Sleeping with HR and Failing Upward

The White Male CEO Playbook

The apparent affair caught on camera and subsequent resignation of the Astronomer CEO has drawn widespread attention, and I have been wondering why.

It’s not because it was shocking, but because it was so familiar.

Most of us have worked under someone like this: the entitled white man in power who thinks the rules don’t apply to him. The one who mistakes domination for leadership. Who punishes those who challenge him. Who surrounds himself with yes-people.

The real scandal isn’t just the behavior. It’s the impunity, the arrogance.

Sure he was told to “resign”, but he was also protected. Likely walked away with a generous exit package. And he probably has several offers from his well-connected white male buddies. That’s how corporate America works for men like him: when they fail, they land on their feet. Again and again.

After all, the guy raised close to $100 million from VCs just months earlier. (So much for due diligence on leadership, but that’s a whole other post.)

Meanwhile, the people he harmed along the way, particularly women, aren’t offered that same protection. Left to pick up the pieces of their careers and confidence shattered by unchecked power. What of the “other woman”? While I don’t feel sorry for her, she won’t get the same privileged treatment.

Some are saying, what’s the harm here? The harm is on everyone else at that company.

No one could ever report him, for any wrongdoing. He controlled the system designed to keep people safe. He held the power. To make matters far worse, he was literally sleeping with the head of HR.

I see this pattern all the time, and no need for affairs to abuse power. CEOs like to stay “above it all”. HR serves the company, and when the company is run by an abusive leader, HR becomes another layer of protection for power.

What’s left for the employees? No safe path. No real accountability. Only exit.

We talk a lot about leadership in corporate culture, but far too little about what happens when the person at the top is the threat.

Until we change the structures that protect these men, nothing will change. The next entitled CEO will follow the same playbook. And once again, the employees will pay the price.

If this story feels familiar, you're not imagining it, and you're not alone. What you experienced was real. And it wasn’t your fault.

It's time we stop protecting abusers just because they sit at the top of the org chart.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

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