Episode 38: HR on the Big Screen: Leadership, Power & the Coldplay Kiss
Reimagining HR with Trina Sunday tackles power culture and workplace fallout
Trina Sunday: Today’s episode touches on relationships, public shaming and workplace fallout. If you’re close to this story or just over it, hit pause and look after yourself. For the rest of us, we’re using one very public moment to talk power culture and what HR does next. Welcome to Reimagining HR with Trina Sunday, the rule breaking podcast where we challenge our thinking and our current people practises. This podcast is for time poor HR teams and business leaders who are feeling the burn, lacking laughs and not feeling the love. I’m Trina, your host and I’m here to cut through the bs, explore different ways of thinking and create high impact HR functions because happier, healthier organisations are better for our people and our bottom line. So if you are keen to flip traditional HR on its head, hit the Follow or subscribe button so you’re the first to know when new episodes drop. I’m here to help and also to shake things up.
Coldplay kiss cam controversy sparks a formal investigation within days
So let’s get started. I’ve never been to Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, but I can picture the big stage, the vibe Cole plays on the kiss cam lands on a couple, he ducks, she turns away, Chris Martin cracks. Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy and the Internet does its thing. Within days, Astronomer, a data infrastructure startup that nobody had ever heard of, confirms a formal investigation. The CEO, Andy Byron resigns shortly after, the company’s CPO Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot resigns too. The board appoints co founder Pete DeJoy as interim CEO and Gwyneth Paltrow pops up in a cheeky temporary spokesperson video and the meme machines go bonkers. Like full scale Dizzy Rascal can. See if listeners can accurately age me from that reference. Look, I didn’t want to post about this at first. I have not posted anything about this Coldplay kiss cam malarkey anywhere on socials because there are people, families who are hurting, kids on both sides who have lost everything they knew to be true. And to be honest, it is really shitty. So I’ve been torn about even doing this episode. Like, am m I part of the problem? Like, I don’t think so. And here’s why every time HR is the headline, our, profession cops a brand hit. And if we don’t unpack the hard bits power process care, we leave the loudest voices to the least informed people. And for me, it always comes down to the intent to help or to harm. And my reason for jumping on here to talk about this is is to help. Given the number of people that have Specifically asked me for my views. I’ve had a lot of DMs asking me lots of different stuff. Some gossipy, let’s just park that. Some just trying to get a byline, park that as well. But there were some really genuine questions and different things that people kind of threw at me. And there’s some themes I thought, well, let’s jump on and discuss a few different aspects.
Companies often put executives on administrative leave when allegations or conflicts arise
And here’s the world according to Trina, right? A few people were talking to me about, like, why didn’t Astronomer just sack them? You know, why were they placed on leave first instead of moving straight to terminations? But in a, U.S. employment context, in even any context, but in the U.S. in particular, from what I understand, even at will States, employers often put executives on administrative leave when serious allegations or conflicts arise. It’s the same in Australia, but we would often call it gardening leave. And it’s the safest way to preserve procedural fairness. Even the CEO and a CPO chro, all the chiefy staff, they get the right to respond before decisions are made. That is natural justice. It’s procedural fairness and it’s built into a lot of our legislative frameworks, no matter where you are in the world. But it’s also about containing influence. Like you want to remove people from daily operations to prevent interference with evidence, witnesses, ongoing work. But more importantly, in a situation like this CEO, cpo, it’s about protecting brand optics, right? By being able to say, on leave, pending investigation, the board can signal that the company’s taking it, seriously without prejudging the outcome. But for Cabot specifically, sacking her immediately would have been risky. Right? Although I’ve been seeing some heads of HR being terminated very unceremoniously lately. And there’s a bit of BS in that, to be honest. I have not seen people treated so poorly in a really long time. But going back to Cabot, like she may have had a contract with severance triggers and for cause clauses that, require specific findings. And if you fire her without meeting those thresholds, then you risk breach of contract claims, right? And then you’ve got anti discrimination laws and what has now become a public figure status, which means she could argue unfair treatment if she’s been handled differently to any other senior staff. And in US corporate governance, especially for execs, there’s a norm of following due process. We have it here in Australia as well, to avoid wrongful termination suits. Even if the optics aren’t great in the court of public opinion. Right, the pub test. This is textbook Process over passion, right? If it wasn’t HR involved in this, it would be the CPO who has to balance the emotional charge of the moment of what’s going on with the legal and the financial risks of a premature firing. It’s why leave pending investigation, quote, end quote, is such a common first step. It protects the company, the board and, ironically, the dignity of the very people at the centre of the storm. And here’s the kicker. like, while the Internet loves instant justice, HR’s job is to keep us out of the courtroom later. And in the us, skipping due process, like here in Australia, it might win you some applause on socials, but it could cost you millions in legal fees and settlement checks down the track. Especially in the us, which is more litigious and doesn’t have penalty caps like we do in Australia.
