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Article
Hubristic leadership: A review
Eugene Sadler-Smith, Vita Akstinaite,
Graham Robinson and Tim Wray
Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, UK
Abstract
Hubristic leaders over-estimate significantly their own abilities and believe their performance to
be superior to that of others; as a consequence, they make over-confident and over-ambitious
judgements and decisions. The fact that hubristic leaders tend to be resistant to criticism, and
invulnerable to and contemptuous of the advice of others further compounds the problem. In this
article, we review conceptual, theoretical and methodological aspects of hubristic leadership
research. We examine hubristic leadership from two standpoints: first, from a psychological
and behavioural perspective, we review hubris in terms of over-confidence and its relationship
to core self-evaluation and narcissism; second, from a psychiatric perspective, we review hubris as
an acquired disorder with a distinctive set of symptoms (Hubris Syndrome), the onset of which is
associated with the acquisition of significant power. In doing so, we draw distinctions between
hubris and several related constructs, such as over-confidence, narcissism, core self-evaluation
and pride. Methodologically, we review how hubris and Hubris Syndrome can be recognised,
diagnosed and researched, and we explore some of the unique challenges and opportunities
hubris research presents. We conclude by offering some directions for future inquiry and recap-
itulate the practical and pedagogical significance of this vitally important but under-researched
leadership phenomenon.
Keywords
Core self-evaluation, hubris, Hubris Syndrome, leadership, narcissism, overconfidence, pride
Introduction
Hubris is a potentially dangerous cocktail of over-confidence, over-ambition, arrogance and
pride (Owen, 2012; Picone et al., 2014; Sadler-Smith, 2016). It is a malaise of the powerful
and successful which, when allied to contempt for the advice and criticism of others, causes
leaders to over-reach themselves significantly (Hayward, 2007; Owen and Davidson, 2009;
Robinson, 2016). As a consequence, hubris has the potential to destroy careers, wreck
organisations and wreak havoc on entire industries; if left unchecked, hubristic leadership
Corresponding author:
Eugene Sadler-Smith, Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK.
Email: e.sadler-smith@surrey.ac.uk
Leadership
2017, Vol. 13(5) 525–548
!The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1742715016680666
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can undermine institutions, threaten societal well-being and destabilise global security
(Claxton et al., 2014; Isikoff and Corn, 2006; Owen, 2012).
In demonstrating these perils, we need look no further than George W Bush’s and Tony
Blair’s hubristic alliance which impelled them jointly into the reckless invasion of Iraq in
March 2003. The hubris of this act was displayed palpably to the world in Bush’s now
infamous ‘Mission Accomplished speech’ delivered on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier
USS Abraham Lincoln on 1 May 2003 ‘dressed like a Hollywood actor in flying gear’ (Owen,
2008: 431). The Watson Institute at Brown University estimated that this far-from-accom-
plished mission has so far cost $1.7 trillion and resulted in the deaths of 134,000 Iraqi
civilians. The political, economic, military and humanitarian costs of the invasion of Iraq
reverberate to this day. The former British diplomat Carne Ross, in his personal testimony
to Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq Inquiry (2016) stated that the leaders responsible for the UK’s first
full-scale invasion and occupation of a sovereign state since the Second World War should
exercise ‘greater humility to the complexity, intrinsic uncertainty and unknowability of such
endeavours, and eschew forever the hubris that states, ‘‘we know, we understand, trust us’’’
1
(emphasis added).
The consequences of unfettered hubristic leadership can be profound: stakeholders in
organisations, institutions and civil society – managers, educators, researchers, as well as
leaders themselves – need to be able not only to understand and recognise signs of emergent
and extant hubris, but also be able and prepared to take the necessary steps to prevent its
potentially dire consequences from materialising. In contributing to this endeavour, the aim
of our article is to provide a review of how hubristic leadership has been conceptualised and
researched. Unlike phenomena such as charismatic or narcissistic leadership, hubris does not
yet have an extensively validated theoretical apparatus (see Garrard and Robinson, 2016;
Picone et al., 2014). Moreover, even though hubris is perhaps the original destructive or ‘not-
so-great man [sic]’ leadership concept, it has yet to feature prominently in mainstream
reviews of the leadership literature (e.g. Dinh et al., 2014; Hernandez et al., 2011). We
seek to familiarise readers with the concept of hubris as well as recent developments in
hubris theory and research and, in doing so, contribute to the establishment of hubris as
a significant feature of the leadership studies landscape.
Our review is structured as follows. Following some general background, we discuss
hubris from the psychological and behavioural perspective in terms of over-confidence
and its relationship to core self-evaluation (CSE) and narcissism. We then turn to the psy-
chiatric perspective in order to review the concept of hubris as an acquired disorder (Hubris
Syndrome) associated with the attainment of significant power. We then transition into
methodological territory by considering how hubris can be identified, diagnosed and studied
and discuss some of the unique challenges and opportunities hubris research presents to
leadership scholars. We conclude by offering some directions for future inquiry and recap-
itulate the significance of this vitally important but under-researched leadership
phenomenon.
Background
Hubris is catalysed by the intoxication of power and is fuelled by past successes (Owen,
2012). It is perceived typically as being associated with a moment of failure precipitated
when leaders take over-ambitious and over-confident decisions with disregard for contrary
advice or criticism (Hayward and Hambrick, 1997; Li and Tang, 2010; Owen and Davidson,
526 Leadership 13(5)
2009; Roll, 1986). The relationship of hubris to nemesis (Ne
´mesis was the Ancient Greek
goddess of retribution who took revenge on any mortal who had the temerity to assume god-
like powers) is well known. It is captured historically in events such as Napoleon’s disastrous
march home from his abortive attempt to take Moscow (see Kroll et al., 2000) and allegor-
ically in the Icarus and Dædalus episode in Ancient Greek myth. In Ovid’s poetic account of
the Greek tale the father (Dædalus) and his son (Icarus) acquired, through Dædalus’ crafts-
manship, the God-like power of flight:
...all this adventurous flying went to Icarus’ head ...he’d fallen in love with the sky, and soared
higher and higher. The scorching rays of the sun grew closer and softened the fragrant wax which
fastened his plumage. The wax dissolved; and ...Icarus flapped his naked arms deprived of the
wings which had caught the air that was buoying them upwards. (Metamorpho
´ses, Book 8, lines
221–230)
Icarus plunged to his self-inflicted doom in the Ica
´rian Sea. In modern times, the post-
Falklands War political hubris of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher brought a
miserable, and arguably self-inflicted, end to her three-term premiership (Owen, 2012).
Hubristic leadership in business organisations has been implicated in the demise of
Lehman Brothers and the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (Brennan and Conroy, 2013;
Stein, 2013; Wray, 2016). Hubris has also been mooted as an organisational- as well as
individual-level phenomenon: the Columbia space shuttle disaster (in which all seven crew
members died) and the Deep Water Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (current esti-
mated cost $62bn) have been attributed, at least in part, to ‘corporate hubris’ at NASA and
British Petroleum, respectively (Mason, 2004; Ladd, 2012). In this review, we will focus on
the hubris at the individual level of analysis but acknowledge the potential significance of
corporate hubris and the need to develop this idea further.
Researchers in business and management have conceptualised and analysed hubris in a
variety of ways. In this review, we consider firstly the psychological and behavioural per-
spective in which the causes of hubris are ascribed to various leaders attributes including
over-confidence, inflated self-evaluations, poor judgement, mis-calibrated performance and
hubristic (as opposed to authentic) pride (Claxton et al., 2014; Li and Tang, 2010;
Malmendier and Tate, 2008; Picone et al., 2014; Roll, 1986; Sadler-Smith, 2016). Within
this view, researchers have also framed hubris as a paradox which has ‘bright and dark’ sides
(Judge et al., 2009: 855) rendering it ‘simultaneously good and bad’ (Picone et al., 2014: 460).
