Pros
To the CEO, Morgan: Though you are woefully unenlightened, thankfully it serves as a good reminder to even minimally self-aware people of how not to behave. Eventually, conscious employees wake up, take back their power and choose to leave like a battered spouse who took one too many punches. Or, they get let go, which is devastating and humiliating but ultimately a good thing for them as it was the push they needed to make a better life for themselves and to rebuild their self-esteem that eroded away after months or years spent ignoring their soul’s cries. Those who you selectively place around you in management, who you choose because you sense a weakness in them—a perceived inability to grow teeth combined with a deep-rooted mentality of self-servitude—eventually they will wake up to your patterns of manipulating paycheque-dependant staff into lying to customers to perpetuate your product’s overinflated claims. Eventually, they will awaken to the fact that your business practices are unsustainable and their consciences will physically stop them from working for you. They will move to disassociate themselves from you as quickly as possible once it becomes apparent that this whole thing is on fire. Eventually, the stronger ones, who cannot bare to see another fellow human being be bullied and harassed, will leave out of principle, something you know nothing of. Eventually, even your fixers will turn on you, Morgan. Eventually, even those who’ve clung by your side in hope of some unagreed upon future payoff will become your enemy.
Cons
This is the oldest story in the book—a timeless tale of the oppressed uprising and the oppressor falling. It’s what happens when systems run without a clear ethical and moral guideline, without a well-defined set of values held tightly by the leader who practices extreme ownership over everything they do, rather than the denial, blaming and scapegoating that are your go-to ways of dealing with threats to your ego. You and your brand are disintegrating and the stragglers who held on with heads buried in sand, they will have suffered the most when they’re finally illumined to the state of disrepair the company is in, knowing deep down that their having stayed this long is a reflection of their own lack of moral integrity. They will have given years of their life to an unworthy cause, and many will choose denial because it’s easier than admitting you stood on the wrong side of history. And that to me is the most heartbreaking part of all of it. But it’s the law of the Universe—eventually, you will either wake up or you will continue to lead yourself down a path of self-inflicted suffering. You will have a lot to reckon with when that happens, so for your sake, I hope your version of rock bottom comes for you sooner rather than later.
