick is an assistant professor of management at the University of Denver. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
Whenever theres economic uncertainty, its easy to worry that your position is at risk. But what if the worst has happened: Your company has done a big layoffand you and your team werent on the list? Of course, you and your direct reports may both fear that more cuts are on the horizon. And yet, theres work to be done. How do you support your team, keep them productive and also find the opportunities in the middle of such a big disruption, especially when you may face the need to do more with less? We work with executive clientsAlisa Cohn as an executive coach and Dorie Clark as a keynote speaker and consultantand have seen this increasingly as layoffs stay stubbornly in the news. Here are five valuable things you can do in the near-term to maintain your focus in the wake of a major shakeup. 1. Identify why you got saved Its helpful to discern why you werent included in the layoff. Analyze the situation dispassionately. What are the patterns you see in who was let go? Perhaps certain divisions were hit hard, indicating that their strategic importance has waned at your company. And its equally useful to identify what you bring to the table. Perhaps you work in an area the company has identified as valuable (a certain functional role, geography, or growth initiative). For example, one of Alisas clients on the risk team was retained when others were let go because she had deep industry expertise in the most strategic area for the company. Understanding your competitive advantage can help you leverage it further. This may be an area youll want to highlight by talking about your skills and experience more widely. For instance, as Dorie has pointed out, one of the most overlooked networking opportunities is how you choose to answer the question What have you been up to lately? because you can choose to talk about areas that matter to your company. If you know your company is prioritizing building its customer base in financial services, for example, you could talk about a recent conference you attended or article youve read about that industry. That will position you as someone focused on the most important things. 2. Reset expectations with your team In an environment where there have been big layoffs, teams are certainly being scrutinized. Your team is likely upset and may feel bitterness about what happened. You might be inclined to soothe them (this wont happen to us) or commiserate (I cant believe those idiots did that.) But the kindest thing you can do for them is to help them deliver. Its a good moment to look at how you work together. In many companies, leaders often get in the habit of playing down a level and doing some of the work of their team. But after a layoff when you have more on your plate, you need everyone working at full capacity, and that means not doing their work for them. Push decision-making down wherever you can. Give high level guidance more clearly and more regularly so everyone is aligned on the most important things and can make smart decisions in the moment. Alisa experienced this with one of her clients, a vice president of product in a large tech company. The deadline for a big project was only three months away when two of her key peers and a good portion of their teams got laid off, leaving her with massive pressure to finish the project but a lot less support and resources. She directed her teams to own their domains like general managers and asked them to run with decisions that were reversible. They created a process to huddle and quickly resolve conflicts as a team. The project shipped on time and the team got a lot more capable during this periodin fact, many of them said theyd grown more in those three months than in the past three years. 3. Rethink your calendar If youre like most managers, your day is filled up with meetings. Use this moment as an opportunity to look at all the group meetings and one-to-ones youre doing and evaluate what can be cut (indeed, if youre now being asked to manage more people, you may not physically have the capacity to take on any more meetings). Alisa created the the 4R Framework to assess how useful meetings are. They might be warranted if youre using them to: Review progress Resolve conflicts and problems Refine strategy or decisions Reinforce alignment and understanding But if your meetings arent meeting any of these objectives, theyre probably good candidates to omit. Once you have more room in your day, think carefully about high value activities you could do instead. These include getting more involved with high visibility strategic projects or spending more time with customers. 4. Stand out and find the opportunities Now that there are fewer managers or colleagues, the good news is that youll probably have more opportunities to shine. Youll have more exposure to senior leaders and may be asked to join meetings with clients or other key stakeholders. Prepare for this by sharpening your presentation skills. It might be a good moment to get formal training, join a group like Toastmasters, or just practice more in small, low stakes environments. You should also consciously build your executive presence and bone up on your strategic thinking. See if there are key projects you can become part of, or volunteer to take over. 5. Dont neglect your network The world of work is never certain and having a strong internaland externalnetwork helps you build more career security. Even though you may be busy dealing with the extra obligations this round of layoffs created, make sure you continue to nourish your network and build it more robustly so youre prepared if the hammer comes for you. Examples could include hosting virtual one-to-ones or small group coffees with colleagues you havent seen in a while or making a point to attend conferences or industry meetings. One professional Dorie profiled in her book Reinventing Youwho realized with concern that his network mostly consisted of other people employed by his longtime companydecided to start weekly breakfast meetings with people outside the company, leading both to a fresher network and ideas about new technologies and acquisitions his organization cold make. One client Alisa worked with resolved to get back in touch with people shed lost contact with, leading her to a board director position, as well as a new career opportunity. Layoffs are challenging for everyone, and its both emotionally and logistically difficult to lose a number of your coworkers. But by accepting reality and focusing on the things you can control, youll be able to move forward and keep your team focused, even in uncertain times.