The roots of hubris as a significant area of scholarly inquiry are to be found in the work of
behavioural finance scholars who studied senior leaders’ judgement in relation to merger and
acquisition (M&A) decisions. It is with this subject that we begin our review.
Hubris and over-confidence
The first prominent mention of hubris in the management and organisation studies literature
is Roll (1986) and colleagues’ theory of why some CEOs take significant decisions to acquire
firms ‘despite abundant evidence’ that the deal is unlikely to yield the ‘hoped-for results’
(Finkelstein et al., 2009: 80). Roll (1986) attributed such behaviour to overconfidence (a
cognitive bias) and made this a central precept of his ‘hubris hypothesis’. He proposed that
financially unsuccessful corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&As) can be motivated by
acquiring executives’ hubristic overconfidence in their personal judgement and decision-
making capabilities. CEO overconfidence thereby results in upwardly biased evaluations
Sadler-Smith et al. 527
of the potential value to the acquiring firm of a proposed takeover and results in larger
premiums being paid. An extensive body of behavioural finance research exists which
broadly supports the hubris hypothesis (e.g. Al Rahahleh and Wie, 2012; Antoniou et al.,
2008; Brooke and Oliver, 2005; Brown and Sarma, 2007; Pangarkar and Lie, 2004). For a
review, see Sadler-Smith (2016: 43–54).
Although offering important insights at the aggregate level, Roll’s theory is found want-
ing when applied to several high-profile instances of hubristic CEOs’ mergers and acquisi-
tions that resulted in financial gain. This highlights the fact that hubris is a more complex
phenomenon than a mere over-confidence hypothesis suggests. For example, financial gains
were made at Lehman Brothers following corporate acquisitions in spite of the indisputable
hubris of CEO Richard Fuld (Stein, 2013). Before nemesis struck, there was ‘little evidence
to suggest [the CEO’s hubris] damaged Lehman’ (Stein, 2013: 288) so much so that Fuld’s
hubris may have been assistive in stabilising and growing the company following its demer-
ger from American Express in 1994 (the hubris hypothesis research has tended to overlook
the paradoxical aspects of hubris, see below). Unresolved theoretical and empirical questions
remain regarding the absolute veracity of the hubris hypothesis. More complex explanations
for M&A behaviour – including the effects of learning – have been proposed more recently
by behavioural finance researchers themselves (e.g. Aktas et al., 2011).
Although it is pertinent to hubristic leadership, and was ‘first-on-the–scene’, hubris
hypothesis research occupies a specific and fairly narrow behavioural finance niche (albeit
with a voluminous body of empirical work) within the more general hubris literature (Sadler-
Smith, 2016). Indeed with this restriction in mind, Hayward and Hambrick (1997) argued
that any ‘hubris hypothesis’ ought to be broadened by defining the construct in terms that go
beyond over-confidence (which is a restriction of Roll’s theory) and test the effects of hubris-
tic decision making in domains beyond aggregate stockholder returns on acquisition
announcements.
In addressing these two issues, Hayward and Hambrick (1997: 106) defined hubris as
‘exaggerated pride or confidence often resulting in retribution’. They analysed the relation-
ship between three sources of CEO hubris (recent organisational success; media praise for
the CEO; CEO self-importance) and acquisition premiums (moderated in their research
model by weak board vigilance and the collapsing together of CEO and chairman roles).
They found positive relationships between recent CEO performance, media praise for the
CEO, CEO’s self-importance and premiums paid for firm acquisitions. Moreover, these
effects were amplified by weak governance, i.e. where there were greater numbers of insi-
der-directors on the boards and where the CEO and chairman roles were consolidated.
Hayward and Hambrick (1997) concluded that CEO hubris can have a significant effect
on the success or otherwise of acquisitions. They also argued that one way in which firms can
mitigate the effects of CEO hubris is by having sufficient numbers of outside directors on
company boards and by having boards chaired by someone other than the CEO.
Over-confidence is a cognitive bias towards over-estimating the likely positive outcomes
of future events (Dowling and Lucey, 2013; Hiller and Hambrick, 2005) allied to an ‘unten-
able faith in one’s ability to achieve target outcomes’ (Picone et al., 2014: 449). It has been
used as a convenient proxy for operationalising and measuring hubris. However, as is clear
from the definition of hubris used in our opening remarks (combination of over-confidence,
over-ambition, arrogance and pride, allied to contempt for the advice and criticism of others,
catalysed by power and fuelled by success), we consider hubris to be more than, and hence
distinct from, over-confidence. For example, Owen (2012) considers contempt to be ‘one of
528 Leadership 13(5)
[its] more important signs’ (p. 145), and Picone et al. (2014: 449) itemise three ways in which
hubris manifests itself: overestimation of one’s abilities and the probabilities of one’s being
successful; over-precision in one’s own beliefs; and over-placement of one’s own perform-
ance relative to that of others (see ‘better-than-average effect’, below). To focus on overcon-
fidence at the expense of other aspects of hubristic behaviour will offer researchers only a
partial view of the phenomenon.
From the cognitive perspective, a further negative effect of leaders’ inflated self-confidence
occurs when rationality – long-recognised as a bounded but nonetheless an important aspect
of decision processes (Dean and Sharfman, 1996; Simon, 1991) – becomes diminished and
there is a corresponding over-emphasis on the use of intuition. Hubristic CEOs draw on
intuitions rooted in past success (Picone et al., 2014). This can be an advantage in high-
velocity environments (Sadler-Smith and Burke-Smalley, 2015). However, when allied to
over-estimates of one’s own capabilities and performance, it can give rise to reduced atten-
tion to strategy formulation and lack of concern for detail which can lead to misguided
diversification strategies, over-ambitious internationalisation plans, over-reliance on acqui-
sition led growth and excessive debt financing (Picone et al., 2014: 458–459).
In extreme cases, intuition may take hold to the extent that it becomes an ‘unbridled and
dangerous’ source of hubristic mis-judgement (Owen, 2016: x). Claxton et al. (2014) point to
the example of George W Bush’s rebuttals to those who questioned his policy decisions
relating to the invasion of Iraq: ‘‘‘instinct’’ told him that ‘God’ had given him a mission to
rid the world of Al-Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism, hence it was acceptable to dispense
with analysis and ignore inconvenient facts’ (p. 15). This is part of what Blaug (2016) refers
to as the ‘pathology of power’ (p. 85): a vicious circle of cognitive simplifications and intui-
tive substitutions for effortful information processing. In Bush’s case, this escalated and
manifested eventually as attributions to some ‘higher power’ thereby rendering his actions
answerable to only history or God rather than the more mundane court of ‘colleagues or
public opinion’ (Owen, 2007: 2).
Hubris, CSE and narcissism
To the extent that hubris research tends to focus on organisational elites, such as CEOs, it is
important to bear in mind that such extraordinary leaders ‘tend to be extraordinary in their
own estimation’ (Hiller and Hambrick, 2005: 297, emphasis added). Indeed, people in general
tend to consider themselves ‘above average’ on positive characteristics (e.g. a majority of
people will rate their driving skills as above average). This so-called ‘better-than-average’
effect (Alicke et al., 1995) causes individuals to attribute successful outcomes to their own
actions (self-serving attribution) and attribute failure to factors such as ‘bad luck’ (Miller
and Ross, 1975). This effect is compounded because CEOs’ estimates of their own (seemingly
extraordinary) abilities tend to be derived from comparisons to the population average (e.g.
the ‘average’ manager) rather than the average CEO. This error results in base-rate neglect
(i.e. placing too little weight on the CEO base level); the effect is amplified in the rarefied
atmosphere of top management teams (TMTs) where there are few comparators against
which CEOs can make accurate self-evaluations. Hence, senior leaders are especially prone
to overestimating both their own skill levels relative to others and the positivity of outcomes
stemming from their personal decisions (Malmendier and Tate, 2005).