A romantic relationship between a CEO and HR is like the Mount Everest of conflicts
Other messages I’ve been having around power Dynamics, you know, comments like, oh, my gosh, this is Power Dynamics 101. And, you know, people asking opinions about that. And, I gotta say, a romantic relationship between a CEO and the head of HR is like the Mount Everest of conflicts. The CEO holds ultimate power, right, over an enterprise, a company, organisation, and the HR chief is meant to be the neutral guardian of policy. Investigations, promotions, pay terminations, all that good stuff, even for the CEO. You can’t run a fair grievance process if the ref is in a relationship with the captain, right? And progressive companies often use a simple rule. If a, conflict emerges, the more senior person steps away because they hold the power and, to be honest, they should know better. And it removes even the perception of coercion and special treatment. It’s intentionally meant to place the burden of adjustment to accommodate that relationship on the more powerful participant. It’s a way to address, like, the inherent power imbalance, basically, in many work relationships. And it’s a small way that you can, in fact, operationalise a commitment to equity. The more powerful, more senior person is the one who is responsible for finding a different job. And in the CEO’s case, that, power, it’s not just about hierarchy or in other senior management roles as well. It’s about budget control, it’s about performance ratings, informal influence. So when power and intimacy mix, everyone wonders, you know, like, who’s getting opportunities, whose complaint will stick and what happens to the people who knew but couldn’t speak. And this is why relationship policies can’t just be vague. And I’ve seen so many of these, you know, you must declare or not have, you know, intimate relationships, especially if it’s Direct reports, but it can’t just be vague and say, declare conflicts like it’s not enough. You need concrete scenarios and without them, enforcement’s really inconsistent and it’s open to bias anyway.
Would the media coverage be different if the CEO was a woman
But the media has had a massive role in this and this is where my DMs have just lit up, right? And um, it’s left me thinking and reflecting on a few things. And one is like, would the media coverage be different if the CEO was a woman? I’ve been sitting with this for a bit. Like, if we flip the genders, a woman CEO, a male HR lead, same stadium moment, would the coverage be identical? And research tells me probably not. You know, women CEOs tend to face harsher backlash really, for perceived ethical failings, especially even if the facts are the same. And the media historically gives more airtime to women leaders personal lives. So it’s worth asking, like, if the genders were reversed, would we have had the same memes, the same jokes, the same tone? Like, bias is tricky, right? It lives in how our stories are framed and what’s often left unsaid. Um, but the gender lens on media and the social reactions have just been interesting to watch, to be honest. And if you look at how these two leaders have been treated so far on social media, much of the humour and the ridicule has landed on Kristin Cabot, like the cpo. And what I find interesting is in lots of the media coverage, she’s just been labelled the HR lady. She’s a lady from hr. She’s the HR chick. She’s been labelled the HR lady in countless posts and media articles that I’ve seen. Rarely is she called senior executive or Chief Officer, or Andy Byron’s often still referred to by his title. Their CEO, like titles carry weight and stripping one person’s while preserving the others subtly changes the perceived power dynamic. And in traditional news coverage, Andy Byron’s resignation’s typically been framed around a, leadership change, company stability, you know, the next steps for Astronomer. But Kristin Cabot’s resignation, like, by contrast, has been more often framed around the affair itself, like with more of a focus on personal life details. It’s just been really bizarre when you tune into it. And so I’m curious if you watch it when you see this stuff pop up now. But it’s a pattern that we’ve seen before, like male leaders can depart and it’s often narrated through the lens of quote unquote, like the impact on the business. While women leaders exits are more personalised, they’re moralised, sensationalised, all the I’s. But there’s also nuances here around the role type. Like, HR leaders, especially women, are often expected to model the most unimpeachable behaviour because they’re