- Relationships with subordinates is a violation of policy, demonstrating a lack of judgement and a willingness to break the rules
- Relationships with subordinates create legal liability for the company by enabling claims of sexual harassment, hostile workplace, coercion/abuse of authority
but I’m the CEO!
- every trivial action, or lack of it, is not garanteed to break some of the mountains of existing including set of rules one is supposed to obey when it's physically impossible to even assimilate them all
- people that do respect the rules can have decent level of certitude they will have a fine life without major troubles that could be avoided by breaking some rules
- the culture promote to respect rules as a viable flexible path, as opposed to actively promote one that states "it's easier to get pardon than to be granted authorization".
Everyone is welcome to assess their own society from what they experienced in life.
A leader who can be blackmailed or is untrustworthy is compromised in their role. Profit, nonprofit, government: it does not matter.
That is perhaps why affairs and lack of candor are both (usually) bars to obtaining a clearance.
- Conflicts of interest compromise trust and judgement
- Relationships with direct reports create a conflict of interest
- Relationships with major direct customers create a conflict of interest
- Policies should be set such relationships are either disallowed or require strict oversight / disclosure
- Companies should enforce their stated policies equally as required by employment law
- Affairs demonstrate a lack of judgement, a lack of candor, and are problematic for positions of trust
- An executive that lies about an affair creates a risk of blackmail and a liability for the company