When I started at the Ad Council, I was warned by someone on another team to be careful of the CMCO. “Get on her good side early and stay there,” they said. I didn’t think too much of it but realized soon these were more than typical office politics. What I saw firsthand was unchecked emotional abuse.
During my time at the Ad Council, I had firsthand knowledge of a team member who complained to a member of the HR team about her behavior - mostly around feeling “psychologically unsafe” when this team member was on calls with her, stating that the CMCO created a “hostile work environment.” During my time at the Ad Council, the complaints were investigated by HR, corroborated by a senior leader of her team, and then never addressed by HR with her directly. It was an open secret in the organization that the head of HR and the CMCO didn’t get along so there was strong politics and fear of retaliation as to why this was never addressed.
What made it a hostile work environment? She was the queen of passive-aggressive behavior which made everyone feel unsafe.
She frequently made culturally insensitive comments about team members’ clothes, virtual backgrounds, and hairstyles.
She associated being “off-camera” during team statuses as a lack of engagement but knew better than to have said that publicly so instead made comments that made everyone feel awkward. “I can’t see you, ! Are you there? Is there a reason your camera is off? Are you sick?”
On our Monday team status calls, she never shared updates unless it was about the annual dinner. She never set a clear vision or departmental goals for either the brand or campaign sides of her department and allegedly would delegate that to team members, then would allegedly act confused when it didn’t ladder up to organizational objectives. She never shared any organizational vision with the team and then openly complained about the Ad Council's inability to “cascade information” — as though that responsibility laid at someone’s door other than hers.
She further exhibited passive-aggressive behavior by retaliating against employees who openly disagreed with her in meetings or on email chains. Team members she liked were arbitrarily given high-profile campaigns and brand assignments, employees she was “over” were given small campaigns and brand assignments. As someone on the campaign team told me once, “Curious how she feels about you? Take a look at what you’re working on.” If you were on a major campaign or working for the CEO, she liked you that week.
While that may seem reasonable on the surface, once that happened it was hard to break out of that cycle. The long-term impact of this was that it was impossible to come back out from the shadows, show your excellence, and get further complex or high-profile assignments. As a higher-up once said to another team member, “You’re crushing it on the retirement and caregiving campaigns? Great, she won’t care.”
So what did she view as success for our team during my time there? I’m still left guessing.
Several times during my time at the Ad Council, she made genuinely offensive remarks about the organization’s CEO, but I don’t think anyone ever agreed with her. Our CEO seemed nice enough but we were regularly told how lucky we’d be if “she retired” and we should “cross our fingers” that it’d happen soon.
Good luck to anyone looking to relive high school.
