This article is written by Ramanuj Mukherjee, Co-Founder and CEO at iPleaders.

Today morning as I was boarding a flight, and just before the take off, a friend messaged me a link to a blogpost by a startup founder sharing her account of how Dave McClure sexually assaulted her. This is the nth woman to accuse Dave of inappropriate behaviour in a professional context. With over a dozen women speaking up against him, it does look like a bleak situation for Dave. He may never recover from the public lynching that is ensuing. Indeed, many people wish no less and I can completely understand the anger. Given how many women never progress in their career due to casual sexism or outright sexual harassment at workplace, it is no surprise at all if some of those people want the same fate for the perpetrators. As someone who played a role in starting India’s first educational course to train sexual harassment experts, and a mass program to train executives on how to implement sexual harassment laws in their organizations, I am acutely aware of this.

Anyway, my friend asked me: do you think this could happen to you? Didn’t you ever lead on a girl or push it too hard with someone? Once it’s out there it is going to be justice of lynchmob, he said. It just takes one anonymous accusation on social media to start the fire. If it comes from several women, you are done.

I totally get what he is saying.  It’s scary indeed. I have hired and fired over a hundred people in various capacities till date. Many women left us on bad terms. At least on two occasions I have hired my girlfriends of the time to work for my startup. Did I do something at any point that I should not have?

I have an easy answer for this. I never engaged in any sort of flirting, romantic or sexual behaviour at workplace ever. I avoided it as a matter of principle over the years that I have been working full time, essentially from the time I graduated out of law school. Only exception to that rule was hiring two women, at different points of time of course, whom I was already dating at the time with full transparency and declaration to my co-founders and employees. In fact I made sure that the relationships were public knowledge, and I always left the final call to hire or not with my co-founder.

Apart from this, I never engaged in any sort of romantic or sexual interests at workplace ever. I made it a point to keep my dating life and work life separate. I even ensured that our workplace dating policy bans any sort of sexual or romantic relationships, office affairs or flirting, in order to ensure objectivity and keep away conflict of interest. If someone really wanted to date, they should inform the management so that we can decide if one of them have to leave so no conflict of interest arises in the organization. It is a rule I intend to follow for rest of my life. I believe it will serve the organization well.

It is not that there were no moments of temptation. A few times I faced situations where an intern or an employee made sexual advances, or kept flirting despite my clear lack of reciprocation. The only way I met these advances were with huge wall of disinterest. In a few cases, I had to explicitly tell them that I never appreciate such behaviour in workplace as a matter of principle and I would have to report them if the uncalled for behaviour was to continue.

I know, men have it much easier. We don’t have to be worried about sexual assaults!

Nonetheless, up until I got married in 2016, I was hyperactive in the dating scene and was going through an extremely happening phase of debauchery. There were very few rules that I would have abided by if I was interested in a woman. One of those few rules were to keep my sex life away from my work, and this rule was sacrosanct (the other sacrosanct rule was consent, in case you get a different idea).

How to respond to expressions of sexual interest from students?

As I have to deal with students almost on a daily basis, and a good part of my work is to coach them, inspire them and push them on the path of success every day, it’s not unusual that a coachee may get attracted to the coach. Psychologists and teachers are most often approached by their clients/students and sometimes have professional ethics/rules in place that prevent them from indulging in romance/sexual relationship with their clients/students. Having started teaching back in 2007, I was quite aware of this phenomenon. Another choice I had to make was to decide how I would treat students who might express their interest in me. It was, of course, a no brainer. I decided that I will never date a student while she is taking a course from us, and at least for two years after successful completion of the course so that my influence as a teacher or mentor will never matter even if I was to date a former student later on. Later, I did explore a relationship with an ex-student who propositioned beyond that 2 year mark, but it didn’t work out.

Even now, although I am married, and the chapter of sexual escapades is something that I have put an end to for good, I come across students, who despite knowing my married status (as evident on my public profiles), make it a point to show their interest overtly or subtly, only to meet the wall of non-interest. Honestly, I did enjoy the attention many a times, but I wasn’t going to jeopardize the future of the business, or the work my team put in through the years against all odds (and now, my marriage) for an affair with a student or a colleague. Not worth it at all.

If you are in position of power, is true consent available to the other person?

I fully understood my position of power as a CEO. How will an employee, consultant or vendor feel about rejecting a proposition made by the CEO who has to power to promote, give new business or fire her? Just the act of propositioning is too intimidating. What if the employee or the vendor approach you? The professional calculus, the signal everything goes haywire if you respond positively. What happens when you want to get out of that affair or relationship? The consequences on the organization are huge. Some scumbags do use this power to satisfy their sexual urges, but it is utterly irresponsible. I really feel that there is no real consent possible in such situation, just like a minor cannot consent validly to sex.

Not only the CEO, this applies to all important stakeholder and those who are growing in the organization.

I felt the need to set some of the ground rules early on for myself and my team, and that really helped. A colleague did once break the policy against having sexual relationship at workplace (although consensual, involving an outside consultant), and I took a very adamant stance about taking action against her. The message to the organization went loud and clear – we would not have this in this office, not even from someone in a senior position. At that time, I faced opposition from employees who believed that this is an unfair rule and should be removed, but I held my ground.

I think this is a missing piece in a lot of our workplaces. Let’s keep sex and work separate, please. You will meet people outside office. Let’s create a rule that men and women, everyone must keep sex and romance away from the workplace. It was never a good idea in the first place.

Look, I am no prude. I am very much a human being made of flesh and blood, and I strongly believe that every healthy adult should have as much sex as they deem fit and with as many people as they want and whoever they want (as long as such sex is consensual, of course). I am not one for moral policing of any sorts, and definitely want no moral policing at the workplace. I can comfortably say I have seduced and romanced a number of women, but none at the workplace. And I will never do so. The conflict of interest is just too much and too harmful for any organization to allow it.

I wish the startup world as well as most workplaces would adopt the culture of keeping romance/sex and work separate. It should start from the top, with the management making these rules clear for themselves and everyone else.

However, given that sexual harassment is an easy thing to allege and given the way laws have shaped up, and that there is little deterrence to false accusations, please do not expect that no one may chose to target you ever. Sexual harassment accusations are easy to stick and law provides very low barrier even when the complainant can produce no evidence (compared to other charges of similar grave import). At times, her words alone can be enough to begin an investigation, the details of which will be relished by the media and innocence or guilt may take years to establish, especially in India.

Should I be scared of false allegations of sexual harassment?

I have defended a number of people against fake sexual harassment accusations, or those who have been victimized by professional blackmail after I started ClikLawyer.com and I would not claim that I am never afraid of it. The only thing that helps me to sleep well at night is the knowledge that I have had very good principles and best practices on my side and it won’t be easy to establish such charges against me. What about you?

That’s not something I can say about my social or private life. I have made some terrible mistakes especially when I was in college. A few instances of my own behaviour don’t stand up to my own moral standards. I regret them. All I can say in my defence is that I was stupid back then. I am just glad that I never gave myself space to make those mistakes at my place of work, ever.

Every leader owes it to their work and to their people to keep their own sexual and romantic interest far away from their work.