Leadership, particular in the public arena, comes with certain expectations of supporting values and leading by example. It is a concern when our senior leaders, both in governance and management, fail to uphold those expectations.
New Plymouth District Council chief executive Gareth Green recently posted on Facebook comments about his love of a certain part of the female anatomy. The public site has 145,000 followers and was visible to anyone who visited the social media page of the news website The Spinoff.
The post related to a satirical story on New Zealand tunnels, which featured a number of Taranaki landmarks. In the description of the Huinga Tunnel, in North Taranaki, the story said it was hard to ignore the “vulvic shape” of the entrance thanks to its pointed crown.
Green posted “I do love a good tunnel. Almost half of these tunnels are in Taranaki. And all but two are shaped like a vulva. I also love a good vulva. I think I may make it a mission to enter them all (the tunnels, that is).”
This may be offensive to many given Green’s leadership position, and a lot more may regard it as having the “ick” factor.
To his credit, after being emailed by the Taranaki Daily News, Green deleted the post several days later.
New Plymouth mayor Neil Holdom was questioned about the post and was asked whether he considered it an issue that the council needed to address as Green’s employer. He acknowledged that “we live in an age where people in the public eye are judged by every word whether it be at work in public, in private and online, including with family members”. As an outcome, Holdom said “I have reminded our CEO of this and do not expect we will see a repeat of anything like this in the future.”
There is no doubt that sexual jokes or remarks may amount to sexual harassment in the workplace (and in other forums). Under the Human Rights Act sexual harassment includes any unwelcome or offensive sexual behaviour that is repeated, or is serious enough to have a harmful effect. It can occur in person and through other channels; such as txt messaging, email, internet chat rooms or other social media platforms.
It is highly likely that staff at the New Plymouth District Council would have seen the Facebook post, and would certainly have been made aware of it from colleagues that accessed the post, or heard of it through the media.
It is a concern that New Plymouth councillors have not made it clear that their Chief Executive has acted inappropriately. Comments made by councillors reported in the media have largely been in Green’s favour.
Councillor Murray Chong said he did not think it was even an issue. “It was a bit of humour,” he said. “In order to have a good marriage you need to have a good sense of humour and I hope his wife had a little chuckle. I don’t have a problem with it, in fact, I praise the guy for having a Kiwi-bloke sense of humour.”
First-term councillor Bali Haque had full confidence in Green and questioned whether the Taranaki Daily News was acting appropriately in its reporting. “I can see no public interest being served here,” he said.
Fellow first-term councillor Bryan Vickery also expressed his “complete confidence” in Green’s integrity. “In retrospect, his banter comment made to his spouse posted publicly lacked circumspection,” he said.
Councillor Tony Bedford said while he had an opinion on the situation, he had communicated that directly with Green and believed that was between the two of them.
Veteran councillor Gordon Brown believed Holdom had handled the situation in the right way by acknowledging it was not the right thing to do without making “a huge fuss” about it.
In has long been established in the employment jurisdiction that conduct outside the work relationship which brings the employer into disrepute may warrant dismissal.
Mr Green’s conduct may not warrant his dismissal, but his lapse of judgement and how the council has dealt with this now sets a precedent at the highest levels that sexually offensive behaviour or sexual harassment will not be called out for staff at the council. Should staff feel that they have been sexually harassed they may be less likely to bring a complaint, or maybe rightly justified in feeling that their complaint would not be taken seriously. They may rightly feel that their leaders values are such that they should not sit in judgement if a complaint is made. Read more....