Flying Too Close to the Sun: 7 CEOs Undone by Hubris

On the last day of January 2012, the British government announced that Fred Goodwin was no longer Sir Fred. He had not been convicted of anything. The honour was simply taken back, which almost never happens to people who haven't broken the law.

Four years earlier, he had run one of the largest banks in the world. People called him Fred the Shred for the way he cut costs, and they said it with a mixture of fear and admiration. Then came the takeover of ABN AMRO, signed as the financial world was already beginning to wobble, and a year later the Royal Bank of Scotland needed a £45 billion rescue from the taxpayer.

The question that interests me most about Fred Goodwin has nothing to do with banking. I want to know when he stopped being able to hear the word "no".

In thirty years of corporate life, I never met a leader who woke up one morning and decided to become arrogant. It doesn't happen like that. It happens the way a tide comes in: so slowly you only notice when your feet are wet.

The ancient Greeks had three words for this pattern. Hubris - the overreach, the belief that the rules no longer apply to you. Atē - the blindness the gods sent before a fall, so that a man could no longer see what everyone around him could see. And Nemesis - the reckoning that always arrives, usually from the direction you weren't looking.

Here are seven leaders who lived all three.

1. Fred Goodwin - Royal Bank of Scotland

Goodwin built RBS through acquisition, and each deal made him more certain the next one would work. The ABN AMRO takeover in 2007 was the largest bank deal in history at the time, and it closed just as the credit crisis was gathering. By 2008, RBS reported one of the biggest losses in British corporate history.

The warning sign: when your track record becomes the argument for your next decision, nobody is examining the decision itself any more.

2. Dick Fuld - Lehman Brothers

Fuld ran Lehman for fourteen years and was fiercely, personally loyal to it. As the firm weakened in 2008, he reportedly held out for better terms from potential buyers and investors, convinced Lehman was worth more than the market believed. On 15 September 2008, the 158-year-old bank filed the largest bankruptcy in American history.

The warning sign: the moment you can no longer tell where you end and the institution begins, you lose the ability to judge either of you clearly.

3. Jeffrey Skilling - Enron

Skilling was brilliant, and he knew it. Enron's culture prized intelligence above almost everything, and its accounting allowed the company to book profits it hadn't yet earned. He became CEO in early 2001, resigned six months later, and by December Enron had collapsed. In 2006 he was convicted of fraud and conspiracy.

The warning sign: when being the cleverest person in the room matters more to you than being the most honest one.

4. Dennis Kozlowski - Tyco

Kozlowski's downfall is remembered for its details: a $6,000 shower curtain in a company-funded apartment, and a lavish birthday party in Sardinia for his wife, partly paid for by Tyco. In 2005 he was convicted of looting the company of tens of millions of dollars. The shower curtain became a punchline. The real story was a man who had stopped noticing the difference between his money and everyone else's.

The warning sign: small privileges that once felt like rewards begin to feel like entitlements.

5. Adam Neumann - WeWork

In January 2019, WeWork was valued at $47 billion and Neumann spoke of elevating the world's consciousness. When the company filed to go public that summer, investors finally read the detail: the governance, the related-party deals, the losses. Within weeks the IPO was pulled and Neumann had stepped down as CEO.

The warning sign: when the story you tell about your business grows faster than the business itself.

6. Elizabeth Holmes - Theranos

Holmes promised that a few drops of blood could run hundreds of tests, and she built a board of statesmen and a valuation of around $9 billion on that promise. The technology never worked as claimed. After investigative reporting exposed the gap, she was convicted of fraud in 2022 and sentenced to more than eleven years in prison.

The warning sign: when belief in the vision starts to feel like permission to bend the truth about where you are today.

7. Sam Bankman-Fried - FTX

FTX collapsed in a matter of days in November 2022. The executive brought in to clean up afterwards - a veteran who had overseen the Enron wind-down - said he had never seen such a complete absence of corporate controls. In 2023 Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud, and in 2024 he was sentenced to 25 years.

The warning sign: when nobody around you is senior enough, independent enough or brave enough to stop you.

What the Greeks understood

Read those seven stories again and look for the moment of decision. You won't find one. What you find is a long, quiet narrowing: fewer people willing to disagree, fewer facts allowed into the room, more certainty with every win.

That is atē. The Greeks believed it was sent by the gods. I think we build it ourselves, one unchallenged decision at a time, and we pay people very well to help us.

Which is why I'd ask you three questions, and I'd ask you to answer them honestly rather than quickly:

• Who in your working life can still tell you that you're wrong - and when did they last do it?

• What did you believe about yourself five years ago that you have stopped testing?

• If your board, your team or your partner saw what you see when you look at your own judgement, would they agree with you?

None of these seven leaders was stupid. Every one of them was talented, driven and, for a time, celebrated. That is precisely the danger. Hubris rarely visits the mediocre. It waits for the ones who have earned the right to stop listening.

The tide is always coming in. The only question is whether you're watching your feet.

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Keith Power is The Leadership Philosopher — m-an executive coach, keynote speaker and author of The Power Within: Ancient Greek Wisdom for Modern Leaders. He works with senior leaders on the interior side of leadership: self-knowledge, character and judgement. Talk to Keith about speaking or coaching →