positioned as the moral compass, basically, of an organisation. And I found this for years when I’ve been in the most senior HR roles in organisations, in house. And while it hasn’t happened to me, I’ve had colleagues and seen, you know, like, when they stumble, like the response carries this extra sting. Right? Betrayal. Perception. The judgement. Oh, my God, the judgement. There is no grace to be an imperfect person when you’re a chro. And I get it, I get it, because you are a guardian for a lot of behavioural matters, that if you don’t hold yourself in the regard that you’re telling everyone else to hold themselves in, then you lose all credibility. Right, I get it. But this doesn’t excuse the choices made. It just shows the uneven, playing field in how the story is told and how it’s remembered. So if you are in hr, it’s worth noticing whose conduct becomes a lapse in judgement versus a scandal. And I’d encourage you to tune into how gender plays apart into that language. So would this sting less if it were IT or Finance? Like, if she’d been the head of IT or Finance? The reaction, I think, would have been softer because HR is the trust engine. Like, we are responsible for investigations, promotions, pay equity for our, channels that allow people to speak up. So when HR is in the scandal, staff question past decisions. Was that fair? And they’ll question the future ones. You know, can I report anything safely? So the reputational blast radius is bigger and trust isn’t just dented, like, it’s potentially hollowed out. And this is part of why I’ve stepped into this conversation, because for that HR team left behind at Astronomer and for the rest of us who are having to field these conversations about HR and respond to some of this rubbish in terms of defending kind of our function, it’s hard. There’s collateral damage. And it’s so fascinating that something that happens at a Coldplay concert on the other side of the world is taking up so much airtime here in Australia in apac. It’s coming up in my conversations with clients and my networks in Asia. It’s come up in conversations with my networks that I’m working with in the uk. It’s dominating. So what gaps have emerged for Astronomer now? Scandals like this are never just about the thing that happened right they’re about all the little gaps and when you add them together, it makes the thing possible in the first place.
I’ve been thinking about the succession planning gaps at Astronomer
So I’ve been thinking about, like, the succession planning gaps, given what I’ve seen. You know, was there a ready now external option for either the CEO or the CPO roles or was the plan basically, well, if the boss gets hit by a bus, we’ll sort it out over a few years. You know, we’ve put in the co founder as the interim CEO, an interim CPO yet to be announced, as far as I’m aware at the time of recording this. And so what gaps do we have in our succession planning? And what about crisis comms alignment? That Gwyneth Paltrow video was genius marketing. The marketing PR person in me in my early career was like, that was good work. Although at the same time, it starts put Coldplay in the centre of a story that they were never in, they were just the location. Right? But by putting Chris Martin’s ex into the equation, Astronomer have pulled Coldplay into the story. But it’s deflected. Right? Perfect shield. But if the internal comms didn’t have the same level of honesty and empathy and clarity, not that I’d say the Gwyneth Paltrow stuff did, that was more tongue in cheek. But you can’t just put a shiny bow on a box of snakes, right? Can’t say I’ve ever said that before. But like, you can’t just wrap it up in a bow and think that everything’s okay if your external comms do not align with what’s going on internally. And so I’m curious about that. I’m curious about what those internal comms look like and what it feels like to be working at Astronomer right now. But I’m also thinking about the psychological safety for leaders in that organisation. Like, was it actually safer in the culture for the CEO and the CPO to hide that relationship than to declare it? And I’ve been asked that question and some people, you know, I would say, well, yes, because you’ve got a leadership environment that’s built on secrecy, not trust. But I would say that if it was not the CEO and the cpo, like, if you had any other dynamic in any other roles in your organisation, there are very strong reasons for a direct manager not to be leading the person underneath them. For all the things I’ve talked about already in terms of being conflicted, perceived bias, you