Too Proud to Lead: How Hubris Can Destroy Effective Leadership and What to Do about It

by Ben Laker, David Cobb

Too Proud to Lead provides essential advice on how to avoid that hubristic behavior that can endanger businesses, as well as cope with arrogant overconfidence in others in the workplace.

Laying out the dangers of arrogant overconfidence for both individuals and organizations, Too Proud To Lead explores the economic and psychological costs of hubristic behaviour and argues for a new approach to leadership in order to avoid the pitfalls of hubris. Punctuated with award-winning research and practical solutions against the systemic hubris plaguing today's organizations, the authors reveal exactly how confidence can sour into overconfidence--and why it can happen to anyone.

With this easily-absorbed book, packed with checklists and key insights, readers acquire the essential arsenal of tools for understanding, identifying, anticipating and coping with hubris, in both themselves and in the workplace, leading to better lives and sustained success for years to come. Too Proud To Lead guides readers on how to:

· Speak up when no one wants to listen;
· Challenge the status quo;
· Create open and transparent cultures that promote inclusivity;
· Foster positive recognition within an organization; and
· Remove hubris and harassment from their workplace and life.

Hubristic behavior is an age-old affliction, but signs point to it being on the rise in today's workplace. Illustrated with examples that some will be only too familiar due to the extensive media coverage of their decline, Too Proud To Lead provides the much-needed antidote to the hubris plague spreading through the leadership of today.

232 pages, Hardcover

Published January 26, 2021

Reviews

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Booooooooooooooooom. This book is an absolute ripper. I was expecting the middle-of-the road commentary on leadership. Instead, this is a powerful book of reflection on what leadership means and the profound failures made in its name, particularly since the global financial crisis.

I nodded so frequently and aggressively through the reading of this book, I may have injured my neck.

I did want to log the deep and intricate statement - from Margaret Heffernan's foreward - that impacted on me and shaped how I read this book. She stated, "success is a poor teacher." That is why the failures witnessed in the GFC and through the (mis)management of COVID have been so catastrophic. People who have never truly been tested, have moved through life with money and success and an ease of progress, suddenly had to lead during a crisis, and indeed a catastrophe. Because they had not completed the deep work of reflection so recommended in this book, their success was a poor teacher.

As restructures cascade through so many of our institutions, I wanted to conclude with Laker et. al. at their most profound: "Dismantling or restructuring is usually a one-way process; once it’s done, it’s done. You cannot simply put the spring back because you can no longer reach that part of the mechanism. Make an entire team redundant and that expertise is instantly dissipated, lost forever to competitors or other sectors." This is powerful. Once the restructure has been completed, that expertise is lost. Forever. It will present a cost.

This book offers an opportunity to track the career narratives of the leaders with hubris. They can be recognized, located and stopped. But further, this book offers an opportunity for a different way of leading, if our culture and organizations have the courage.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit- I skimmed this. I passed by it at the library and decided to take a look at home. Great practical lessons about how success easily turns to hubris and how to protect against it. I’m keeping reminders in my phone to periodically review these lessons