There is a very valuable personal branding lesson in the resignation of Chicago's top cop, Philip J. Cline.
In case you missed it, Superintendent Cline was forced to resign for his failure to take swift action against police officers involved in the beating of some of Chicago's citizens, including the truly macho beating of a small woman bartender by a 200 plus pound male officer.
Note, why the resignation? Failure to act swiftly in the face of truly abhorrent behavior. No doubt Cline was torn between the brutality of the beatings and loyalty to his fellow officers (i.e. the police code of silence). In the end, Cline's foolish sense of loyalty is what did him in.
I am not advocating abandonment of your sense of loyalty to good people who make mistakes. Cline can still feel bad for the officers who obviously exhibited bad judgment and work to help them overcome their insanity, but it should never be at the expense of what is right. What do you think Cline would have wanted if the girl who took the beating was his daughter?
The personal branding lesson is this: Don't make the mistake of protecting bad people who engage in bad behavior which threatens your personal brand credibility. Move swiftly to jettison them. It is hard enough to protect your own personal brand from your own foolish behavior. You don't need knuckleheads adding to your workload.
Here's the irony, when Superintendent Cline's poor judgment started to cause the Mayor heartache guess who was jettisoned?
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