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Sacking Top Gear’s Leader – Brave But Essential

by Andrew Leigh, Featured Contributor

NO LEADER is indispensable.

The moment you think you are—you’re not. Jeremy Clarkson led Top Gear in every respect, apart from the technicality that the BBC owned the franchise.

Until fairly recently, he seems to have assumed he was more or less indispensable to Top Gear as a business franchise. After all, his particular brand of humour and hutzpah had turned the programme into a global entertainment phenomenon.

principles-integritySomeone as irrepressible as Clarkson won’t be off air for long. Some other ambitious, ethically-challenged TV head of entertainment is probably right now making an attractive offer, hoping to snare one of the most successful TV brands.

The return won’t be called Top Gear,. But you can easily imagine Clarkson storming back with “Drive”, “Fast and Furious” or some equally appropriate branding. Yet taking him on could prove to be a poisoned chalice.

The precipitous fall of Bill Cosby in the US, who also headed a major TV series, is a salutatory lesson for anyone who ignores the implications of unethical behaviour at work, or even outside it.

The tide of public opinion abruptly turned against Cosby as past accusations gained fresh traction. Appearances were cancelled and Netflix pulled a Cosby performance special from its Black Friday schedule. Another TV channel yanked all its episodes of The Cosby Show including the ones designated for a Thanksgiving marathon.

The ultimate rejection was NBC’s  jettisoning of the man who had miraculously revived the moribund network in the ’80s with his massively influential sitcom. NBC dumping Cosby was like Microsoft informing Bill Gates “you’re not welcome at our next shareholders’ meeting.”

No one is suggesting Clarkson sexually abused anyone. But the BBC has sensibly considered its own history of failing to take action over Saville and others. It has realised just how vulnerable it has become as a major employer if it fails to act decisively over unethical employee behaviour and particularly a high profile leader’s behaviour.

A petition with a million signatures supporting Clarkson landed on the BBC’s doorstep. Provocatively–some would say entirely appropriately–it came delivered from a full size army tank.

Even the Prime Minister weighed in backing the show’s leader “He’s a constituent of mine, he is a friend of mine, he is a huge talent”

That kind of pressure must have made it hard for the BBC to do the right thing. Sensibly, the PM rapidly reversed gear and has rightly distanced himself from Clarkson.

The BBC should be praised for its bravery in taking on someone who apparently bullied and made even the producer of his programme fear for his job. If that is leadership let’s not have it.


Andrew Leigh
Andrew Leighhttp://www.ethical-leadership.co.uk
ANDREW is author of Ethical Leadership, (Kogan Page 2013) and writes regularly at www.ethical-leadership.co.uk. He believes business needs to re-discover the importance of ethics and integrity. As an expert on leadership Andrew writes regularly on ways to help managers be more effective as ethical leaders. His blog stays close to the zeitgeist with a unique perspective on many aspects of leading organisations ethically, including compliance, and engagement. Andrew is a joint founder in 1989 of Maynard Leigh Associates (www.maynardleigh.co.uk) pioneers of using ideas from theatre in business. He was a hands-on practising manager for many years in the public sector, ending his time on the front line running a division with over 1000 staff. Andrew also spent several years as a business and financial journalist, including time at The Observer newspaper. He has written over 20 books on management, leadership teams and so on. Originally trained as an economist, he is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. He is available for speaking engagements, interviews, feature articles and consultancy.

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