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Bob Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule, wrote a post on his blog a few days ago about the strange case of Prof. Bill Reader from the University of Ohio School of Journalism. The story has twists and turns and seems convoluted as-all-get-out, but to oversimplify it as best as I can, it seems that the professor was for the most part, adored by students, but had difficulty getting along with some of his colleges.
 
His tenure review board voted 7-5 to give him tenure which evidently meant that the vote would have to be ratified by the dean, who did not seem eager to grant Prof. Reader tenure. I am not interested in deciding which party is in the right, since we who are far removed from the situation are in the worst position to do so.
 
What does interest me, is the notion which Sutton suggests that...
 
"Perhaps the best thing to do is to delay the tenure decision for a couple years and make it contingent on him changing his behavior -- in other words, contingent on him returning to sufficiently good mental health to keep his inner jerk in check."

Bob goes on to suggest that sometime what is needed in situations like this is compassion for those we work with. I like the idea of showing compassion in cases like this, simply because so little of it exists in the business world.
 
We are experiencing a job market where many companies are looking to hire perfect candidates, and in their desire to downsize, looking for flaws in the candidates they do have. As organizations why don't we focus more on polishing the resources we already have, instead of taking an ax to everything we find imperfect.
 
If corporations cannot show compassion towards their employees, then how do they expect employees to invest extra effort into their jobs. Managers want their employees to take initiative, use their creativity to improve the corporate culture, and be willing to put the needs of their team before their own. How though are we to take any of these wishes seriously if management is not willing to lead by example. As the saying goes, “it all comes down from the top.” In business either we lead by example, or we don't.