Boards rarely collapse from ignorance. They collapse because they think they cannot.
Boards rarely collapse because of ignorance. They collapse because they think they cannot. That illusion has a name: hubris.
I have seen this too many times. That artificial invincible feeling. I remember having that conversation at the bottom of Tower 2, in the days when I smoked and we could in the shade of the Twin Towers.
In that conversation, we talked about hubris, and were we sailing too close to the wind? That was why I remembered the four horsemen, and hence the earlier post.
Unlike greed, pride, or envy in isolation, hubris is the culmination of all seven deadly sins rolled into one. It is arrogance, overconfidence, and self-deception institutionalised at the top.
The four horsemen of Revelation – war, famine, pestilence, and death – are visible threats. Hubris is more dangerous: it is invisible until it detonates. By the time it’s recognised, the damage is done. Trust destroyed. Value wiped out. Reputations shattered.
We’ve seen it play out, the story is always the same: dissent silenced, risk dismissed, leaders drunk on their own mythology.
The lesson? Hubris is not just a personal failing, it is the boardroom’s cancer. Left unchecked, it metastasises.
Boards need humility, vigilance, and directors with the courage to call it out before it’s too late.