I work on for a small business, as a contractor and have worked closely with them for a few years to a point they became my only client two years ago.
As I was successful in helping them make a lot of money, I was also given some equity so I own a very small % of the business.
The CEO has always been a problem for me. I find people easy to get on with at work, but he strikes me as not having integrity. Which makes me quite stressed and when I worked closely with him I found I got insomnia and anxiety.
Typical problematic behaviour = truth twisting, goalpost moving, gaslighting, trying to force ridiculous deadlines, playing people off against each other, not sticking with agreements. Very charming, affable, but just snake-like and reacts with rage if you dissent.
One particular problem was me is that he's always pushing boundaries of what is or isn't ethical in a way that makes me uncomfortable.
For example he might lie to thousands of clients in order to make more sales, or he might break terms of conditions of a supplier and say it doesn't matter because they won't find out. And he'd force me to go along with it.
I understand to a degree this is founder mentality, but as I'm a really ethical person that's uncomfortable with anything like this, I've taken a step back to avoid the stress he causes me.
Anyway, I was doing a project for them under really high pressure recently, and it was a project that involved financial services so everything about it was extremely highly regulated. Every word was scrutinised by experts for weeks.
The CEO wasn't really involved, but then at the 11th hour, the he tried to get me to change something that was going out to a million customers which broke significant FCA guidelines.
I explained calmly and patiently that we couldn't do that and he went absolutely mad at me - threats, insults, telling me I had no authority. I told him if he wanted to do it, he could, but that I didn't want to be involved.
To be clear = what he was asking me to do was definitely unethical, dishonest and probably also illegal. He was doing it when there was literally about 15 minutes before going to print and as mentioned dealing with him has already given me insomnia and anxiety.
But he's been very threatening. I'm on a retainer for example where I'm paid every month and I'm a single parent and he's threatened to stop paying me as a result of my refusal.
In terms of potential results, no I was not personally at risk (beyond Professional damage if it got out) but he was at risk along with the international project manager. Quite serious risk.
Professionally speaking was I in the wrong here? Are you meant to just follow orders even if you believe them to be unethical or even illegal?
I've got no money for lawyers, and because he's said he's stopping my retainer I'm really panicking.