Ousted Air Canada CEO failed to speak French—and forgot the basics of crisis leadership
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Bonjour. After five years as CEO of Air Canada, Michael Rousseau announced his retirement from the Montreal-based airline yesterday after being pilloried for speaking almost no French in a video statement about last week’s deadly crash at LaGuardia Airport. The mind boggles: Did Rousseau not know how to say something other than “hello” and “thank you” in both of Canada’s two official languages? Were others unaware? What’s clear is that this backlash is about more than linguistic ability. Some takeaways:
He didn’t even try. If ever there’s a time to add a few French sentences to the teleprompter, it’s when discussing the tragic death of a francophone employee, pilot Antoine Forest. (Pilot Mackenzie Gunther of Ontario also died.) And Rousseau had promised to learn French back in 2021 after facing a similar backlash. Five years and 300 hours of language classes later, this was the best he could do? No wonder critics questioned his empathy, commitment and, frankly, his ability to learn. As one CEO put it: “He brought this on himself.”
French is the official language of Quebec. My dad wanted to live in Montreal when we left Scotland, but the province’s French language laws prompted him to set up his business in Ontario. That said, he had immense respect for how those laws had enabled Quebec to preserve its unique language and culture. Preserving Quebec’s francophone identity is still nonnegotiable. Look at Bill 96, a recent law requiring any company with 25 or more employees to certify French as the primary workplace language. Some CEOs complain that it adds costs and undermines their ability to recruit talent. Trump tried to target it in trade talks, to no avail. If multinationals have to adapt, why is Air Canada’s CEO exempt from speaking French?
Where’s the board? Every CEO becomes the company’s chief communicator in a crisis, and running an airline involves lots of public speaking for plenty of reasons. In 2021, the board could see that Rousseau’s cavalier attitude toward the French language was a problem. It was their job to spot the red flags and make sure he fixed the issue. If they knew Rousseau still couldn’t advance beyond “Allez!” after 300 hours of training, it should have taken action sooner and prevented the very public embarrassment. As my colleague Phil Wahba notes, a leader’s inability—or perhaps even unwillingness—to learn what’s needed to do the job is just bad business.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com