Between Peter Slipper’s recent text messages and the ongoing fallout from Alan Jones’ comments, you’d have to be living under Uluru not to have heard the recent discussion about inappropriate and sexist comments.
In a way, it mirrors on a national scale the discussion in the start-up community following the York Butter Factory tweets earlier this year.
Now, I don’t want to get into the politics of the whole situation. Frankly, if you wanted a political opinion, you’d be reading Crikey or The Australian right now, rather than StartupSmart.
Truth be told, I don’t trust politicians of any political persuasion. If I ever ran for public office, I wouldn’t even trust myself in the job.
That having been said, there is an important business lesson to be learnt from the whole situation.
As an entrepreneur, you are ultimately responsible for the corporate culture and the standards of behaviour of your business. That goes both for the behaviour you expect explicitly, as well as the behaviour you condone by omission. As an entrepreneur, you need to take personal responsibility for it.
And in this day and age, sexist comments – even if it’s supposedly “just a joke” –are always inappropriate in the workplace.
At Taskmaster Enterprises, the staff know that sexist comments are inappropriate in the workplace and will result in a meeting with an ultra-grumpy Taskmaster. Make sure your staff know the same.
Get it done – today!
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
