The Daedalus Trust, established as a charity in 2011, advanced for the public benefit the effects on decision making of leaders in all walks of life who suffered personality change – commonly known as hubris – while in office and who in the words of Bertrand Russell became ‘intoxicated by power’. The term ‘hubris’ is now a common parlance word associated with those who have overreached themselves with often detrimental effects on the exercise of their power. The Trust during its existence explored ways in which power can corrupt, how personality change can be triggered by power, how groupthink can encourage corporate hubris and how hubris syndrome can very often lie at the heart of disastrous outcomes.

Awareness of the dangers of hubris were highlighted in many workshops and conferences held by the Trust and this site contains a wealth of material on the subject of use to researchers. Since 2018 the work and mission of the Daedalus Trust has been carried forward by two organisations with which the Trust collaborated; the Maudsley Philosophy Group in which within the theory and practice of psychiatry and philosophy the Group explores power, personality and populism, and at Surrey Business School (University of Surrey) where Professor Eugene Sadler-Smith (Professor of Organisational Behaviour), Dr Graham Robinson (Senior Research Fellow) and colleagues are researching the characteristics, causes and consequences of hubris with particular relevance to business management and leadership (see: ‘The Hubris Hub’ ).

This website is preserved for the time being because of the excellent repository of knowledge it contains but you will find more up to date material carried by the two websites mentioned above and those websites will where appropriate have links back to specific parts of this website.