Helping Leaders Avoid a Crisis with Empathy, Gratitude and Generosity

• Published in: The public relations strategist Vol. 23; no. 3; p. 12
• Main Author: Ouellette, Michelle Marasch
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Public Relations Society of America, Incorporated 01.10.2017
• Subjects: Empathy; Investors; United States > US
• ISSN: 1082-9113

The tone-deaf elite. We can cite example after example, some treme. Take former BP CEO Tony Hayward. In 2010, after 11 died in the offshore-rig explosion that started a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, he told reporters, I'd like my life back. In 2015 there was Martin Shkreli, founder and, at that time, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals. After his company raised the price of a life-saving drug from $13.50 to $750 and he sent emails celebrating the profit margin, Shkreli called the move altruistic, saying my whole life has been one theme, of self-sacrifice for my investors. He later laughed his way through congressional testimony. The empathy required may be hard for the leaders to muster, however, if an article by Jerry Useem in The Atlantic is correct. In it, Useem shares research that likens the effects of power to brain damage.