Hubris syndrome
A proposed acquired personality change in people who hold substantial power for a sustained period, with features such as excessive self-confidence, contempt for others’ advice, identification of themselves with the nation or organisation, loss of contact with reality and reckless decisions. Owen and Davidson listed 14 symptoms and argued that it tends to fade once the power is lost.
What drives it
Power removes the feedback that keeps self-assessment accurate: people flatter, information is filtered, and success is credited to the leader. Useful for recognising what is happening to a leader because it describes a change over time in the role, not a fixed trait.
How it shows
Work
In a leader: talking about themselves in the third person or as ‘we’ meaning the company, dismissing the board, impatience with detail, big bets announced without consultation, conviction that they will be vindicated by history or the market, a manner that is noticeably more grand than five years ago. In a team: no one disagrees any more, bad news filtered by the chief of staff, the inner circle shrinking to admirers. As the leader: the warning sign is a recent run of success plus a shrinking number of people who will tell you that you are wrong.
Relationships
Family and old friends often notice first: the person who no longer asks questions at dinner, who talks over a spouse, who treats family members like staff. In family businesses, a parent’s growing hubris can be hard to name because the family depends on them.
Self
Impatience with people who do not see what is obvious to you, the sense that ordinary rules and checks are for others, and finding that you no longer seek advice because you already know the answer.
What tells it apart
Grandiose narcissism: Narcissism is a stable trait visible before the person had power; hubris syndrome appears after a period in power in someone who was not grandiose before, and fades when they leave.
Power and disinhibition: Power disinhibition is a general, short-term effect seen even in experiments; hubris syndrome is a cumulative change over years at the top, with contempt and reckless judgement.
Bipolar disorder and hypomania: Hypomania comes in episodes with reduced need for sleep, pressured speech and racing thoughts, and is unrelated to position; hubris tracks time and success in power and lacks those physical signs.
A test
Compare the person now with how former colleagues describe them before they took the top job, and ask who in their current circle has recently changed their mind.
Questions to carry
- Compared with how former colleagues describe them before the top job, what has changed, and who around them still disagrees out loud?
- When I have held power for a while, whose advice did I stop hearing, and who stopped offering it?
How strong the research is
weak. Proposed from case analysis of heads of government; a few later studies (mainly content analysis of leaders’ speech and CEO case studies) are consistent with it, but it has no validated measure and is not a recognised diagnosis.
Where it comes from
David Owen and Jonathan Davidson, 2009 (Brain)
Sources
- Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries, The Leader on the Couch: A Clinical Approach to Changing People and Organizations (2006)
- Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (And How to Fix It) (2019)