It has been argued that hyper Core self-evaluation (CSE) corresponds ‘exactly to what is
colloquially referred to as hubris’ (Hiller and Hambrick, 2005: 306). Hyper-CSE is concerned
Sadler-Smith et al. 529
with how individuals consider themselves in relation to their social context in terms of self-
efficacy (belief in one’s ability to achieve an objective), locus of control (whether or not
control over one’s destiny is controlled by internal or external factors), emotional stability
(control over and levels of anxiety and stress) and self-esteem (perceptions of self-worth and
self-acceptance). Hiller and Hambrick (2005) consider hyper-CSE to be ‘largely shaped by
genetic factors during formative years, then reinforced (or diminished) by long-term feed-
back processes, and finally, subject to further adjustments in the face of recent life events’
(p. 306).
Individuals who have risen to senior executive levels in organisations tend to be overcon-
fident and hence may be prone to hyper-CSE (Goel and Thakor, 2008; Picone et al., 2014).
CEOs who exhibit elevated levels of CSE have heightened feelings of emotional stability
(I am free from anxiety), self-esteem (I am worthy), self-efficacy (I succeed at tasks) and locus
of control (Life’s events are within my control). Hyper-CSE may assist executives in their
pursuit of personal (e.g. career ambitions) and organisational (e.g. growth by acquisition)
goals, see Hiller and Hambrick (2005: 300); however, the effects of hyper-CSE are not always
beneficial to the individual or the organisation:
We agree that – up to a point – managerial confidence, and its fuller variant, CSE, are exceed-
ingly beneficial for propelling action and motivating others: but we believe that beyond that
point, or at some extreme, managerial confidence and hyper-CSE can bring about naı
¨ve and
even foolish behaviours. (Hiller and Hambrick, 2005: 313)
Hiller and Hambrick (2005) also delineate hyper-CSE from narcissism, arguing that execu-
tive CSE is related to healthy (optimal) narcissism but unrelated to unhealthy reactive
(destructive or excessive) narcissism. Two points arise from this. First, whilst hyper CSE
approximates well to certain aspects of hubris it does not subsume or negate hubris (see our
definition). Second, we delineate hubris from narcissism on the basis that the latter is ‘at its
most basic self-love’ (of which many of us show some signs, and a certain amount of which is
necessary, see Kets de Vries, 2016; Loch, 2016) which, in excess, may be an attempt to
compensate for an ‘unstable sense of self-esteem’ (Hiller and Hambrick, 2005: 302).
Hubrists are not the equivalent of narcissists in general or even reactive narcissists in
particular (i.e. narcissism in its pathological form). Narcissists are flagrant attention seekers,
they have a grandiose sense of self-importance, search persistently for admiration, lack
empathy, take advantage of and devalue others and delude themselves that their problems
are unique and exceptionally burdensome (Hiller and Hambrick, 2005; Kets de Vries, 2016).
Narcissism and hubris may be related to the extent that a less healthy narcissistic personality
may predispose a person to Hubris Syndrome (Ghaemi et al., 2016, and see below) which
could lead to hubristic behaviours in the workplace (Brennan and Conroy, 2013). The rela-
tionship between hubris and CSE and narcissism, as well as personality more generally, is an
important area for further study.
Hubris exists as a distinct cognitive/affective and situated/contextual phenomenon in its
own right (i.e. it is not sufficient to distinguish between hubris versus narcissism simply on
the basis of ‘love-of-power’ versus ‘love-of-self’, respectively); it is further distinguished by its
association with a trajectory (or process, see below) of rise followed by ‘retribution’
(Hayward and Hambrick, 1997: 106) rather than the ‘relatively stable individual difference’
of narcissism (Campbell et al., 2011: 269). Furthermore, in terms of the phenomenon’s
temporal dynamics, Kets de Vries (2003) and Owen and Davidson (2009) depict leaders as
acquiring, succumbing or sometimes being overwhelmed by hubris at certain points in time
530 Leadership 13(5)
or at particular stages of their leadership careers. For example, Franklin D Roosevelt
capitulated to hubris following the death of his restraining voice and ‘toe-holder’ Louis
Howe (Claxton et al., 2014; Hoogenboezem, 2007). Owen’s studies of how hubris arises
and manifests in political leadership characterises it as an ‘intoxication of power’ but
which may abate once power is lost (Owen, 2012; Owen and Davidson, 2009).
These various observations point to distinctions between hubris and related constructs
such as narcissism, over-confidence, pride and CSE (see Table 1). We conceptualise hubris as
upwardly biased judgement and decision making associated with the possession or acquisi-
tion of significant, and often unfettered, power. Furthermore, prior successes and the praise
of influential third parties for hubrists contribute to weakly grounded, and sometimes irra-
tional and even foolish, judgements and decisions. Having arrived at these various distinc-
tions and observations from a psychological and behavioural viewpoint, we turn now to
reviewing the study of hubris from a psychiatric perspective.
Hubris as an acquired disorder
Research into the careers of various British and American Prime Ministers and Presidents by
Owen and Davidson (2009) suggests that hubristic leadership could be a manifestation of
an acquired disorder which has been labelled ‘Hubris Syndrome’. Hubris Syndrome is charac-
terised by recklessness, contempt and a lack of attention to details, it is associated with the
intoxicating effects of holding power under conditions of largely unfettered discretion.
Succumbing to Hubris Syndrome is often preceded by a period of ‘overwhelming success’
(Owen and Davidson, 2009: 1397) whereby self-confidence and ambition which has thus far
proven to be adaptive, may tip-over into hubristic and hence maladaptive, over-confidence and
over-ambition (see da Silva Rosa et al., 2004; Hayward and Hambrick, 1997; Picone et al., 2014).
Table 1. Distinctions between hubris and related constructs.
Construct Description
Hyper core self-evaluation
(CSE)
Excessive levels of self-efficacy, locus of control, emotional stability and self-
esteem (Hiller and Hambrick, 2005)
Hubris Overestimation of one’s own abilities resulting in overconfident, overambitious
judgement and decision making, associated with the acquisition of significant
power, invulnerable to and contemptuous of the advice and criticism of
others
Hubris Syndrome Behavioural transformation of a leader’s personality associated with the
acquisition of significant power, recognisable in terms of 14 symptoms, five of
which are unique to the condition (Owen, 2006; Owen and Davidson, 2009)
Narcissism Relatively stable individual difference consisting of grandiosity, self-love and
inflated self-views (Campbell et al., 2011: 269)
Overconfidence Cognitive bias towards over-estimating the likely positive outcomes of future
events (Dowling and Lucey, 2013) based on over-estimation of one’s abilities
and over-precision in one’s beliefs
Pride Authentic pride: positive emotion felt upon recognising one’s actual contribu-
tion towards a desirable outcome
Hubristic pride: negative emotion associated with arrogance, conceit and self-
aggrandisement (Bodolica and Spraggon, 2011; Tracy and Robins, 2014).
Sadler-Smith et al. 531
Hubris Syndrome manifests in a leaders’ behavioural transformation (Owen, 2006; Owen
and Davidson, 2009) and is recognisable in terms of 14 symptoms (see Table 2). Five of the
symptoms of Hubris Syndrome are proposed as being unique to the condition whilst other
symptoms overlap with various Cluster B personality disorders as indicated by dramatic,
excessively emotional or unpredictable lines of thought and/or behaviours (specified in the
American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
[DSM]-V) such as Narcissistic, Antisocial and Histrionic Personality Disorders.
2
Its specifi-
cation in terms of these behavioural traits allows Hubris Syndrome to be positioned poten-
tially as a psychopathology (International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 10, 1994;
Rodgers, 2011).