know, nepotism, favouritism, all of that stuff. But a CEO and a cpo, where you have governance and guardrails around decisions that need to be made that can really impact people. You just can’t have that. So the psychological safety m more what I question is, do we have that position where it’s very clear that if there’s a conflict in the relationship, it would be very clear that the CEO would be expected to step out of that business. I’d be second guessing who I was having an affair with. I’m happily married. But, you know, if I was a, CEO and it was very clear that the board and the executor’s position was the most senior person is responsible for stepping away, you wouldn’t go there, would you? Some people might. But, you know, you go in knowing the consequence. So what does HR do next? What do you do if you’re the HR team left holding the bag for something like this? You’ve got to juggle cleanup care restoring credibility or trying to convince your own mates at the barbecue that you still love working in hr. And, you know, we could say there’s a playbook for this stuff. You know, stabilise everything care, have the employee assistance programme, the EAP on speed dial, make sure you’ve got open door manager hours set, you know, small group forums for people to vent without any reprisal. But I’d also be looking at independent handling of things, so external investigators, Board subcommittee, no exceptions. And the really interesting thing will be trying to re. I don’t even know how to describe it, like re ring fence hr. But what I mean is separate, er, and investigations from the previous CPO’s direct reports. But what that will do is take away from the people that are there to do a job and undermine their capacity to do that job because of the CPO’s behaviour and the legacy it’s now had feels pretty cruel. But at the same time, if you have Cabot’s direct reports, who people will perceive have an allegiance to her, whether they do or not doesn’t matter. That will be the perception that they’re, her mates, they can’t do, er, investigations, not for a while. And so that’s going to have to be ring fenced. And the nature of those people’s jobs have changed through no fault of their own. And so there needs to be some work done on that. Also declaring the policies and the settings around this. Right, so plain English relationship conflict protocols that apply to everyone, everyone includes you CEOs and reset the narrative. Like the interim CEO obviously will be in front of staff, hopefully not using pre recorded video, but he’s also conflicted. So what can HR do to help support that person? But when I’m talking about, you know, what does HR do next? Well, quite honestly, what can you expect them to do? Because the leaders compromise. Their very existence has stripped away the credibility of the function. As far as I know, there’s no interim leadership that’s been put in place to buffer the team. Why should they step up and fix all the stuff? And it’s really interesting to reflect on because this is what happens to HR a lot. Like we are fixing, the problems that we didn’t cause. If it was any other group, HR would be going in and rallying around this team who’s rallying around hr, because there’s no HR for hr. That’s why I do work for hr, for that very reason. Because the board’s focus is going to be on reassuring customers and investors, right? Showing that cultural and the governance and stability. And HR will need to focus on, um, the rebrand as an employer brand because future candidates are going to Google Astronomer. They can come back from it, right? They absolutely can. But if I was working that HR team, I would be crafting the best case study and figuring out what can I do next in response to this crisis, scandal, whatever you want to call it, and I’d be using that for my next career move. But they’ve basically decimated the HR function in, that organisation. They being the CEO and the cpo. And what’s the board’s job? Well, boards love to say that they take culture seriously until something like this happens, I dare say. And then you see if they really mean it. Because it’s not enough to say we’ve accepted their resignation and call it a day. Like repair means reviewing the speak up and the investigation pathways for execs as well. Like, how do people speak up? How are investigations going to happen? It’s about enforcing recusal protocols. Like, when do people need to recuse themselves from conversations, from interactions from, you know, where is there a conflict? But I think as soon as you’re talking about recusal, like we do in legal setting, right, you have to recuse