COLUMN | "Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me!" Part one of two: Criticism bites at Cadeler [Offshore Accounts]

Nobody likes criticism. The infamy quote in the headline from Kenneth Williams as Julius Caesar in the 1960s British comedy “Carry on Cleo” is a reminder that criticism can feel intensely personal and unfair to the person on the receiving end, even as it feels factual and obvious to those wielding the knives.

This week, we look the public battles covering three of our favourite topics – offshore wind, subsea mining and American shipbuilding. It’s a long piece, so it is split in two, with the second part appearing later in the week.

Barbra Streisand goes Danish in Copenhagen bullying controversy

The Streisand Effect works in Denmark, too! Cadeler CEO Mikkel Gleerup, a man famed for his brightly coloured socks and billions of dollars of borrowing to build a fleet of 12 wind turbine installation vessels with one of the most expensive corporate overheads in the jackup industry, once again demonstrates that pouring water on an oil fire only serves to increase the burn.

With Mr Gleerup being a former master mariner, one would expect that he could remember the basic of his SOLAS firefighting training. Starve the fire from oxygen, or in this case, starve the press of the oxygen of publicity. News dies quickly in the current 24/7 media cycle, where readers are easily distracted, and the tsunami of breaking coverage only serves to overwhelm attention.

But if you feed the news cycle, even inadvertently, you can make a bad situation for yourself even worse.

Crisis management case study

Many of us in shore positions will have done crisis management training for shipping disasters – how to handle the media when a nasty incident erupts. This usually begins with answering any journalist with, “That’s a great question, thank you,” and then delivering the key corporate message about how thoughts and prayers are with the families involved, and how grateful everyone was for the hard work of the local responders.

Witt O’Brien’s has made an entire business of it.

But sometimes shutting up and saying nothing is an equally good strategy.

Tough issues require sensitive responses

In the Cadeler case, the crisis is not a collision or an oil spill, but a case study of how not to respond to criticism.

Bullying – like other forms of inappropriate workplace behaviour – is especially newsworthy and can inflict a heavy psychological impact on its victims, often without the perpetrator being aware.

We have all experienced situations where leaders or managers have been rude, angry, or made us uncomfortable at work. Being told to, “take a spoonful of cement and harden up,” or that you are imagining the situation is not an acceptable response.

When a leader has gone out of their way to maximise their media exposure with high profile publicity, there is a sense of schadenfreude to see them humbled in public.

Throw in jealousy at the size of a CEO’s paycheck, and an egalitarian Nordic culture that prizes consensus and humility, and we have a recipe for sensational headlines, aggrieved victims, and an affronted accused.

A hidden story in Finans

Only Danish people, and only a select group of them, read Finans, a Danish business newspaper. So, when it published a report into allegations from a number of former and current employees of Cadeler about the hostile management style of the company’s CEO in Danish on June 11, it is unlikely the rest of the world would have noticed.

The body of the article with the juicy bits testimony of anonymous Cadeler staff is hidden behind a paywall, leaving non-subscribers having to pay US$150 for a three-month subscription to access the piece, which opens with the lurid headline, “He shouted and screamed into my head!"

A public rebuttal draws the spotlight

However, determined to protect his reputation, and seemingly intent on drawing as much attention as possible to allegations that he was a bully running a company where many employees were off work sick with stress, Mr Gleerup piled in on social media with a narcissistic robust defence of his behaviour.

His lengthy post on Linkedin highlighted the claims and thus gave all the shipping industry press and the rest of the Danish press the opportunity to re-iterate the allegations once more under the guise of reporting his denial.

We confess that we missed the original article and even the Linkedin post, too, but sure as heck we read the coverage of his defence, which alerted us to the excellent work of Finans journalists Sille Wulff Mortensen and Kresten Andersen. It’s the Barbra Streisand Effect in action.

A strange defence

The defence from Mr Gleerup is very odd. It is written in Danish, and it begins with the opening line, “To my Danish network,” as if the rest of the world might not be able to use the “translate” button, or might not care about the claims. The English translation we use is direct from Linkedin:

“Finans brings an article that makes serious accusations against me and the working environment in Cadeler. The criticism is about my leadership style and the culture I help to influence. I don't recognise the picture that is being drawn – neither of Cadeler nor of me. If you have been to our office, you know the feeling of a welcoming culture, rounded by skilled and passionate employees.

Our latest workplace assessment shows good results – although of course we always have areas we are working to improve. At the latest visit by the Danish Working Environment Authority, we received a single remark about high work pressure – not surprising for a company in rapid growth.”

He goes on to say that maybe the allegations are true, but that they don’t matter as he was not intentionally bullying his staff:

“I must also admit that a strong drive in stressful situations seems to seem overwhelming. And I cannot deny that in stressful situations I have spoken too directly or too harshly. If it has been perceived as transgressive, it is my responsibility – and I am sincerely sorry and regret that unreservedly. I will take that with me.”

Not the first time?

After this contrite note, without admitting any specifics or making any personal apologies, he then goes on to deny the claims and say that this is old news:
 
“A year ago, similar allegations were raised through the whistleblower scheme. They were investigated impartially and thoroughly by our 'speak-up' committee, board of directors and an external consultancy without finding any breaches of our code of conduct or bad culture. It seems to be the old accusations that are now finding their way to the press.

