Shakeup at Volkswagen Impacts Management Jobs on Two Continents

Shakeup at Volkswagen impacts management jobs on two continents
Sometimes, your management is in such a sad state you have to move on. Other times, your company is rocked by a scandal so terrible, the Top Dogs have no choice but to pick someone for the executioner. Generally, that’s the top manager, the CEO.

Case in point, Volkswagen just named a new CEO. Matthias Mueller assumes the helm forcibly discarded by Martin Winkerton. It’s not a surprise. VW is in the midst of an emissions tampering scandal likely to cost them billions. In fact, they’ve set aside several billion just to deal with the fallout, whatever that may be.

During his “resignation”, Winkerton spoke about “fresh starts” and other nonsense balms basically meaning, “please forgive us, because I’m taking one for the team.” May not be fair, but that’s why you get the big bucks. To put up with the aggravation and disparity.

Then comes the inevitable forced enthusiasm affirmation. This time from VW interim chairman, Berthold Huber: “Mueller is a person of great strategic, entrepreneurial, and social competence. He knows the Group and its brands well and can immediately engage in his new task with full energy. We expressly value his critical and constructive approach.”

In other words, “blah, blah, blah, he won’t screw up like the last guy, blah, blah, please buy our cars again.” Missing in this invocation, though, is the reason Winkerton and not Meuller had the job in the first place. He was better, right? Yep. Until he wasn’t. That’s life in the big city, folks.

Here’s the thing, though, while the CEOs make the headlines, they are far from ever the only casualties. Listen up manager, there are a lot of people at VW with your level of authority that just got pink slips too. Multiple managers in both the U.S. and Germany will lose their gigs based on this scandal as well.

Who is ultimately responsible, and will those people face consequences? Tough to say. There’s likely to be some collateral damage no matter what. Unfortunate, unfair even … but that’s what happens when the mighty fall. They take a lot of other folks with them. And that’s also what happens when the mighty allow their team to go rogue. Eventually, a lot of people pay.

Jonah Engler is an entrepreneur from New York City.