The symptoms of Hubris Syndrome are expressed in behaviours such as inflated self-
confidence and self-perception, arrogance, messianic manner, lack of humility and contempt
(Owen and Davidson, 2009). They contribute to a leader’s ‘mental blindness’ and irration-
ality (Owen, 2012). In order to diagnose Hubris Syndrome, Owen and Davidson (2009)
proposed (1) that if three or more of the 14 symptoms are demonstrated continuously,
and with at least one symptom being unique to Hubris Syndrome (see Table 2), a person
can be classed as suffering from this syndrome; (2) provided that there are no other psychi-
atric disorders or conditions that might affect the individual’s behaviour and cognition (e.g.
depressive illness, organic brain disease, bipolar disorder, substance abuse, etc.).
A key aspect of hubris as a substantial change in leadership behaviour is that it appears to
be triggered by an external factor – the acquisition and exercising of significant power –
which feeds the development of the syndrome over time (the precise length of time cannot be
specified accurately since each case is situation-dependent). The leader’s prior experience,
Table 2. Symptoms of Hubris Syndrome (Owen and Davidson, 2009).
1. A narcissistic propensity to see their world primarily as an arena in which to exercise power and seek
glory
2. A predisposition to take actions which seem likely to cast the individual in a good light—i.e. in order to
enhance image
3. A disproportionate concern with image and presentation
4. A messianic manner of talking about current activities and a tendency to exaltation
5. An identification with the nation, or organisation to the extent that the individual regards his/her outlook
and interests as identical
a
6. A tendency to speak in the third person or use the royal ‘we’
a
7. Excessive confidence in the individual’s own judgement and contempt for the advice or criticism of others
8. Exaggerated self-belief, bordering on a sense of omnipotence, in what they personally can achieve
9. A belief that rather than being accountable to the mundane court of colleagues or public opinion, the
court to which they answer is history or God
10. An unshakable belief that in that court they will be vindicated
a
11. Loss of contact with reality; often associated with progressive isolation
12. Restlessness, recklessness and impulsiveness
a
13. A tendency to allow their ‘broad vision’, about the moral rectitude of a proposed course, to obviate the
need to consider practicality, cost or outcomes
a
14. Hubristic incompetence, where things go wrong because too much self-confidence has led the leader not
to worry about the nuts and bolts of policy
a
Symptoms unique to Hubris Syndrome.
532 Leadership 13(5)
recent successes and institutional and organisational environment (e.g. minimal constraints
on her or his behaviour) contribute to the aggravation of the condition which leads slowly to
a toxifying, ‘drug-like’ effect of positional power resulting eventually in weakly grounded
and non-rational decision making, cognition and behaviours (Claxton et al., 2014; Martin,
1999; Owen, 2012; Raven, 1993; Robertson, 2012). Moreover, the presence of even mild
positive illusion (i.e. the entirely normal, but illusory, sense of control and of being more
optimistic than circumstances warrant) in situations where power is held may predispose
leaders to developing hubristic behaviours (Ghaemi et al., 2016: 35). Other risk factors
include: lack of realism; lack of empathy; mania/bipolar illness/hyperthymic temperament;
narcissism/antisocial personality/histrionic personality; drugs (amphetamines and cortico-
steroids); male gender; post-traumatic stress disorder; anxiety; psychotic conditions (delu-
sions) (Ghaemi et al., 2016: 18–21).
The intensity of Hubris Syndrome may fluctuate and can be catalysed or reinforced by
contextual factors and external events over-and-above the acquisition of power. Such factors
and events might include the removal of constraints, a record of successes or the precipita-
tion of crisis situations involving pressing and complex decisions (e.g. Bush and Blair’s geo-
political decision making in the case of the Iraq invasion). However if the key stimulant,
power, is reduced or taken away Hubris Syndrome seems to react correspondingly and
becomes less marked, abates or disappears altogether (Owen, 2012), but further research
is required.
Questions have been raised regarding the uniqueness of Hubris Syndrome and whether
or not it is a sufficiently distinguishable condition given the overlaps with relevant per-
sonality disorders (see Table 2). Most of the psychiatric conditions for personalities classed
under the Cluster B category in the DSM-V
3
tend to develop in childhood or adolescence
and continue throughout one’s life. However, Hubris Syndrome seems to arise in adult-
hood only when, as noted above, an individual has occupied a position of power for a
period of time (Owen and Davidson, 2009). Hence, it has the potential to emerge at any
time during adulthood contingent upon the acquisition of significant power. Hubris
Syndrome is therefore different ‘from personality disorders that appear in childhood or
adolescence and continue into adulthood’ in that it ‘manifests in later life and should not
therefore be seen as a personality disorder but as an illness of position as much as of the
person’ (Owen, 2008: 428). This feature represents an important source of difference
between Hubris Syndrome and relevant personality disorders and suggests that Hubris
Syndrome is not merely a subtype of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (Ghaemi et al.,
2015).
The acquisition of Hubris Syndrome has similarities with other acquired disorders, such
as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which is trauma-related and stress-induced.
Similar to the exposure of a traumatic event in triggering PTSD, it is argued that exposure
to power triggers Hubris Syndrome in certain individuals (Owen, 2012; Owen and Davidson,
2009). It should be noted, that although hubris is deemed to be a condition of adults and is
triggered mainly because of position of power, there has been some research linking hubris
with childhood experiences (i.e. traumatic life events in early life) that might predispose
certain people to hubris (Akstinaite, 2016) or alterations in brain function resulting in
changes in behaviours and cognitions indicative of an underlying neurological disorder
(Garrard et al., 2014). Further research might explore the antecedents of Hubris
Syndrome, pre-dispositional factors, the dynamics of the syndrome and the specifics of its
relationship to relevant personality disorders.
Sadler-Smith et al. 533
Hubris and context
Business management, as well as western culture in general, has long been fascinated by the
idea of the leader (charismatic, hubristic or otherwise) as hero, villain or tragically damaged
individual (Grint, 2010; Tourish, 2013). It is therefore unsurprising that hubris research has
focused on individual leaders, the influence they have and the impact of their flawed
responses in the lead-up to damaging events (Hayward, 2007; Owen, 2012). However, the
over-individualising of hubris can give rise to a neglect of important issues of social, situ-
ation and context. In making sense of hubristic leadership by viewing leadership itself as
sensemaking (Pye, 2005) Weick’s axiom (1995: 51) is apposite: ‘sensemaking is about staying
in touch with context’. We believe that paying attention to the wider, shifting and frequently
turbulent contexts within which leaders and their organisations and institutions operate is
significant since this may determine the nature and causes of hubristic leadership as well as
help in understanding how to mitigate its potentially destructive effects.
When Hubris Syndrome was proposed it is noteworthy that Owen and Davidson (2009)
symptomatised it in terms of ‘disproportionate concern with image and presentation’, ‘exces-
sive confidence in the individual’s own judgement’, ‘exaggerated self-belief, bordering on a
sense of omnipotence, in what they personally can achieve’, ‘loss of contact with reality; often
associated with progressive isolation’ (p. 1398, emphases added). Implicit in Owen and
Davidson’s symptomology for Hubris Syndrome is the issue of how the strength of any
particular hubristic behaviour translates into maladaptive outcomes. This in turn begs ques-
tions such as: how much concern with image should be considered ‘disproportionate’; how
much confidence is ‘excessive’; how would we know that our leader’s self-belief has become
inappropriately ‘exaggerated’; or how broad is the range and scope of the ‘reality’ with which
we should expect our leaders to maintain contact?
In conceptualising hubris as a context-dependent, over-developed strength (see Kaplan
and Kaiser, 2006) taking account of the setting in which the potential hubrist and the lead-
ership decisions she or he takes are situated is vital. Indeed in making recommendations for
the mitigation of hubris it is difficult to overstate the importance of acknowledging the
context in which leaders and the top management group (e.g. the board) take their decisions.