"We take the criticism seriously and have investigated all allegations. Neither the Danish Working Environment Authority, the workplace assessment nor other factors point to challenges of this nature.”

I am sorry, similar allegations were made in the past, but that is somehow okay?

This is not exactly the strong defence he appears to believe it is. And most of us would not take the Danish Working Environment Authority as a definitive authority on what happened to us personally in our working lives.

Mr Gleerup concludes with a series of non sequiturs:

“It confirms to me that we must stand by the culture we build every day. A healthy culture where we work together, take care of each other and thrive. Therefore, we are also able to retain and develop our best people.

"We sometimes have a high workload. Therefore, I am also grateful that our employees continue to recommend us to their network. But I also stand by the fact that we can – and must – develop. That includes me.”

We can’t comment on the allegations, obviously, and the people we know in Cadeler have not reported to us that they have been verbally abused by the CEO or metaphorically chained to the minimalist pinewood boardroom table in Copenhagen and beaten. Probably because they are working on the company’s jackups.

However, we do observe that the act of denying the allegations has only served to magnify them, and that admitting that there were previous allegations of the same nature really sends out a mixed message.

Board needs to walk the talk, fairly

How the board reacts is critical. Taking no action opens up a dangerous road for the company’s culture, as leadership begins and ends by example. The board must walk the talk.

Mental health and stress are major issues in offshore, for seafarers, subsea crew, catering staff, divers and drilling rig and platform-based workers alike. Undoubtedly, certain forms of leadership exacerbate the problems of stress, loneliness and anxiety offshore, including, but not limited to, situations where leaders shout, yell and or use verbal abuse to belittle team members.

Therefore, by its response to the Finans piece, the board of Cadeler has the chance to demonstrate to the whole company best practice in dealing with the concerns of its people, and in investigating conduct transparently and fairly to all concerned.

Best practice probably wouldn't allow a boss accused of bad behaviour to publish a self-justification on Linkedin and close the matter. Fairness and transparency are the key.

Mr Gleerup has amassed thousands of followers on social media to whom he can blast his message of innocence and “passion”; those accusing him don't have that luxury and would probably find themselves on the receiving end of a termination notice for dragging the company's name into disrepute, if they did.

It is not as if there are not recent examples in Denmark to guide the board and Mr Gleerup.

Something rotten in the state of Denmark?

What is it with Danish companies and an emotional management style?

It was only in 2021 that the then-CEO of Maersk Drilling, Jørn Madsen, was investigated for ranting at a female colleague, which resulted in him receiving a warning from the board.

It mattered not, as Mr Madsen soon departed his CEO position in 2022, when the company merged with Noble, and his opposite number at Noble in Houston, Robert Eifler, took over as boss of the combined group.

Mr Madsen became CEO of CHC Helicopters in 2023, but only stayed ten months in that role, where he was replaced by former Valaris CEO Tom Burke in early 2024.

Mr Madsen’s case was very different to Mr Gleerup’s though. He didn’t issue blah, blah, blah on Linkedin about not recognising the picture portrayed, or blaming, “the high- performance culture,” of the Maersk Drilling organisation for his hissy fit. And, as we observed last month, Cadeler’s recent results were not exactly stellar, anyway.

The Chairman of Maersk Drilling pointed out that the CEO had, "immediately acknowledged that his conduct in the situation had been inappropriate for a person in his position."

Mr Madsen himself, unlike Mr Gleerup, admitted what had happened and accepted the blame, as he told Finans:

“At the start of 2021, I flew off the handle and addressed an employee far too harshly. It was by no means alright, and shortly afterward I gave my unreserved apology to the employee in question. I would like to repeat that: I am deeply sorry about my conduct in the situation. I was rightly issued a warning, which I take and have taken very seriously."

Kudos to Jørn Madsen. He owned his behaviour and apologised. I imagine a lot of people in Cadeler will be looking to the board to see how it will act in this case.

It’s a tough call for the board, but given that this was not one allegation, but several, as per Finans, it is hard to see that accepting the line about not recognising the picture painted will be the end of the story. And unfortunately, any action or inaction will only fuel the publicity around the unfortunate allegations in the Finans article.

The Cadeler chairman is Andreas Sohmen-Pao of BW Group, a shipping veteran who must have done a dozen crisis management courses. Emanuele Lauro of Scorpio Tankers is the Vice-Chairman of the Board. Time for them to don their firefighting gear and ensure a fair outcome for all involved, a transparent process, and closure on this sorry matter.

In our second part, we will look at the criticisms of a publicly listed company where the CEO has compensation far above industry norms, and pays himself not to lend money to the company.

We will also look at the criticism of the US domestic shipbuilding industry, where ambitious plans are meeting the cold, hard reality that American companies are not very good at building ships on time and on budget, let alone at commercially competitive prices.

Background reading

As per Wikipedia, the Streisand Effect is was so named in 2005, following an the efforts of American singer and actress Barbra Streisand to suppress the publication of an aerial photograph of her Malibu home.

Ms Streisand filed a lawsuit against the photographer Kenneth Adelman for US$50 million, claiming invasion of privacy. Before the lawsuit, the photo had been downloaded only six times, but after the legal action was publicised, it received over 420,000 views in just one month. This unintended consequence of her efforts to hide the photo led to the coining of the term, “the Streisand Effect”

In offshore, perhaps it can be called, “the Gleerup Effect”?