Analysis: Personality problems may leave an astute thinker with an empty life ahead

SCOTS can be brutal towards their own. If we didn’t invent “I kent your faither”, we burnished it to a new gleam. And it’s not surprising that, now the quarry lies stricken on the floor, we wonder at ourselves and at the bitterness that leaves Fred Goodwin without his knighthood.

But it’s a complex tale, involving as it does political point-scoring and the mass media; the scale of the financial failure; the failure of judgment; the size of the personality and the volume of baggage. It’s this that makes Goodwin’s future so difficult to predict.

At a basic level, this ought to be a man deserving of sympathy. In swift succession he has lost his job, half of his pension, his marital home and his career. We wonder whether enough is enough. And yet the professional track record is inextricably linked with the personal: the numerous stories of odd, overbearing and – yes – profoundly unsympathetic behaviour.

Many are those who have seen their RBS pensions disappear since the collapse of the share price. For many, the transgressions – professional, but also on a human level – are simply beyond forgiveness. It’s a story in which sympathy has been lacking from the start. Professional rehabilitation seems a long way away. Goodwin is a qualified accountant and a banker. But he trails too many stories of boardroom strife to be welcomed by governing bodies; and his status as the face of unacceptable banking means his appointment by any organisation may carry too great a reputational risk. It is hard to assess the international damage to Goodwin’s reputation. Other countries may be quicker to forgive and to allow a second chance. It would require some significant contrition – more than most saw during the select committee “trial” of 2009. Would such abasement work? The main impediment may lie with the man himself: does he truly believe that the fault was his – and that the nemesis was deserved? Goodwin is an extraordinarily astute thinker – but with real weaknesses, as has been apparent in his mishandling of the baiting: the misreading of people’s intentions, of how to engender collegiate affection and of how he is perceived.

I suspect this weakness will continue to dog him, even after the opprobrium dissipates. The short-lived stint at RMJM suggests the essential Fred remains.

Of course, now that he is public property as well as gossip fodder within the banking industry, the rules may well change.

While it is inconceivable that Goodwin will stoop to career-makeover buffoonery, it is not impossible that change will be thrust upon him. With a proportion of spectators now aghast at this week’s events, the media could rebound, with an over-compensation every bit as dramatic – and as undeserved – as his demonisation.

As it is, Goodwin’s biggest enemy will most likely not be the Pharisees at his door. For a man of his intellect and after his 30-year ride, it will be boredom.

• Mungo Dunnett runs a management consultancy specialising in retail banking.