What do hotshot startups and cults often have in common? A charismatic leader. But what happens when the public face of an organization becomes a toxic presence? Author and consultant Steve Hearsum explores what it means — for a company and, indeed, for society — when a lionized leader falls from grace.
News broke recently that James Watt, co-founder and CEO of BrewDog, one of England’s latest brewers, was stepping down after a drip feed of stories in recent years that pointed to a disconnect between the brand image of the organization and the apparent reality for many on the inside.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of stories about a purported culture of fear within the business and toxic attitudes toward junior staff, Watt is a charismatic figure. He in no small part was the public face of a brand that sought to play with the notion of what it means to be edgy, and you can decide for yourself whether they succeeded on that front.
Portraying yourself as a punk and rebel brand becomes harder to do, for example, when you become a behemoth in your own right and start partnering with global brewing giants to break into new markets.
The face of a brand
Watt is a good example of what it means to become the face of a brand, where your name and image, even your personality, become both synonymous with…