We believe that it is impossible to understand hubris, let alone mitigate its effects, without
seeing it as embedded within an organisation’s executive and governance structures and the
effects this relationship has on performance (see Tang et al., 2011). Given that there is a
‘swell of opinion’ that boards of directors collectively are partly to blame for business fail-
ures (Mellahi, 2005: 261), it is not clear why boards themselves fail to detect warning signals
of the potentially damaging effects of CEO hubris and if and when they do detect the early
signs of impending failure why in many cases they appear to be passive.
There are parallels with, as well as lessons to be learned from, so-called high-reliability
organisations (HROs), i.e. ‘organisations that are able to manage and sustain almost error-
free performance despite operating in hazardous conditions where the consequences of
errors could be catastrophic’ (Lekka, 2011: v). For example, reports of air accidents occur-
ring during the 1980s (Helmreich et al., 1999) identified a disturbing number of fatal acci-
dents that were consequence of erroneous decisions on the part of the aircraft’s captain
whose position power (Raven, 1993) in flight deck settings over-rode other forms of
power or knowledge. Of particular concern was that in several instances other members
of the crew had been aware of the errors being made by their senior officer but, nevertheless,
failed to question or challenge the captain’s decision. Helmreich et al. (1999) concluded that
534 Leadership 13(5)
this failure was largely down to the fact that ultimate and unquestionable authority was
assigned to the captain within a ‘command-and-control’ culture. As a result, it was extremely
difficult for the captain’s formal authority to be challenged even in circumstances where
those crew members who were in a position potentially to contest the captain’s view were
fully aware that his actions were life-threatening. Similar weaknesses have been observed in
failures of leadership within hospital crisis management centres (Sundar et al., 2007) where
the most senior clinical or surgical specialist has traditionally assumed command automat-
ically, even when other specialists have been present who were better qualified to deal with a
specific crisis.
In such cases of leadership failure, situationally specific social structures and organisa-
tional processes and routines were found to have been unsuited to the circumstances gener-
ated by rapid changes in the wider contexts within which leadership was being exercised. In
recent years, airlines and hospital crisis management centres have modified significantly their
policies and practices giving greater emphasis both to team leadership and collective
accountability. This has enhanced HROs’ capability to respond appropriately in situations
of crisis and high uncertainty and thereby mitigate the hubristic behaviours of leaders who
hold positional power. A consequence of such modifications has been a significant reduction
in accident and mortality rates (Helmreich et al., 1999; Sundar et al., 2007).
We are convinced that the nature, causes and effects of hubristic leadership will be better
understood by taking into account the dynamics of the social situation and organisational
context within which the potentially hubristic leader is located alongside a focus on the
individual leader her or himself. However, while this contextualised approach is increasingly
a feature, if not the norm, in HROs, it has yet to become general practice in business,
political and other institutions where operating conditions are not necessarily as hazardous
nor are the consequences of errors catastrophic for life.
Where the contexts within which leaders operate are, ‘dynamic, ill-structured, ambiguous,
unpredictable’ leaders need to demonstrate greater ‘mindfulness’ (Weick and Sutcliffe, 2001:
93). This can be achieved by an orientation towards the subtleties of context through lead-
ership that: demonstrates willingness to accept situational complexity; resists the temptation
to simplify; displays a preoccupation with the possibility of error; maintains sensitivity to
operations against a background of deferring to expertise; commits to individual and organ-
isational resilience (Weick and Sutcliffe, 2001). These conditions for mindfulness are at
somewhat odds with the attributes of hubris as identified by Picone et al. (2014) and
which result in a ‘cognitive inertia’ (see Shondrick et al., 2010) akin to a form of ‘mindless-
ness’, namely: reduced attention to strategy formulation, repetition of actions that led to past
success, not taking into consideration unlikely scenarios and alternative strategic choices,
and a perseverant (i.e. dogmatic) approach to choice and an unwillingness to change even
when change is what is needed (pp. 454–456).
Risk is an unavoidable dimension of the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous
contexts in which business leaders operate, hence their orientation to perceived and actual
risk is an important determinant of leader behaviour (Bennett and Lemoine, 2015; Sitkin and
Pablo, 1992). We know from Roll’s hubris hypothesis that hubristic CEOs are more prone to
risk-taking behaviours (see Sadler-Smith, 2016). Hubris is associated with a low level of risk
perception for two reasons: first, hubris warps the leader’s recognition of the possibility
success and failure to such an extent that s/he over-estimates the likelihood of success;
second, hubris amplifies the perception of the anticipated gain whilst downplaying the
resource requirements for the implementation of ambitious plans (Picone et al., 2014).
Sadler-Smith et al. 535
However, the extent to which this relationship between hubris and risk holds also depends
on the context within which the leader operates. In a study of over 2790 manufacturing firms
in China, Li and Tang (2010) observed that the positive relationship between CEO hubris
(over-estimations in subjective judgements of their firm’s performance) and risk taking (deci-
sions to invest in new technology) was strongest when a firm faced complex but munificent
market conditions, had less inertia (as in the case of younger firms) and more intangible
resources, and where the CEO was not politically appointed and the CEO did not chair the
board. Li and Tang (2010) concluded that a firm which allows too much discretion to a
hubristic CEO may be prone to undue risk-taking and that this can have deleterious con-
sequences for the firm’s performance.
An implication of the relationship between riskiness of the context the focal decision and
the hubris of the leader is that it is important that firms become vigilant towards this
potential problem and have the necessary governance structures that are capable of moni-
toring and protecting firms from CEO hubris. There are many examples of firms, including
Vivendi, Enron, Tyco, World Com and Long Term Capital, whose boards failed in their
governance function and exposed these businesses and their markets to the potentially
damaging effects of CEO hubris. Moreover, occasions on which boards have intervened
to disempower a hubrist are notable by their scarcity (Kets de Vries, 2016: 95). These
findings underscore the importance of the role played by the institutional context both in
determining the nature and causes of hubris and in mitigating its effects.
The media are a significant stakeholder in the leader’s context and have an important role
to play in—and it could be argued some responsibility for—the emergence of hubris. As
noted earlier, greater media praise for a CEO was associated with larger premiums paid for
acquisitions (Hayward and Hambrick, 1997). Relatedly, Malmendier and Tate (2009) found
that when CEOs attain ‘superstar’ status, for example through prestigious business awards,
they subsequently underperform both relative to their performance before the award and to
a matched sample of non-award winning CEOs. Award-winning CEOs also extract more
compensation from the firm following the awards, and spend more time on public and
private activities outside their companies, for example by taking seats on other boards
and writing popular management and leadership books (Malmendier and Tate, 2009).
Moreover, the undesirable effects of media-induced superstar status appear to be strongest
in firms that had the weakest corporate governance, further underlining the imperative for
strong boards of directors which are able to detect and are prepared to act on the early
warning signs of CEO hubris.
Paradox, retribution and process
Three further thought-provoking aspects of hubris are its paradoxical nature (Cronin and
Genovese, 2015; Judge et al., 2009; Picone et al., 2014), its association with nemesis and
retribution (Owen, 2006; Petit and Bollaert, 2012) and its trajectory through time (Wray and
Sadler-Smith, 2016).
The paradox of hubris
Hubris is a paradox in that it has contradictory yet inter-related elements (such as confi-
dence/overconfidence, intended/unintended outcomes) that exist simultaneously, have
underlying tensions, and persist over time (see Smith and Lewis, 2011). For example,
536 Leadership 13(5)
although hubris is considered a ‘greedy aspect’ of strategic leadership (Haynes et al., 2015)
and hence a ‘dark-side’ trait of leaders (alongside narcissism and Machiavellianism), it can
also exhibit a ‘bright’ side (Picone et al., 2014: 449). Looked at positively, the leadership
strengths which eventually turn hubristic may actually enable a leader’s emergence and
subsequent effectiveness in the bold pursuit of an ambitious vision (see also Bollaert and
Petit, 2010 for further discussion).
