What can employees do when they are affected by a CEO or senior executive with behaviour problems?

It’s a delicate issue, and short of quitting their jobs or enduring abuse, the Professional Renewal Center staff suggests:

* Send an anonymous letter (preferably en masse) to the board of directors.

* Speak to a trusted supervisor.

Dr. Peter Graham of the Professional Renewal Center

* Document (with another employee or employees) specific incidents and how you were affected. Then speak with an HR executive who can take the matter to the board of directors. The board then acts as the authority figure while HR acts as support for the troubled executive.

It’s a terrible thing to watch a senior executive melting down, with the potential physical and psychological damage to his or herself – not to mention the impact on defenceless employees.

Unfortunately, these CEOs and VPs often don’t realize the dangerous nature of their actions. Often, they only begin to grasp reality after suffering a breakdown; or after being forced into a treatment program by the board of directors, by a spouse, or because they faced legal action.

“When they get to us, they are in serious trouble,” says Dr. Scott Stacy of the Professional Renewal Center in Laurence, Kan. The facility specializes in treating top-level executives, including professionals from Edmonton, Red Deer and the Calgary area.

Stacy typically works with professionals who find themselves suffering from depression and anxiety, chemical dependency or some sort of behavioural problem.

In the latter case, executives may have displayed disruptive behaviour, sexual harassment and anger management problems, even boundary incursions (for example, having a sexual relationship with a subordinate by imposing their workplace authority).

It’s impossible to quantify how many senior executives have serious problems, but Stacy suggests the number is higher than we’d think.

Dr. Peter Graham, his colleague, agrees. The Kansas clinic offers intensive out-patient therapy to professionals (a large number are successful physicians) and is one of a handful in the U.S., part of what Graham calls a “growing industry.”

“They are often the last person to realize they have a problem because people won’t confront them, or the executive doesn’t have a personality that accepts constructive criticism in the first place.”

Graham lists numerous symptoms that indicate a person may be in trouble: mood swings, shouting, acting inappropriately, cruelty to people, sustained irritability, personalizing issues, becoming suspicious, substance abuse, avoidance, cancelling meetings, becoming ruthless, having physical problems (fatigue, headaches, chest pains), and coming in late to work and leaving early.

Or, adds Stacy, they hold to the myth that they are invincible. “Just load the work on. I can do it.”

While it’s necessary to have senior people who are confident and energetic, piling one stressor on after another eventually breaks any human being. Dependencies or behaviour problems developed by leaders are often a byproduct of excessive stress and/or personality problems, says Stacy.

As an example, he points to two patients who successfully went through treatment. The first individual was a thriving executive, a nice person with a great business mind, who began breaking down at age 50.

He couldn’t calm down, says Stacy. He became anxious, agitated and began flying around the U.S. buying up other companies.

“He was racing through life. Couldn’t calm down. Started drinking to try to calm himself. Then became dependent on an anti-anxiety medication.”

Eventually his wife and the company CEO confronted the man. At the treatment facility, staff found the root cause of his behaviour. He’d had a serious trauma as a child that he’d never addressed, explains Stacy. His mother had to be institutionalized for psychiatric problems and his father couldn’t handle that issue, so he fled, abandoning the kid.

“The patient had an undiagnosed post-traumatic stress problem and, symbolically, he was acting out this wish to create a family that wouldn’t leave him. He was building a company to a point that it would never go under, never go away, and he’d never be abandoned.”

In another example, Stacy helped a CEO of a Fortune 500 company who was a great entrepreneur, but a lousy administrator.

Staff hated the man. Shareholders and the board of directors suffered because of his antics. Through treatment, the executive discovered that he felt because he’d built the company, he was obligated to run it – something that, subconsciously, he didn’t want. He concluded that he must give up control of running the day-to-day operations, and is today a much happier, healthier person, says Stacy.

Graham, director of psychology services, acknowledges that there is a stigma attached to the professional who requires treatment. However, he senses the business world is becoming more sophisticated in its understanding of the issues.

He says the role of management consultants, professional coaches and education have helped senior managers cope with the tremendous volume of work – and scrutiny – that they face today.

When you consider the rapidity of change, the increased expectations of work productivity because of technology, and the intense scrutiny from shareholders and boards of directors, Graham says that senior executives have adapted pretty well.

When top executives find themselves in trouble, the key is to accurately assess the problem before determining a strategy, says Graham. In some cases, the right strategy is management consulting and coaching. In others, it’s a clinical situation.

“You can send an executive through a relatively sophisticated treatment program and they can come out the other end with a much better understanding of what got them in trouble in the first place,” he explains.

“They can be fully equipped to deal with, in a different way, the stresses they were exposed to before. The environment they are going back to hasn’t changed . . . but they have.”

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