I have to admit that as I read the story about the Hewlett Packard CEO and his resignation over expense fraud and harassment, I was perplexed. I had often heard from people at HP that he was a really good CEO, having put HP on the right track after the Fiona years of lots of flash, and little delivery. That being said, the detractors are now coming out. Consider the story ‘Actually, Mark Hurd was a Thug’;

This guy was a thug, nicknamed Mark Turd by ex-HPites who worked directly for him — stories that have circulated in the Valley for three years. He raped HP employees (figuratively, without violating the sexual conduct code at HP) by eliminating the sixty-five year concept of profit sharing, preferring to move to obscene bonuses for himself and his five top minions — a mere $113 million payout for them in a year he chopped everyone else’s pay by 5% plus profit-sharing. These were raises for some of the five people by as much as 400% — a tidy uptick.

He was profane, a bully, autocratic, threatening, demeaning, vindictive, and rude. Blogs over the weekend by current employees said "Hooray, the tyrant is gone!" I couldn’t contain my glee on the 11pm news — best news for HP in a very long time!

The Voice of the Workplace, HP’s thirty-five year historic ‘measure’ of employee feelings (done every five years) showed in April an astonishing finding — more than two-thirds of HP’s employees would quit tomorrow if they had an equivalent job offer. Not a raise, not a promotion, simply an alternative. That number never used to be in double digits. Other companies in the Valley have reported an amazing rate of HP resumes being submitted; one large company saying, "we didn’t know they had that many people working there".

A quick web search finds an entire web site dedicated to Mark Hurd loathing. One has to wonder what he was thinking. Did he figure that he was untouchable (the Tiger Woods syndrome)? If you review the facts it remains a head scratch:

• Earned 33M in 2008.
• Married with children.
• Harassment charges filed by an ex-reality TV star.
• Harassment charges referred to during his resignation with an official explanation of $1-20k in expense fraud.

A blog at HBR suggests that it could be embarrassment (he tells more lies to cover the first), arrogance or a lack of attention to detail. I am sure that over the coming months more will come out.

What an odd story. But then again, no odder than many others such as Eliott Spitzer and countless others. A far cry from the ABB CEO who famously walked onto an airplane during dramatic corporate cutbacks and went straight to coach while his VPs sat, uncomfortably, in Business Class. Leadership by example.

Such an odd story and HP will suffer through this unfortunate crisis of character like so many other companies, and their employees have before.