Hubris in Safety - A Prideful Obstacle to Safety Improvement

If you watched the Super Bowl, you may have witnessed what some have been discussing as the worst play call in the history of football.  With three downs remaining, Pete Carroll the head coach of Seattle, decides to throw a high-risk pass play, even though he has three downs remaining to run the ball with the best running back in the league.  Well, the pass was thrown, intercepted, and the New England Patriots won their fourth Super Bowl.  Many individuals believe it was Pete Carroll's hubris that got in the way and caused such a stunning loss for the Seattle Seahawks.

You’ve likely dealt with extreme forms of pride that have gotten in the way of ongoing safety improvement. Hubris is the bad side of confidence; it’s excessive pride about being correct or overestimating one’s abilities to achieve whatever is seen as possible.

Since the beginnings of its study in the 1960s and 70s, hubris has been dissected and categorized in a number of ways. And seemingly, a growing interest in the study of hubris leadership stems from our ever expanding, narcissistic-driven world. However, those inflicted with large doses of hubris are first and foremost fully self-confident regarding actions that will take them and their organizations closer to their desired goals.

Excessive pride or hubris has gotten in the way within various organizations that I have supported. Many of us have realized the destructive forces of hubris and its harmful wake which takes others down a path of disappointment, disillusionment, and loss.

Individual personality flaws help to form the basis of hubris and can occur throughout an organization and at any level. Let’s take a look at some of the issues we have all likely experienced.

Senior leaders may oversimplify safety and commit to a vision that is larger than the organization can accept. These leaders push down and cause undue pressures on individuals and demand excellence, or even zero, with an absence of organizational maturity and resources to move closer to that vision. Other pressures they exert may be enough to launch a series of unwanted actions that lead to catastrophic results.  Relying largely on lagging indicators such as recordable rates further reinforces their overconfidence and that of others. Hubris may also remove a leader from the type of safety support and influence it requires. These leaders may believe that safety is not critical to the health of their organization and declines to provide appropriate safety leadership support. Some leaders may even feel that it is beneath them to be engaged in safety improvement. All of this is a set-up for larger forms of setbacks.

Managers and supervisors may exhibit hubris through production-driven risk taking — short-cutting procedures and policies. These front line leaders have completed difficult and challenging work for many years with close calls that haven’t been well identified or reported. In turn, many near-miss activities, from a production and quality standpoint, have been accomplished with relative and prideful success.

Workers embrace similar pride though an overestimation of their capabilities which leads to judgment errors. And managers and supervisors with similar hubris reinforce their actions on a regular basis. Even more, these same workers become quite self-reliant and tend to believe their success is largely due to their own mental and physical capabilities. They don’t need the help or support of others, and in fact, like their supervision, detest any type of safety-related feedback or coaching. Getting the job done, taking risks, even severe and distinguishable injuries, form a badge of honor that is proudly worn by some. Pride in risk-taking is further reinforced by senior leaders and supervisors who overtly or discretely applaud many of the types of risk-driven efforts of the workforce.

Safety professionals and practitioners have to deal with their particular forms of hubris. Some don’t handle success very well and get too comfortable with their perceived achievements. Oftentimes, their main forms of success are calibrated through a lens focused on recordable and lost-day rates. These individuals are close-minded when it comes to new ideas, methods, practices and interventions — even when large amounts of empirical support are provided and offer new opportunities for ongoing improvement.

Many hubris-driven individuals insulate themselves from others and desire little feedback or input. Some may be recognized as lone wolves who want to remain in their personal silos.

Hubris-bias is very real, with arguments for two sides — the good and the bad. Near the top, good hubris provides confidence and helps to formulate a compelling vision for safety, which appeals to the masses. It helps to obtain an initial degree of engagement; however, others soon face frustration regarding a fanciful dream and cultivate a newly formed cynicism toward safety because of hubris.

Within other parts of an organization, hubris helps to develop a can-do attitude and work ethic. On the other side of the hubris-coin, arrogance, self-reliance, and risk-taking create formidable challenges to individual growth, organizational maturity, engagement, and the realization of a shared vision for safety achievement.

The key to mitigating the bad effects of hubris begins with open and objective feedback that will diminish arrogance and self-reliance. It also helps to foster collaboration and teaming for objective reality testing about strategies, tactics, processes, programs, and interventions. But certainly, the key is feedback — which begins with approachability, and leads to trust and openness in receiving other viewpoints, even when it may hurt.

Successful leaders have to embrace humility and objectivity to ward off the harmful impact of hubris. But they also have to embrace the confidence that has made them believable, successful, and influential — not an easy task.

Tom Peters, author and consultant states, “The four most important words any leader can say — What Do You Think?” Difficult words for some but so very necessary to foil the kinds of hubris, which holds us back.


Reference:  Picone, M.P, Dagnino, P.M., Mind, A., . (2014).  The origin of failure:  A multidisciplinary appraisal of the hubris hypothesis and proposed research agenda. The Academy of Management Perspectives, 28(4), 447-468.