This paradoxical aspect of hubris is reflected in Owen and Davidson’s (2009: 1397) argu-
ment that ‘Hubris Syndrome’ might develop from prior and less intensive hubristic traits (or
behaviours) which can ‘easily [be] thought of as adaptive’ in certain contexts. Leadership
strengths, for example self-confidence, proper ambition or decisiveness, may become over-
developed such that they reach a tipping point at which they become hubristic weaknesses
(i.e. over-confidence, over-ambition or impulsiveness). For example, Tony Blair’s healthy
leadership energy metamorphosed into a messianic manner manifesting as self-exaltation as
in his description of the Labour Party’s 1997 election victory: ‘[we] had swept all before us,
conquered with ease, strode out with abandon. Hadn’t we fought a great campaign? Hadn’t
we impaled our enemies on our bayonet, like ripe fruit?’ (Blair, 2010: 5).
In hubristic leadership, the authentic strengths of self-confidence or identification with
one’s organisation (Gardner et al., 2005) can transmute into the hubristic weaknesses of
over-confidence and over-identification. For example, Steve Jobs considered himself not
only as the leading light in Silicon Valley but he also identified with the business to the
extent that in his mind he was Apple. His dismissal from the company in 1987 was cata-
strophic personally in as much as ‘what had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone,
and it was devastating’ (Hayward, 2007: 61). Other instances point to hubris as an excess of
legitimate leadership behaviours, for example, Tesco’s proper ambition for growing the
business internationally turning into hubristic over-ambition in its failed attempt to move
into the US market with its ‘Fresh and Easy’ convenience food stores (see below).
The hallmarks of hubristic leadership (namely overconfidence, over-ambition and hubris-
tic pride allied to an unwillingness to heed advice or listen to criticism) cause powerful and
successful leaders to over-reach themselves with negative consequences for themselves and
others. In virtue ethic terms, hubristic leaders transgress the Aristotelian ‘golden mean’ of
good moral character by failing to strike a virtuous (i.e. prudent) balance between deficiency
and excess in their behaviours (see Bright et al., 2011; Cameron and Caza, 2002; Crossan
et al., 2013; Sadler-Smith, 2012). The relationship between hubris and virtue ethics is an area
for further inquiry, for example might hubris be considered a vice and its antithesis humility
a virtue (see McNamee, 2002)?
Hubris and retribution
In the mythological perspective (e.g. the Dædalus-Icarus myth, see above), hubris exists in a
duality with its contrastive, nemesis: ‘hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it’s
going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already
started’ (Midgley, 2004: 148). Examples abound in history, popular culture and business of
hubrists who met their nemeses, from Xerxes and Napoleon Bonaparte to former Royal
Bank of Scotland Group CEO Fred Goodwin; these are well documented elsewhere, e.g.
Kroll et al. (2000).
In a re-interpretation of the relationship between hubris and nemesis, Ronfeldt’s (1994)
report for the RAND Corporation (commissioned by the Office of Research and
Sadler-Smith et al. 537
Development at the Central Intelligence Agency) incorporated hubris into a so-called
‘hubris-nemesis complex’. This complex becomes ‘blatant in moments of provocation or
crisis’ (Ronfeldt, 1994: 13) but is muted at other times. The hubris-nemesis complex is
exhibited by powerful leaders who believe they are ‘God-like’ (hubristic); however not
only do they exhibit a pretension toward an arrogant form of godliness themselves, but
also in order to maintain their status they seek through a vengeful desire to ‘confront,
defeat, humiliate and punish rivals’ who themselves aspire to hubris (Ronfeldt, 1994: vii).
In an effort to maintain power, the hubrist seeks to bring calamity on their similarly inclined
rivals. This proposed complex has ‘strange dynamics’ that can lead to high-risk and destruc-
tive behaviour (Ronfeldt, 1994).
Ronfeldt (1994) argued that attempts to deter, compel or negotiate with leaders who have
the hubris-nemesis complex (the examples given in the report were Fidel Castro, Slobodan
Milosevic and Saddam Hussein) are likely to be ‘ineffectual or disastrously counter-produc-
tive’ if they are based on approaches better-suited to dealing with ‘normal leaders’.
Ronfeldt’s (1994) remarks are prescient in that the very leaders, Bush and Blair who
sought to deliver nemesis upon Saddam Hussein in 2003 were themselves demonstrably
hubristic (Owen, 2012; Owen and Davidson, 2009). Each, in turn, met their own particular
forms of retribution for example Chilcot’s Iraq Inquiry delivered a nuanced but damming
indictment of the part Tony Blair’s leadership played in the invasion of Iraq.
It is conceivable, of course, that hubrists can escape retribution either by accident or
design. For example, a CEO who could have been labelled hubristic may exit the organisa-
tion before the negative outcomes of her or his behaviour fully materialise. A potential case
in point is Sir Terry Leahy, former CEO of Tesco, who arguably transgressed acceptable
levels of confidence with overly ambitious and overly optimistic plans to expand into the US
market with the ill-fated ‘Fresh and Easy’ small format grocery store chain. The project was
by all accounts a failure. It ended with the closure of the entire chain of 200 stores in 2013 at
a cost to Tesco £1.2billion. Leahy left Tesco in 2011 largely with his reputation largely intact.
It is far from clear whether Leahy personally, the business itself, or some toxic combination
of factors was the source of the failure of the US expansion plans. Nonetheless, the admis-
sion in Leahy’s popular management book Management in 10 Words that ‘hubris is a
common fault and one I hope to avoid’ (Leahy, 2013: 3) was, in the light of events, a telling
observation. Leahy’s self-exhortation further bolsters the imperative for developing viable
means for recognising and researching hubris in both its extant and nascent forms (see
below).
Hubris as a process
The shortcomings of traditional approaches whereby leadership is viewed as something
possessed or done by ‘the leader’ have led researchers to conceptualise leadership couched
in terms of a processual view (see Hernes, 2014; Langley et al., 2013). Tourish (2014) mooted
a processual and communicatively oriented view of leadership as a ‘fluid process of co-
orientation and co-construction between myriad organisational actors, whose ‘essence’
varies between each occasion of its occurrence’ (p. 88). Likewise, building on complexity
theory, ‘a science of process rather than state, of becoming rather than being’ (Chiles, 2003:
289), Uhl-Bien et al. (2007) argued that leadership is an emergent event comprised of the
interactions of heterogenous agents and numerous forces. From a processual view, leader-
ship is not a process that is caused by different ‘things’ (social entities or substances) with
538 Leadership 13(5)
indicative attributes, rather it is a process that evolves creatively through time as a result of
intersecting activities and events.
Processual research has the potential to illuminate how phenomena such as leadership
achieve stabilities and form patterns through time (Langley et al., 2013). As such proces-
sually informed hubris research offers the possibility for novel insights into how various
forces and flows produce the temporal patterning commonly associated with hubristic lead-
ership. Such an approach would not focus entirely on the formally assigned leader (e.g. a
CEO) or their attributes; instead, it would focus on all those involved in the process of
leadership. Theorising hubristic leadership as a processual phenomenon obviates the chal-
lenges of demarcating hubris from other substance-based constructs (e.g. over-confidence,
narcissism or the ‘dark side’ of charisma), or with determining how to diagnose, measure or
assess the level or state of a leader’s hubris.
Recognising and researching hubris
People can, if asked, often point automatically to examples of leaders in business (e.g.
Richard Fuld at Lehman Brothers), sports (e.g. Sepp Blatter at FIFA) or politics (Donald
J Trump) who through their contempt for others, exaggerated self-belief and pride, vanity,
over-confidence and arrogance have exhibited palpable signs of hubris. However, a more
systematic and reliable approach than relying merely on subjective judgements and gut
instincts is required. In this section, we review some of the issues and challenges pertaining
to hubristic leadership research.
