Over the last couple of days I am following a public debate about the owner and CEO of the Springer Verlag, Mathias Döpfner. He has always been a controversial public figure and at the age of 60 he is still leading and owning one of the most influential publisher companies in Europe, with a leading publication of „Bild“ in Germany.
During last week, a report came out that leaked messages from Döpfner to others, including the former chief-editor Julian Reichelt, with disparaging statements about the former chancellor in Germany or „Ossis“ (some disrespectful people call the population of the former DDR like this) in general.
All of this was published by the „Zeit“ – obviously not part of the Springer Verlag – right before a fictive new book that will be released about the Springer Verlag soon.
Well, apart from all this blaming of the different parties, I am curious how this is handled now…
First, there had been numerous statements from other media and politicians, that this can‘t be and it’s unacceptable. Second, it went quite for a couple of days, Third, the „Bild“ was requesting an apology from their CEO (!!!!!), Fourth, Döpfner was giving a public apology in which he stated, that he is sending „emotional messages to trusted people“, always thinking that this would never get published. And obviously all these statements were not meant to be this way…to be continued.
Here is the thing: If I would have insulted people, employees or public persons during my professional career like this, I would have gotten fired. Period. Sure, there would have been an investigation and a debate, but in the companies I worked, there was just no tolerance for that behavior. On top: If I would have come up with an excuse that I sent these messages when I had been emotional, with the believe that my opinion in this situation would never get published, I would have been immediately called out being (at least) a bad leader.
What happens here is just a sad description of our actual being. We listen and watch these kind of unethical and disrespectful stories, and next day, we buy a publication from this Springer Verlag. A company that has just proven another time that it is led by a bad and mislead CEO. Just stop supporting this kind of companies and buying anything from them. Make our world a better place by eliminating these kind of things.
