Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When Great People Get Thrown Under the Bus 5-31-25
Sat, 31 May 2025
In this episode, Scott Becker reflects on how exceptional professionals are sometimes scapegoated in corporate crises.
Chapter 1: What does it mean when great people get thrown under the bus?
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is when great people get thrown under the bus. One of the things that we find throughout our business career is periodically you'll see somebody who is just an absolute gem of a professional, a leader, a stalwart great one who ultimately gets thrown under the bus in some internal company
Chapter 2: Why do companies look for scapegoats during crises?
challenge and situation where they need to find a scapegoat. The history of this is longstanding.
Chapter 3: Can you share a personal story about scapegoating in corporate settings?
One of my closest friends, one of the smartest people I know, had this happen to her years and years ago when she was a leader at Arthur Anderson, had no involvement at all in something and sort of got blamed for something and ended up having a horrendous situation and she got thrown under the bus and had to go through to Congress and everything else.
Chapter 4: What happens to leaders who are unjustly blamed?
Now, it ended up coming away from it totally vindicated, but a brutal couple of years of her life working through these issues when this wonderful person got thrown under the bus. You see this in corporate America regularly.
Chapter 5: How do resilient leaders bounce back from being thrown under the bus?
If I take any solace in it, there's this old adage, when bad things happen to good people, and that's exactly what happens sometimes when a great leader gets thrown under the bus. What I've seen over the years is these great leaders, that they end up finding a way to be resilient and bouncing back.
And it ends up being one of the great courageous things that you watch in leaders is they end up being able to respond and rebound from these situations. it's almost a knock on corporate culture and how a corporation, when it's having trouble, he has to find a scapegoat.
I mean, sometimes, for example, you see a situation, we talk often about the CEO of Stellantis Jeep, Carlos Tavares, who just did a horrible job. He's got a scapegoat, did a horrible job. The CEO of Gap, Gap is down 20% today. I mean, he might have a scapegoat. He might try and blame his chief of strategy, blame somebody else. I don't know for how boring Gap has become.
The only thing you could ever buy at Gap anymore is black T-shirts. And even those became sort of a less quality than they used to be. And I'm a regular black T-shirt wearer. But the point being, you have a situation where great people get thrown under the bus. And what I have found throughout my life is that a lot of times when these great people get thrown under the bus,
They rebound over time because they themselves are fantastic leaders, have a great backbone, they've got a great spine, and they come back strong over time. My friend that was involved in this Arthur Anderson thing ended up founding her own law firm, has been crazily successful. She's probably as successful in the industry
holistic way of any of our friends that we went to law school with back in the day, and just a brilliant, brilliant leader. So my hat goes off to these great people that are periodically thrown under the bus, and we wish them the very best in their resilience and their bouncing back, and we abhor the leadership that throws them under the bus.
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
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