A practical drawback of the identification of extant, rather than incipient, hubris is that
its harmful effects are already be present and, by virtue of the leader’s position, be difficult to
dislodge. All-too-often, the power-driven acts of hubristic leaders bring about deleterious
effects before interventions can be made. Furthermore, although hubristic behaviours, acts
or language are widely recognised and known, they are often not monitored, left unevaluated
and, therefore, allowed to develop unhindered. Hubris is, therefore, to some extent a ‘rear
mirror’ phenomenon interpreted and analysed after-the-fact.
One consequence of this is that it militates against opportunities to consider the dynamics
of the phenomenon as well as the possible positive effects of confidence, ambition, pride,
determination, decisiveness, etc. Moreover, the study of the trajectory of hubristic leader-
ship, rather than the hubristic end-state, opens up the possibilities of understanding how
hubris unfolds over time and identifying the junctures at which adaptive leader behaviours
(such as confidence) ‘tip over’ into maladaptivity (e.g. hubristic over-confidence).
The problems associated with hubris are compounded by the fact that certain hubristic
behaviours (such as confidence and ambition) may, as noted above, be associated with
desirable leadership traits and therefore selected for, tolerated and even encouraged. For
example, Steve Jobs at Apple and Jack Welch at General Electric both were charismatic and
hubristic leaders who drove their respective organisations to great successes. Before the 2007
financial crisis, the CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group was lauded in the media as
being perhaps the world’s best banker and made no less than a knight of the realm – ‘Sir
Fred Goodwin’ – but soon afterwards became a pariah in the eyes of the media. The prac-
tical significance of this issue is exemplified, for example, in the case of current recruitment
practices for leadership positions which actively seek-out individuals who exhibit behav-
ioural traits which may be potential sources of hubris. With these issues in mind, manage-
ment and organisational researchers might seek to develop valid and reliable tools and
Sadler-Smith et al. 539
techniques in order that the onset of hubris might be identified and diagnosed, and its
potentially damaging effects obviated or mitigated before they can take hold.
The use of symptomologies, as in the case of Hubris Syndrome (see above for a more
detailed discussion), offers potential for a ‘gold standard’ in the identification and diagnosis
of hubris. However as Russell (2011) suggests, some refinement and recasting of the symp-
toms of Hubris Syndrome may be needed as follows: (1) the person should be in a position of
power and have been so for some time; (2) judgement should be made not in terms of the
broad range of behaviours encapsulated in the symptoms. Instead an assessment should be
made of whether the person is behaving in a dysfunctional manner which results in unwise
and risky decisions to the detriment of self and others; (3) there is deterioration in behaviour
that results in excessive reaction to stressful personal or professional events.
Some have queried the status of hubris as a medical syndrome. For example, Loch (2016)
argued that hubris is the ‘tail end of a normal psychological trait, status seeking and nar-
cissism’ rather than a medical syndrome, using the analogy that just like height is not a
medical syndrome but extreme height can cause medical problems (p. 101). Although Owen
and Davidson’s (2009) symptomology has proven useful, criticisms have been levelled at the
abstractedness and indeterminacy of some of the 14 symptoms (see Russell, 2011). A further
issue stems from the fact that more than half of the symptoms overlap with other personality
disorders and this raises the question as to how particular combinations of the symptoms
capture hubris accurately and uniquely. An important step in the development of hubris
research is the empirical demarcation of hubris and Hubris Syndrome from similar and
related constructs, including overconfidence, CSE, pride and narcissism (see Table 1).
Aside from the clinical approach, researchers have developed other means by which
incipient hubris may be recognised and have thereby raised the possibility for intervention
and prevention. However, one of the methodological challenges that hubris (along with
narcissism) researchers face is the practical necessity of researching a phenomenon which
has its locus in small number of high-profile individuals who may be reluctant to engage in
data collection especially in relation to a phenomenon that is perceived to be negative. These
particular aspects of hubris mean that it may often only be possible to access it via ‘at-a-
distance’ measures.
Aside from traditional scaling and measurement techniques (e.g. Li and Tang, 2013), one
viable at-a-distance approach is based on the assumption that a leader’s behaviour and
cognition is predisposed by their personality which is then reflected in their natural language
use (Pennebaker et al., 2003). Hence, the ‘personality transition seen in Hubris Syndrome’
(Garrard, 2016: 138) which results in hubristic behaviours, may become evident in spoken
and written discourse utterances and manifest in various micro-scale linguistic features
(Amernic et al., 2010; Garrard et al., 2014). These so-called ‘linguistic markers’ (sometimes
referred to as ‘bio-markers’, see Garrard et al., 2014) may be subtle to the extent that
speakers themselves are unaware of them (Garrard et al., 2014). For example, one such
linguistic marker aligns with Hubris Syndrome symptom six ‘A tendency to speak in the
third person, or use the royal ‘‘we’’’ (Owen and Davidson, 2009: 1398).
In operationalising the use of linguistic markers for the identification of hubris, Garrard
et al. (2014) examined the transcribed spoken discourse samples of two British Prime
Ministers who are acknowledged as hubristic (Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair) and
compared these to a British Prime Minister who is generally considered to be non-hubrisitc
(Sir John Major). Garrard et al. (2014) observed differences between the hubrists and the
non-hubrist in terms of several important aspects of language use. Garrard et al. (2014)
540 Leadership 13(5)
concluded that it is possible to identify candidate utterances which may serve as linguistic
(bio-)markers of Hubris Syndrome, such as the ratio of first-person plural to first-person
singular pronouns. The use of such markers as potential indicators of hubris is important
since their concealment in written and spoken language by deliberate and consistent masking
is to all intents and purposes impossible (Garrard, 2016: 152).
Outside of research in the political arena, the use of linguistic markers for the identifica-
tion of leaders’ hubris is less well developed. This presents opportunities for further research
and development and has significant practical implications in anticipating and mitigating the
deleterious effects of hubristic leadership (Amernic et al., 2010). Such approaches will help to
counter balance the commonly used cross-sectional and time-series methods which have
tended to dominate hubris hypothesis research (see Sadler-Smith, 2016). In furthering this
promising line of empirical inquiry Craig and Amernic (2011) used CEOs’ letters to share-
holders as a medium through which to assess leaders’ corporate communications in this
difficult-to-reach population at-a-distance. As an alternative to the information theory and
mathematical techniques used by Garrard et al. (2014), Craig et al. (2010) explored the use of
close reading and the use of software packages such as DICTION to assess the culture of
organisations and the intentions of top management teams as reflected in their written
utterances. Craig and Armernic (2014) used DICTION in an attempt to identify linguistic
markers of hubris in the texts of CEO speeches (Lord Browne of BP and Rupert Murdoch).
From their admittedly mixed findings, they highlighted the need for further development in
terms of the delineation of hubris itself, the theoretical linkages to language use and the
application of measures such as those captured in software programmes (e.g. DICTION).
In summary, two issues stand out in relation to the use of these techniques in leadership
research. The first stems from the issue of the extent to which political and CEO speeches,
letters to shareholders, etc. are composed by persons other than the leader her or himself.
This potential problem should not be overlooked. Second, although some software packages
(i.e. DICTION) have shown initial promise, alternative software and analytical techniques
ought to be explored, e.g. Pennebaker’s Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC)
(Tausczik and Pennebaker, 2010). LIWC is based on a theory of natural language use
(Pennebaker et al., 2003) and hence offers a viable theoretical basis for the analysis of
language use and the identification of relevant linguistic markers.
It is indisputable that there are significant access issues for hubris researchers. Hambrick
(2007) noted that executives ‘are notoriously unwilling to submit themselves to scholarly
poking and probing’ (p. 337). Given the negative connotations of hubris, this issue presents a
challenge for researchers. Hence, and as noted earlier, in common with narcissism research
hubris researchers are often compelled for practical reasons to deploy at-a-distance meas-
ures. A corollary of this is that hubris research has proceeded without directly evidencing
hubris in situ. This limitation highlights a general need for in-depth qualitative studies of
leaders’ hubris using, for example, ethnographic techniques, participant observation, organ-
isational story-telling, case studies and biographical methods.
