When Hubris Syndrome was proposed it is noteworthy that Owen and colleagues symptomatized it in terms of concern with image and “disproportionate presentation”, in the own self-belief, “excessive individual’s judgement”, “exaggerated bordering on a sense of omnipotence, in what they personally can of contact achieve”, “loss often associated with (Owen and Davidson, 2009, p.1398, with reality; progressive isolation” emphases added). Implicit in Owen and for Hubris Syndrome is Davidson’s symptomology the issue of how the strength of any particular hubristic behaviour translates into maladaptive outcomes. This in turn begs questions such as: how much concern with image should be how much confidence is how would we know that considered ‘disproportionate’; ‘excessive’; our self-belief has become inappropriately or how broad is the range leader’s ‘exaggerated’; and scope of the with which we should expect our leaders to maintain contact? ‘reality’ In conceptualizing hubris a context-dependent, over-developed strength (see: Kaplan and Kaiser, 2006) taking account of the setting in which the potential hubrist and the leadership 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 the executive and governance structures and the effects organization’s this relationship has on performance (see: Tang, Crossan, and Rowe, 2011). Given that there is a of that boards of directors collectively are partly to blame for business “swell opinion” failures (Mellahi, 2005, p.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 organizations (HROs), i.e. that are able to manage and sustain almost “organisations
When Hubris Syndrome was proposed it is noteworthy that Owen and colleagues symptomatized it in terms of “disproportionate concern with image and presentation”, “excessive 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” (Owen and Davidson, 2009, 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 questions 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 conceptualizing hubris a context-dependent, over-developed strength (see: Kaplan and Kaiser, 2006) taking account of the setting in which the potential hubrist and the leadership 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 the organization’s executive and governance structures and the effects this relationship has on performance (see: Tang, Crossan, and Rowe, 2011). Given that there is a “swell of opinion” that boards of directors collectively are partly to blame for business failures (Mellahi, 2005, p.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 organizations (HROs), i.e. “organisations that are able to manage and sustain almost
Hubristic%20leadership%20Sadler-Smith%20et%20al%20Leadership%20accepted%20version.docx