Will The Uber Crisis Make Life Harder For Women In The Workforce

Travis Kalanick has always been a larger-than-life character. It was his courage and conviction which helped make Uber such an integral part of our life. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for improving the quality of transportation.

He has inspired lots of entrepreneurs, many of whom want to create an “Uber for healthcare,” and an “Uber for education.” As a successful first generation founder, he has been a role model for lots of youngsters who would love to follow in his footsteps.

He has a lot to be proud of, because he kick-started the sharing economy. The fact that Uber is a verb which has become embedded in our daily language (like Xerox and Google) proves how much of an impact he had had on our life.

However, now that he has resigned, a lot of people will exult in his downfall. Schadenfraude is hard wired in our brains, and many critics will say – “Success went to his head, and he became too big for his boots.” It’s very easy to criticise someone when they’re down and out.

Now I’m not trying to condone his bad behaviour. I have a zero tolerance policy for gender discrimination, I have two daughters and I don’t want them to be treated badly. However, I don’t want his flaws to obscure his contributions. I continue to admire him, and it did require a lot of guts for him to resign.

This shows he is mature enough to put the interests of his company first. He is young and I am confident he will reinvent himself and come back in a new avatar. He will bounce back older and wiser, because the ecosystem will offer him a second chance. By stepping down, he has taken the higher moral ground in this debate and this makes me respect him even more.

Lessons To Learn From Uber And Travis Kalanick

If we look at the bigger picture, there are lots of other lessons to be learned as well. This episode shows that the business ecosystem in the US is strong. It is willing to correct itself and to punish high profile powerful CEOs when they don’t behave properly. By comparison, politicians in India never resign, no matter what they’ve been proven guilty of. It’s great that corporate governance in the US is alive and kicking, and they are willing to make sure that everyone conforms to expected cultural standards.

However, what bothers me is the double-standards we use. We often fall prey to the fundamental attribution error, which means that the same behaviour which was unacceptable in Uber, is something we are willing to pardon when our own close friends indulge in it. We are happy to turn a blind eye to their transgressions, by laughing it off and saying, “Yes, boys will be boys – what do you expect?” However, we expect CEOs to have higher standards , and when they don’t live up to them, we’re not willing to forgive them.

My bigger worry is the unintended consequences of this episode. Lots of startups will now be reluctant to hire women, because they worry that what may be considered to be just regular behavior among guys may be misinterpreted as being sexual harassment and gender discrimination if there are women in the room. For many of these startups, it will be safer to hire only men in the future. The irony is that an action which was supposed to help protect women in the work force may end up hurting them in the long run!

[This post by Dr. Aniruddha Malpani first appeared on LinkedIn and has been reproduced with permission.]

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