Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/08/the-ceo-keeps-asking-young-male-employees-to-try-her-breast-milk.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32762

A reader writes:

I work for a small organization in middle management. Our CEO has asked two of our young male staff members, who are early in their careers/at the bottom of the hierarchy, if they would like to try her breast milk, more than once. Once one said, “That’s inappropriate” and she laughed. I don’t supervise either young man, but they confided in someone I supervise, who told me. They told the person I supervise that they feel targeted and like she wants them to feel scared/off-kilter.

We do have an external HR person and a board of directors. In the past, HR reports among staff have been very badly handled by the CEO (think breaking confidentiality, obvious favoritism), so there is obviously even less faith about how she will handle a complaint against her.

I perhaps made a mistake, but I reached out to the external HR person with vague details to find out the protocol for what would happen if these coworkers reported it and who they could report to, because I wanted to understand and be able to advise them on next steps (maybe through the person I supervise). HR said they could report to HR, the CEO, or directly to the board, but there is no guarantee of confidentiality and that we “must act” if I’m aware of harassment.

I’m not sure what to do next. Obviously our CEO is not a very trustworthy person, and our board has had some pretty major issues over the years and many are close friends of the CEO. I feel like I made a mistake reaching out to HR. It’s unclear if the impacted employees wanted to pursue any report at all. I want them to feel comfortable at work, and I also want our CEO to be accountable for her actions, but I know both of those things are outside of my control and I worry I bungled both through my info seeking. I’m also in such a crazy work environment that I’m questioning if it is “even that bad” — it is, right? Pretty uncool for a grandboss to offer young staff members breast milk?

Just when I think I have heard about all possible brands of office dysfunction, someone manages to surprise me.

YES, it’s incredibly weird and inappropriate for someone to offer colleagues their breast milk, let alone when there are power dynamics mixed in. And more than once?!

And this is even weirder because the employees she offered it to got the sense that she was trying to make them feel off-kilter! It would be problematic enough even if the vibe were different (maybe joking around or something, I don’t know) … but she made them feel like it was an attempt to Intimidate Via Breast Milk?

Something very odd is going on in your office. Somehow it’s not surprising that this isn’t the first time this CEO has caused a problem.

As for what to do … the external HR person is right that if a manager in the organization is aware of a potential harassment issue, they have an obligation to report it. She’s also right that the organization can’t guarantee confidentiality in such a case, because they would be obligated to investigate it and you can’t always do that without disclosing information about what was reported and where it came from. The options she gave you for reporting — to HR, the CEO, or the board — are also the standard ones I’d expect her to offer when she didn’t have more details, since it sounds like she didn’t know the complaint is about the CEO. (You always need multiple avenues for people to make a complaint in case it’s about one of those people, and so an alleged perpetrator isn’t investigating themselves, and it does sound like those multiple avenues exist here, at least in name.) So everything the external HR person told you sounds right so far.

I do think you’d ideally go back to her again and this time lay out what the actual situation is and ask for guidance on how to handle it. She should then involve the board — because the board is the only entity with authority over the CEO — and HR could take the lead on coordinating that.

But if you’re reading this and thinking the two affected employees wouldn’t want you to escalate it and would be upset that you did that in their names without even talking to them, especially in a context where people don’t particularly trust the board to be impartial … well, again, as a manager you do have an obligation to act. That said, the specifics of this are weird enough that as a first step in this particular set of circumstances, you could go to them and say, “This sounds like it could be sexual harassment to me, and if you feel that way too, here are our options for how to handle it.”

The post the CEO keeps asking young male employees to try her breast milk appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/08/the-ceo-keeps-asking-young-male-employees-to-try-her-breast-milk.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32762