There are a number of constructs that may serve as proxies for hubris. As noted above,
Hiller and Hambrick (2005) argued that hyper-CSE is markedly similar to hubris and there-
fore presents a means by which hubristic leadership might be accessed and measured. In
similar vein, Tracy and Robins (2014) theorised pride in relation to hubris as having two
separate facets, hubristic pride and authentic pride. Authentic pride is a positive emotion felt
upon recognising one’s actual contribution towards a desirable outcome, whereas hubristic
pride (the ‘dark side’ of pride, Tracy and Robins, 2014: 150) is associated with arrogance,
Sadler-Smith et al. 541
conceit and self-aggrandisement (Bodolica and Spraggon, 2011; Tracy and Robins, 2014).
Pride is cross culturally recognised and spontaneously expressed, moreover it manifests
verbally and non-verbally (Tracy and Robins, 2014), and therefore is accessible via both
the verbal and non-verbal channels of communication.
Finally, studying hubristic leadership from the processual perspective presents its own
methodological challenges. With its intrinsic focus on generating temporal insights (see
Langley et al., 2013) such research is likely to draw on longitudinal case study research
designs and analysing chronologically ordered data pertaining to inter-linked leadership
events. Such data are rendered interpretable by means of techniques such as temporal
bracketing which permits the ‘decomposing’ (Langley et al., 2013: 7) of the process into
conceptual phases that exhibit observable consistencies within themselves and inconsisten-
cies at their frontiers. This method caters for comparing inductively generated insights
regarding the processes that constituted each phase (for example the strategic or social
processes that contributed to a rising phase), and how the events of one phase shaped
those of the next (Langley, 2009). Additional analytical techniques include providing a
narrative account of how the process evolved in the form of visual mappings to illustrate
key actions, decisions and events in the timeline of the process.
Future directions and concluding remarks
Picone et al. (2014) itemised several lines of inquiry for a proposed hubris research agenda,
namely: antecedents of hubris; relationship between hubris and judgements, decisions and
risk-taking; factors mitigating the impact of hubris; hubris and strategy and performance. To
add to this, and in addition to the directions for future research identified in the main body
of our review, we also conclude by noting that most hubris research to date has been
conceptualised at the individual level of analysis and the vast majority of hubrists who
have been studied happen to be male. This raises three further areas for future research:
relationality, corporate-level hubris and gender.
First, leadership researchers might investigate hubrists in their dyadic relationships. These
have been well-documented in studies of hubristic political leaders (e.g. Bonar Law as a toe-
holder for Lloyd George and William Whitelaw’s constraining influence on Margaret
Thatcher) have had an important role in buffering hubris’ maladaptive effects. These rela-
tionships have been conceptualised in various ways, for example ‘foils’ (Hayward, 2007),
‘alter egos’ (Kroll et al., 2000) and ‘sage fools’ (Kets de Vries, 1990). The micro-interactions
within these dyads are worthy of study outside of the political context not only to under-
stand their dynamics but also how the constraining role can be enacted to mitigate the effects
of incipient or extant hubris.
Second, the concept of ‘corporate hubris’ or ‘collective hubris’ (Owen, 2011), although
alluded to in various researches (e.g. Ladd, 2012; Mason, 2004) pertaining to specific events
for example in NASA and at BP, is largely undeveloped. Hence, there is a need to study
relevant aspects of corporate culture that may predispose an organisation towards develop-
ing a collective hubris, and the relationship between corporate hubris and that of individual
leaders, and cf. ‘collective pride’ (see Sullivan, 2014).
Third, Hubris Syndrome appears to be positioned more often than not as a ‘male phe-
nomenon’ with hubristic female leaders being few and far between (Margaret Thatcher and
Carly Fiorina are two notable exceptions). Picone et al. (2014) highlighted several gender-
related issues, for example, men are more over-confident than women, and higher educated
542 Leadership 13(5)
males tend to have a ‘higher certainty level than their less educated counterparts’ (p. 452).
Ghaemi et al. (2016) noted that corticosteroid hormones affect risk-taking behaviours, high
levels of testosterone are associated with increased opportunity seeking and high levels of
cortisol lead to more risk-avoiding behaviours (see also Coates and Herbert, 2008). Ghaemi
et al (2016) speculated that increased levels of testosterone in men ‘might predispose male
political leaders to succumb more easily to Hubris Syndrome after coming into office’ (p. 20).
More generally, questions arise as to whether the lack of research into female hubrists is due
to too few women occupying the appropriate leadership positions in the first place. This
excludes them from the possibility of succumbing to the intoxicating effects of power and its
catalysing effect on hubristic tendencies. To what extent is the nature and the dynamic of the
phenomenon (and leaders’ power more generally) fundamentally different for female
leaders?
Finally, there are educational implications emanating from an enhanced understanding of
hubris. As Collinson and Tourish (2015) observed ruefully, the charismatic and heroic
models of leadership so passionately embraced by business schools in educating the next
generation of CEOs may serve, albeit unintentionally, as incubators for hubris whilst sim-
ultaneously overlooking the virtue of its antithesis, humility. In the absence of any acknow-
ledgement of the powers of authenticity and the perils of reckless overconfidence and over-
ambition (and even worse, the contempt these engender), the management education system
might be poised to propagate further hubristic excesses and thereby create the potential for
derailment amongst the next generation of leaders (see Collinson and Tourish, 2015; De
Haan, 2016; Ladkin and Taylor, 2010). A more commendable, responsible and sustainable
pedagogical stance is the promulgation of the skills of critical analysis and reflexivity as
potential safeguards against the palpable threat posed by the emergence of hubris in the
upper echelons of business organisations.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or
publication of this article: The authors are grateful to The Dædalus Trust for the support it has given
to ‘The Hubris Project’ at Surrey Business School.
Notes
1. http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/96098/2010-07-12-Statement-Ross.pdf#search¼hubris
(accessed 12 July 2016).
2. The latter also appear in another widely recognised manual for health disorders, the ICD-10
(International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems), with the excep-
tion of NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) which is listed as a provisional condition with
uncertain clinical and scientific status (ICD-10, 1994).
3. DSM-IV-TR has been updated to the Fifth Edition, DSM-V, on 18 May 2013. There are no changes
in terms of symptom descriptions or classification for Narcissistic, Antisocial and Histrionic per-
sonality disorders between DSM-IV-TR and DSM-V.
Sadler-Smith et al. 543
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Author biographies
Eugene Sadler-Smith is professor of Organizational Behaviour in Surrey Business School,
University of Surrey, UK. His research interests are intuition (in decision making) and
hubris (in leadership). He is the author of a number of books including Inside Intuition
(Routledge, 2008) and The Intuitive Mind (Wiley, 2010). His forthcoming book, Hubristic
Leadership, is scheduled for publication by SAGE next year.
Vita Akstinaite is a teaching fellow at London School of Economics and Queen Mary
University of London. She is a PhD researcher at Surrey Business School, University of
Surrey where she is currently conducting ESRC sponsored PhD research on the identifica-
tion of linguistic markers of CEO (executive) hubris from leaders’ natural language use.
Graham Robinson is a visiting senior fellow at Surrey Business School, University of Surrey.
His research interests are in the areas of hubris, management and organizational learning
and sense making. With Peter Garrard (University of London) he edited the book The
Intoxication of Power: Interdisciplinary Insights (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), which includes
chapters by Akstinaite, Sadler-Smith, and Wray.
Tim Wray is a teaching fellow at the Surrey Business School, University of surrey. His
research interests include paradoxes, temporality, pragmatism, and understanding leadership
as a process. Prior to joining the University of Surrey, he worked in the IT industry for
fifteen years.
548 Leadership 13(5)