Five Reputation Stories in the News

Sheryl Lee Ralph, Defaming Your Spouse, Meghan Markle Didn't Defame Her Half Sister, Standing Up to Retaliation and Creating Your Own Narrative

No Surprise Here: Companies Don’t Always Have Your Best Interests in Mind When You’re Being Mistreated

“They saw what happened,” actress Sheryl Lee Ralph said. Recalling what she was told by network executives and bystanders, “It’s not that bad is it? Please don’t say anything. We don’t need the bad press. It’s a brand new show. Yours is a new show … It wasn’t so bad after all, was it?”

There is a big, serious problem present.

“That’s the kind of stuff that happens,” Ralph said. “That’s what makes it hard for women to speak up about these things.”

What happened in this story is not as important as what Ralph asserts took place with management, which was that it downplayed what she alleges occurred, arguably gaslighting her, and attempting to strongly influence Ralph not to pursue help and remedy.

Why? Because the business was deemed more important than a person’s humanity.

Sorry, but that’s unethical, poor governance and bad leadership character. It’s also a dangerous organizational practice. Plus management doesn’t need or want that type of negative reputation, inside or outside the organization.

“And Water is Wet” headline: Levelling Allegations Against Spouse In Newspaper Whether Defamatory Or Not Lowers Reputation (See: story)

”The Bombay High Court recently observed that the wife’s reputation is lowered by the mere fact that husband has made allegations against her in a newspaper, whether or not the news report is actually defamatory,” Amisha Shrivastava writes.

India seems to know what the United States and its judges and courts don’t seem to grasp or want to grasp and that’s the reality that manufacturing a narrative of wrongdoing for public consumption creates pain and multiple damages for the target, especially when public opinion doesn’t usually give its energy to seek out facts.

”A division bench of Justice RD Dhanuka and Justice MM Sathaye was dealing with a matrimonial dispute in which the husband published allegedly defamatory news about his wife in a newspaper,” wrote Shrivastava.

The judges communicated what they saw:

“Whether the actual news is defamatory or not is irrelevant for the present purpose. The fact that allegations and accusations are leveled by a party (husband in this case) against the spouse (wife) in newspaper, itself has an effect of lowering her reputation in the eyes of her peers and colleagues. Embarrassment is a bitter bonus!” the court observed.

Justices Dhanuka and Sathaye know and did something about it. If only this type of legal support transpired more often.

EXTRA: Perception or Dishonesty Doesn’t Necessarily Equal Defamation

Meghan Markle sees the defamation lawsuit brought against her by half-sister, Samantha, dismissed.” Not entirely surprising except for the legal reasoning.

In short, the judge determined that Meghan Markle’s comments were opinion and not defamatory, saying, “… the Court finds that Defendant’s statement is not objectively verifiable or subject to empirical proof. Plaintiff cannot plausibly disprove Defendant’s opinion of her own childhood.”

Samantha Markle was alleging that Meghan was writing a story of her childhood that didn’t exist, which was hurting the family. The courts decided to disagree.

Critics can argue Meghan Markle is unlikable for a lot of reasons, including playing loose with facts and truth, yet legally, she was found not guilty of defamation and objectively speaking, it was the correct judgment.

EXTRA 2: Standing Up to Retaliation Against Your Professional Standing

Cheryl James-Ward wasn’t going to take what she perceived as wrongdoing to her reputation. She convinced the San Diego Union Tribune to provide a platform to communicate her story, what she knew and what she presumed.

“I believe board member Michael Allman used my comments to create a media blitz to annihilate my reputation and pressure other board members to fire me.”

James-Ward was placed on administrative leave and later terminated.

Does what she communicated above sound preposterous? Maybe, until you consider, as the late Paul Harvey liked to say, the rest of the story: “I believe Allman used my comments to create a media blitz to annihilate my reputation and pressure other board members to fire me because of a formal complaint I filed against him in March.”

James-Ward explained:

“When I refused to fire people who could not be lawfully fired, transfer people who could not be lawfully transferred or relinquish authority to Allman, he attempted to renegotiate my responsibilities and threatened that he would get the board to give him as an individual board member some of my responsibilities,” she wrote.

That’s not all, she claimed: “Nearly every time I tried to protect the district from Allman, he requested that the board evaluate me, which I believe was a code word for ‘fire.’”

I don’t claim to know what transpired. What I do know is this: Retaliation happens. People who should support you often don’t. They enable. Yet office politics, government politics, board politics and business competition can and does lead to falsehoods and enemies working to undermine you. People do unjustly get taken down.

James-Ward explained her situation without getting ugly. That’s a difficult task. It didn’t save her job yet she did get to tell her side of the story and be heard and while that doesn’t always prove to be a “win,” it is important and if accurate, still valuable.

EXTRA 3: Writing an Autobiography to Set the Record Straight, Smart or Not?

Prince Andrew is writing his autobiography in an attempt to clear his name, which is associated with the late and disgraced Jeffrey Epstein. Not everyone thinks Andrew’s idea is a good one. Yet could they be wrong? Or are they providing wise counsel?

“Everyone close to him is telling him it’s a stupid idea and he should just forget it,” it has been reported.

The counter-argument is worthy of debate too: “… mainly he wants to set the record straight. If he doesn’t change the narrative, no one else will.”

Professionally speaking, I think him writing the book could prove helpful. I contend, if done correctly, as in Andrew following advisory that is supportive, ethical, humble and wise, it is more helpful to write the book than not write it, especially if Andrew is, as he claims, not guilty of at least some of the egregious behavior and associations for which he’s been publicly condemned.

Michael Toebe writes “Reputation Notes” and is the founder and specialist at Reputation Quality, a practice that serves and assists successful people and organizations in further building reputation as an asset and responsibly, ethically protecting, restoring or reconstructing it.

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