Earlier this summer, the Northwestern University football program came under investigation after reports of hazing/sexual misconduct. This came after a casual Friday afternoon press release right before the July 4 weekend. To make a long story short, as more details emerged, the head coach said he was unaware of the alleged incidents but was eventually fired.
A similar situation happened at Lousiville with former coach Rick Pitino, who said he “had no knowledge of any payments to any recruit or their family.”
This begs the question, “Should the leader of an organization take the blame, even when they honestly weren’t aware of a situation?”
In my opinion, yes, the head coach (in this situation), boss or CEO should take the blame. At the end of the day, the head coach is ultimately responsible for the football team in the way it plays and conducts itself on and off the field. They are the ones who should be held accountable, no matter what.
Not only is the head coach responsible for the players, but they also oversee assistant coaches, office staff and volunteers. No doubt that is a lot of personnel to manage, but that is still no excuse. A leader can be apprised of the daily happenings of their organization without micromanaging.
Second, what implications would it send if the team/company allowed this person to keep their job? It seems like it would indicate to the university that this behavior is acceptable, or that the head coach is untouchable because of status or success on the field.
I think that even if Pat Fitzgerald had come out and said, “Even though I was unaware, I vow to investigate and change the culture of this team to prevent this from happening again,” Northwestern did the right thing in firing him. You see it everywhere: companies firing executives to protect themselves.
While Northwestern made the seemingly right move in firing the football head coach, it could have done some things differently in terms of crisis management:
- OWN THE NARRATIVE. From an outsider’s perspective, it looked like Northwestern didn’t fully plan on how to engage with the media after the casual news dump. Rather, they should’ve set up a press conference to tackle the fallout right away.
- SHOW REMORSE. The university hasn’t shown much regret about the alleged hazing. Instead, officials seem to be more focused on defending themselves in a court of law. Both are not mutually exclusive.
- CONTINUE TO COMMUNICATE TO STAKEHOLDERS. As the investigation continues, Northwestern should take the opportunity to be transparent about what they are planning to do/what they have already implemented to prevent this situation from happening again.
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Every company faces challenges, and the way they handle them can strengthen or hurt their reputation. Roku customers have been facing a bug in the system that causes the remote to skip channels and program selections (sources