Hubris syndrome: an acquired personality disorder? A study of US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers over the last 100 years. (May 2009)

“Qualities often associated with successful leadership can also be marked by impetuosity, a refusal to listen to or take advice and a particular form of incompetence when impulsivity, recklessness and frequent inattention to detail predominate.

David Owen (Lord Owen),  House of Lords, London
Jonathon Davidson, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, USA

Brain: a journal of Neurology (May 2009), Volume 132, Issue 5, Pp. 1396-1406

Charisma, charm, the ability to inspire, persuasiveness, breadth of vision, willingness to take risks, grandiose aspirations and bold self-confidence—these qualities are often associated with successful leadership.

Yet there is another side to this profile, for these very same qualities can be marked by impetuosity, a refusal to listen to or take advice and a particular form of incompetence when impulsivity, recklessness and frequent inattention to detail predominate. This can result in disastrous leadership and cause damage on a large scale.

The attendant loss of capacity to make rational decisions is perceived by the general public to be more than ‘just making a mistake’. While they may use discarded medical or colloquial terms, such as ‘madness’ or ‘he’s lost it’, to describe such behaviour, they instinctively sense a change of behaviour although their words do not adequately capture its essence.

Find the full article here: Hubris syndrome: An acquired personality disorder? A study of US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers over the last 100 years.