CEO’s Coldplay moment is a textbook fiasco

With Coldplaygate on track to become one of the most viral moments of the year, you would think this is the first time in history that a CEO has gotten busted for having what certainly seems to be an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate. Well, let me tell you — this is far from the truth. As someone who covers corporate America, CEOs doing inappropriate things with inappropriate people has turned into its own mini-beat. Over time, I've learned a lot — too much! — about the indiscretions of those in charge. In some ways, the Andy Byron/Astronomer fiasco is a textbook case. But it also reveals the way our hyper-online world has transformed how CEOs—and company boards — need to think about the line between bosses’ public and private lives.

- Beth Kowitt, Tribune News Service

There's a reason CEOs who are smart people do dumb things and end up in Byron's position. As I've written before, power can make people believe they will only ever reap the upsides of risk-taking behavior. For example, people with a higher sense of power are more likely to believe they'll avoid hitting turbulence on an airplane or running into a dangerous snake on vacation. One can see how they might also think they won't be spotted on the jumbotron at a Coldplay concert, despite the evidence to the contrary. Boards have a responsibility to pay attention to a CEO's personal life because it often mirrors their professional conduct. After the Ashley Madison hack in 2015, researchers had a robust new data set to help them study the connection between cheating at home and cheating at work. One study found that companies run by the 47 CEOs and 48 CFOs included in that database (the vast majority of them married) were two times as likely to have had a financial misstatement or involvement in a class action securities lawsuit.