Dear Liz,
My CEO’s wife is our Marketing Manager. That causes some conflict and tension. How involved should I be in those issues?
Thanks,
Carol

Dear Carol,
If you’re going to lead HR and report to the CEO, you’re going to have to get very good at speaking forthrightly with your CEO and also with his wife, your Marketing Manager. An HR job in a company where the CEO’s wife runs Marketing is not a job for the faint of heart. You are responsible for the organizational health of the place, and if the relationship between the boss and the Marketing chief is an issue for them or for the employees, you’re going to have to deal with it. That’s a huge part of your job description, like it or not.

So, you don’t have to go looking for problems; if there are problems, you’ll soon spot them or hear about them. You’ll need to figure out what isn’t working and what the ideal state would be, and then start talking with people about it. Let’s say the issue is that Miss Thing makes decisions that aren’t normally in the line of a Marketing Manager’s work, but they get approved anyway because the CEO is your Marketing Manager’s husband. So, what do you do? I’d jump right in to that situation, on the theory that if these two don’t see the effect their actions are having on team unity, you’re not going to do yourself any favors by trying to be subtle about it. I’d meet with them together and say “So, we have a few complicating factors here that arise from the fact that you guys are married, as I’m sure you know. It’s part of my job to bring those things up when they arise and so we should talk about the fact that you, Mary, are running the Sales Offsite, which is something that none of our previous Marketing Managers has done. The sales force is in an uproar and the rest of the employees are trying to figure out whether Mary is now their boss. Let’s figure this out together, shall we?”

You never caught me saying HR leadership was easy!
Best,
Liz