I manage a gay employee … and our company is homophobic

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager .
A reader writes:
I think my company and, honestly, I have managed to make rather a colossal mess out of a relatively easily resolved situation and I’m a bit lost on how to get back to how we were before.
I’m a middle manager for a third sector organization in the UK, and one of my best employees is Darren. Darren is extremely hard working and flexible and his knowledge of our services, policies, clients, etc. is encyclopedic. He had a health problem last year that had him off work unexpectedly for four weeks, and the sheer chaos that caused was the stuff of nightmares.
I was completely shocked when another employee, Alan, accused Darren of religious discrimination and harassment; obviously we investigated. It turned out that Alan was making disparaging remarks about Darren being gay. He was citing religion as his motive and was unhappy that Darren was unwilling to listen/filing his literature in the nearest bin and saying, among other things, “whether your homophobia comes from Allah, Buddha, the flying spaghetti monster, or David Icke’s lizard people, I don’t care and don’t have to listen.” Which Alan found disrespectful. I think Darren was probably less than diplomatic but Alan was highly tenacious and repetitive.
So problem solved … except this is where the train wreck begins.
First, both one of our managers and a member of HR gossiped (the lack of discretion in our office could be the topic of so many posts) about Darren being investigated, and a whole lot of increasingly dramatic rumors are now circling and Darren’s reputation has taken a hit. Darren is livid and his normal affable, easygoing attitude is definitely frayed.
Second, we asked him why he hadn’t reported Alan’s behavior before and he said he didn’t think we’d care or do anything since management had been present when Alan – and, for that matter, another colleague, clients, and even partner charities (we work with small local charities, some of which are religious based) – have made inappropriate remarks about homosexuality and kept silent. Including me on multiple occasions which, though it makes me cringe, I have to say is true. By staying silent I was hoping to keep drama and potential upset to a minimum (especially since Darren is generally so genial) rather than intending to give tacit consent. I shared this among the management team and the reaction has been … more defensive than constructive. Their often loud and lengthy reactions have not convinced Darren that he was wrong to assume we wouldn’t handle his complaints appropriately, nor have they convinced him to be any less livid.
I’m flailing now to try and deal with this mess. On a professional level, losing Darren would be a nightmare and a lesser nightmare would be to have Affable, Friendly, Helpful Darren be replaced by seething Absolutely Done With This Darren. But personally I also cringe because Darren really deserved better than this. I’m completely lost and highly embarrassed.
I wrote back and asked, “What has been done in regard to Alan’s harassment of Darren? Have there been consequences? And do you have a sense of what Darren would like to have happen next? Is the answer to that just ‘be in a respectful and equitable workplace where harassment isn’t tolerated’? And if so … how likely is that to happen there?”
That’s one good thing. Alan has been told on no uncertain terms that he’s extremely off-base and needs to stop.
Michael, his manager, has also had a very long discussion with him about “free to believe something” and “free to use your beliefs as a stick to poke people with.” He’ll also have a disciplinary on file. Hopefully the line has been firmly drawn under that and Darren should see the difference.
What Darren would like to see happen next: That’s something I should ask him. He hasn’t expressly said he wants anything per se, but that his trust, tolerance, and goodwill have all been impacted. He does want the gossip and rumors shut down, retracted, and apologized for but by people higher up the ladder than me … which I worry is too big an ask for our senior leadership team because they’re so completely unwilling to hear criticism (they’re very big blame shifters and get very defensive). Equally, I’m concerned that common homophobic comments by partner organizations and especially clients won’t be shut down because we have an almost infantilizing culture (there’s a running joke that a client could stab one of us and the director would apologize to them for the blood on their shoes).
Oh no. Okay.
There’s no good solution for Darren if he stays, because your organization’s culture is actively harmful. The best solution for Darren would be to leave (on his own terms, of course, but he should get out).
We shouldn’t be looking for ways to convince him to stay in an organization that’s okay with multiple people making homophobic remarks around employees (and they are okay with it, which we know because it happened repeatedly and in front of multiple members of management, and when called out on it they just got loudly defensive). We also shouldn’t want him to stay in an organization that’s okay with his reputation taking a hit because someone else has been harassing him (and your organization is okay with it — they let it happen in the first place, and they’re not taking any action to clear it up now).
Of course he’s livid. Livid is a rational response. He shouldn’t be affable or easygoing about this. What you are seeing from him right now is the logical reaction to what your organization has done to him.
And I think you’ve realized by now that your silence while Darren (and others) were subjected to homophobia was part of that. When you say you stayed quiet because you wanted to keep drama and upset to a minimum … what you’re saying is that you were willing to tolerate Darren being upset in the face of bigotry as long as the people expressing that bigotry weren’t upset. You certainly aren’t the first person to get this wrong! But it’s important to look at it head-on and see that you were prioritizing comfort and harmony for bigots over the safety and well-being of others, so that you can resolve to navigate that differently in the future (and so you can figure out how you’ll navigate it differently — as in “if someone says X, I will say Y,” because you’re much more likely to respond in the moment next time if you’ve prepared ahead of time).
But more broadly, it sounds like homophobia (and perhaps other types of bigotry?) pervades the culture of the organization, and you know that it’s going to continue.
I think you are significantly under-counting that part of things. When you say that you want to get back to how things were before … things before were bad for Darren, and they sound like they will continue being bad for Darren.
Given all that, the kindest, most ethical thing you can do for him would be to (a) apologize for your own inaction previously, (b) be honest that you don’t think the bigotry in the organization will change any time soon and that your senior leadership doesn’t care and gets defensive when asked about it, and (c) tell him you’ll support him in whatever he needs, including helping him leave if he wants to. You should also do everything you possibly can to shut down the false rumors about him, even if you have to talk to each person one-on-one to correct the record. As Darren’s boss, you should have credibility there.
But don’t try to keep him somewhere that’s actively harmful to him. And you might think about moving on yourself — what you’ve described is awfully poisonous, and it sounds like it has affected your own thinking. That’s incredibly common when you’re managing in a toxic environment. But when you realize that you’re trying to smooth over something that shouldn’t be smoothed over, and especially when you’re doing it from a position of authority, that’s a sign to extract yourself.
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