Category:
E-Commerce
Your company rolls out an AI agent to assign tasks, draft updates, and nudge overdue approvals. But within days, its flagging completed work, tagging the wrong people, and creating confusion instead of clarity. Its a familiar outcome for companies that adopt agentic AI without the workflows, data, or systems to support it. New research from Wrike reinforces that disconnect: 74% of employees say their company treats data like gold, yet most dont manage it well enough for AI to use it effectively. Even the smartest, most context-aware tools stall without strong foundations. And automation doesnt fix broken operationsit magnifies them. To get agentic AI right, organizations need a phased approach that tightens processes, clarifies whats worth automating, and ensures AI is set up to actually move work forward. What happens when AI meets a broken system The rush to adopt agentic AI has outpaced the work needed to make it effective. Many leaders assume their systems are readyuntil AI is asked to act. Thats when the cracks show. AI cant make informed decisions when workflows are improvised, institutional knowledge is undocumented, and escalation paths live in someones head. Approvals that happen ad hoc in Slack and inconsistent team processes leave no single source of truth for AI to follow. And when data is scattered across siloed platformsthe leading cause of lost institutional knowledge in the past yeareven the most dynamic, context-aware models struggle to generate accurate insights or identify risks. AI is like a microphone: It doesnt improve your voice, it just makes it louder. Without structured workflows that define ownership, execution order, and visibility, AI only amplifies dysfunction at scale. The building blocks of an AI-ready workflow To deliver value, AI needs to understand whats happening, whos doing it, and where work lives. That requires workflows built with: ClarityAre project roles and steps clearly defined so AI can quickly grasp objectives? AccountabilityIs ownership consistent and visible so AI can route tasks and escalate issues to the right people? VisibilityCan teams easily track progress and identify blockers before they derail timelines? ConnectivityAre systems integrated so AI can access information across tools, not just in silos? ConsistencyAre workflows standardized enough for AI to detect patterns and recommend improvements? These elements give AI the context it needs to add value. But even well-designed workflows fall apart without reliable data. AI needs clean, organized inputs, which means enforcing naming standards, having good quality descriptions in place, surfacing the right files, and creating a single source of truth. Getting these fundamentals right reveals where work breaks down, making it easier to reflect and improve. Its a chance to ask not just how to automate, but why. Whats slowing you down? Wheres the friction? Whats repetitive, frustrating, or pulling focus from higher-impact work? Thats where AI makes a real difference. 3 steps to get agentic AI right While perfect workflows arent a prerequisite for agentic AI, the adoption process will quickly surface whats broken. A phased approach lets you experiment, close gaps, and build trust in AI tools as you go. Phase 1: Build AI fluency Before deploying AI into production, give teams visibility into how the system reasons, what actions it will take, and which data it draws from. This transparency builds trust by making AI behavior understandable. It also gives teams a chance to assess whether data and workflows are structured and dependable enough for automation. Phase 2: Test the waters with AI assistants Once teams trust how AI behaves and understand how it makes decisions, begin applying AI to realbut low-stakestasks. Assign AI assistants to repeatable work like drafting project updates or answering internal FAQs. This is where theory meets execution. Youll quickly see which processes are truly repeatable, where AI struggles, and which workflows still need clarity. Think of it as a pressure test: By using AI in everyday operations, you can spot and fix problems before scaling further. Phase 3: Shift to agentic AI strategically With predictable workflows and a team ready to collaborate with AI, you can begin exploring more autonomous tools. Agentic AI offers compounded value, but it also raises the stakes. When AI begins taking action, it needs clean data, stable systems, and clear oversight. But even the best AI agents need humans in the loop to course correct, add real-world context, and keep AI aligned with actual business goals. The goal isnt hands-off automation, but smarter collaboration between people and AI. This phased approach to agentic AI adoption reinforces your foundation at every step, giving you the structure and insights to improve as you go. Thats the difference between using AI and being ready for it. AI-ready teams dont rush adoption. They ask sharper questions about what tools should do, what work matters most, where human judgment is critical, and what should never be automated in the first place. What AI needs from you Agentic AI can streamline work and free up your teams to focus on what matters most, but only if your operations are organized, your data is clean, and your systems are connected. Without that foundation, automation doesnt solve problems. It just scales them. So while the future of work may be automated, success still depends on how well you define, connect, and manage the work itself.
Category:
E-Commerce
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