yourself from a case where you’re inherently conflicted. This person would. The CEO, in my opinion, would need to recuse themselves from this employment. But the board also needs to include culture risk in their board reporting as often as they do cyber risk or financial risk. And looking at the leadership conduct guidelines, they’ve got to firm them up in the same way that they do trading policies. And I know that there Might be a lot of focus on tariffs or other things in the economy or with geopolitical things that are happening. But leadership, conduct and culture, it’s going to make or break what you do. And in Australia, boards of directors have a crucial role in shaping and maintaining the culture of their organisation. Like, the responsibility extends beyond just overseeing financial performance and we’re meant to be. Or boards are meant to be actively now shaping the values, norms and behaviours within the organisation. Now, some people would say boards shouldn’t be getting involved in operational matters. Culture is not an operational matter. Like, boards are expected to ensure that the culture is aligned to an organisation’s objectives and that it promotes ethical and responsible conduct. That’s the governance that boards bring. And CEOs and boards work very closely together. So I sure hope this board didn’t know.
HR has taken a hit every time we’re a headline for the wrong reasons
But when I think about conflicts, I also think about Pete DeGioia. Right? So he’s the new interim CEO. He co founded the organisation with the recently departed CEO and he’s the former Chief Product officer. So he’s obviously guy that’s building all the stuff, that’s probably making them all the money. And I’m not deep diving into his life because this isn’t date of our lives, but looking at his role, yeah, day one’s all about keeping the ship steady and he’s been doing that for the last couple of weeks. Reassure everyone inside and outside, try and quarantine the conflicts. But the thing I’m waiting to see is who they’re going to name as the interim HR leadership. Someone that’s got the credibility to front investigations, to rebuild trust. But friendship is human, right? Process is how we prove fairness. And I would assume if they are co founders, that Pete DeJoy and that head guy, not to be confused with the HR lady, but you know that head guy, that top guy that co founded Astronomer? They’re likely close and have a friendship. Not sure if you see any conflicts there, folks, but my conflict and why I’m speaking now. I stayed silent, as I said, out of respect for families. Like, I didn’t want to add to the noise for this, but there has been some very interesting conversation, specifically with a HR context that’s worth talking to and responding about. But these are real people, right? They’re not characters in a Netflix drama. But HR’s brand has taken a hit every time we’re a headline for the wrong reasons. And if we talk about it with care and practical steps, it’s not gossip, it’s advocacy. And I’m here to advocate for hr. But there’s a whole heap of misinformation and very poorly fact checked messages that have been sent to me. And I’ve seen a lot of people share posts and memes, fake press releases, dodgy screenshots, made up timelines, classic scandal swirl. And if it’s not from a reputable news outlet or an official company channel, like we should be treating it like suspect information, right? Don’t touch it, don’t share it and for heaven’s sake don’t serve it up. But here I am talking about it on the podcast. But it is with the intention of us doing better, in hr. So we’ve got some takeaways, right? Power plus intimacy equals policy and we have to have a clear position on this. What is our decision position on power and intimacy in our organisations and put some rules around that. And when HR is involved, you’ve got to add independence. So much independence. Because once HR is conflicted, we’ve lost the ability to do our role. But we also need to mine the bias. We need to flip the genders, we need to check our reaction and we need to plan for the unplannable. Who saw this coming? My final takeaway, I think if you ever find yourself on a kiss cam, maybe just wave. Thanks for tuning in and leaning in to this week’s episode. As we look to reimagine how we show up for our people, organisations and community, reach out to us via our website www.reimaginehr.com.au with your HR horror stories or suggestions of people you’d love to hear from or topics you want to explore.
It’s all about people, purpose and impact and we are here for all of it.
Until next time, take care, team.
