Jes Staley’s personal intervention into the investigation of an anonymous whistleblowing letter, which the Barclays CEO believed to have inappropriately cast a negative light on a close colleague’s reputation, led to a public apology about his “honest mistake”.

It begs some very interesting questions at Board level on the topic of whistleblowing, and the obligations of this FTSE 100 Chief Executive, to comply with his own company’s policies at a critical time in its Business turnaround programme, which is attempting to improve employee morale and confidence.

It is vital that a CEO, as part of his or her Board obligations, is fully aware of the key policies cascaded into the company, in this case whistleblowing, and what constitutes a breach in order to “lead from the top down”. Equally Senior Directors leading compliance and security teams have a duty of care to guide their CEO on what constitutes a breach of their whistleblowing policy, and the consequences and risks of doing so. It has yet to be revealed if any such challenge took place in Barlcays.

Even if Staley was offended about unfair allegations regarding his colleague in the whistleblow letter, and believed they were untrue, did it give him the right to authorise yet more expenditure and resources (quantum unknown) to attempt to uncover the identity of the letter’s author? Moreover the fact that he had personal involvement in recruitment of his colleague, was all the more reason to remain un-biased and allow the process to take its course independently through the compliance department.

It raises many questions – why was Staley so intent on uncovering the identity of the whistleblower, other than to be able to allege vexatious harassment on behalf of his colleague? However surely this should have been the responsibility of the person against whom the allegations were anonymously made? Maybe Staley was simply driven to protect his reputation within the recruitment process, and thus protect his close colleague, for whom he had respect and allegiance?

Could we all, in such circumstances, become victim to human emotions of curiosity, anger and injustice, to uncover who is carrying a perceived beef against our senior colleagues, or does the heavy load of CEO responsibility bind one to a stronger sense of zero tolerance to non-compliance of what clearly is a very important policy in this company? We can learn from Staley’s mistaken sense of loyalty and the potential threat to his long term future at Barclays.

Companies, whether small or large, have to reflect on their whistleblowing policies and conclude if they should encourage and only protect confidential reporting rather than anonymous reporting. The UK law which covers whistleblowing (The Public Disclosure Act 1998) provides very good guidelines on the matter.

Maybe Staley and his compliance team ought to consider whether an effective and credible whistleblowing policy is one which ensures that only disclosures made by those who wish to place their identity next to the allegation or belief, will be taken seriously, and in return be given complete protection and anonymity for the brave action taken. This may prevent malicious, frivolous and/or vexatious acts.

Executive teams should regularly revisit their whistle-blowing policies and check the policies are up to date, fair and provide protection for all parties concerned. This will help engender trust in the workplace and therefore improve probity and governance in the long term.