Narcissism, over-optimism, fear, anger, and depression: The interior lives of corporate leaders

University of Cincinnati Law Review

Volumn 77, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 405-430

  Barnard, Jayne W ^a  

^a The College of William and Mary   (United States)

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EID: 67249155690     PISSN: 00096881     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (150)

1. Search firm Spencer Stuart asserts that 33% of current directors are active CEOs. Board Leadership and Composition Becoming More Independent, 22nd Annual Spencer Stuart Board Index Reveals Board Changes, SpencerStuart, Oct. 3, 2007, http://www.spencerstuart.com/about/media/46/. Many others are former CEOs. See id.
2. See infra Part I.
3. See infra Part II.
4. See infra Part III.
5. See, e.g., Stephanie Marsh, Losing It, TIMES (London), Aug. 2, 2007, at 24 (recounting the psychiatric problems and recovery of Philip Burguieres, former CEO of Weatherford International, a Fortune 500 company);
6. Stephanie N. Mehta, Confessions of a CEO, FORTUNE, Nov. 12, 2007, at 64 (recounting the emotional challenges and recovery of Dominic Orr, former CEO of Alteon WebSystems, a Silicon Valley data-networking company).
7. See Alan Deutschman, Is Your Boss a Psychopath?, FAST COMPANY, July, 2005, at 44 (observing that "Psychopaths have a profound lack of empathy. They use other people callously and remorselessly for their own ends. They seduce victims with a hypnotic charm that masks their true nature as pathological liars, master con artists, and heartless manipulators. Easily bored, they crave constant stimulation, so they seek thrills from real-life 'games' they can win-and take pleasure from their power over other people.");
8. Michael Steinberger, Psychopathic C. E. O.s, N. Y. TIMES, DEC. 12, 2004 (MAGAZINE), AT 90. SEE ALSO PAUL BABIAK AND ROBERT D. HARE, SNAKES IN SUITS: WHEN PSYCHOPATHS GO to WORK (2006).
9. Troy A. Paredes, Corporate Decisionmaking: Too Much Pay, Too Much Deference: Behavioral Corporate Finance, CEOs, and Corporate Governance, 32 FLA. ST. U. L. REV. 673, 716-17 (2005) ("In general, CEOs receive much praise and recognition throughout their careers from the media, other executives, charitable organizations they support, politicians, and the like. Being a chief executive can be a heady experience.").
10. Delaware's Vice Chancellor Strine has recently catalogued some of the other miseries of a CEO'sjob: Having to explain to employees why the corporation is off-shoring jobs and increasing the employees' share of health insurance costs, having to be lectured by a twenty- something analyst about a penny miss in the quarterly earnings, and having to consider at board meetings cosmetic measures to improve the corporation's corporate governance ratings lest the corporation be subject to an array of shareholder proposals-these are really fun things to do. Add to that the increased focus on regulatory compliance arising out of the scandals of the turn of the century. Then top it off with a high level of public cynicism about CEO pay and integrity. Put it all together and being a public company CEO isn't what it used to be. Leo E. Strine, Jr., Toward Common Sense and Common Ground? Reflections on the Shared Interests of Managers and Labor in a More Rational System of Corporate Governance, 33 IOWA J. CORP. L. 1, 10 (2007). See also STEVE TAPPIN and ANDREW CAVE, THE SECRETS OF CEOS: 150 GLOBAL CHIEF EXECUTIVES LIFT THE LID on BUSINESS, LIFE and LEADERSHIP (2008) (detailing the pressures and challenges facing CEOs).
11. C. J. Prince, CEOs Anonymous: Hardly Acknowledged, Rarely Confronted, Alcoholism is a Stealthy Liability that Pervades Corporate America and Puts Some of its Brightest Leaders at Risk, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, March, 2002 (noting an increasing number of referrals of top executives for interventions).
12. See, e.g., Byron Acohido, Extramarital Affair Topples Boeing CEO, USA TODAY, Mar. 8, 2005, at IB (noting the board's decision to sack Boeing's CEO based on his adulterous affair with another Boeing executive).
13. See, e.g., Vanessa Fuhrmans, WellPoint Finds Itself Embroiled in Private Drama, WALL ST. J., June 12, 2007, at A1 (noting the firing of WellPoint's chief financial officer based on his complicated personal life, including relationships with several women, and shuttling back and forth between two "families, " one in California and one in Indiana);
14. Carla Hall, Lawsuit Has Fashion Mogul in Spotlight, L. A. TIMES, Jan. 17, 2008, at B1 (describing multiple sexual harassment lawsuits against the CEO of American Apparel, who admits he often attends business meetings in his underwear and once masturbated in front of a magazine writer during an interview).
15. See, e.g., Diane Brady, Yes, Winning is Still the Only Thing, BUS. WEEK, Aug. 21, 2006, at 52 (describing the CEO of Jarden Corp., who competes in ultramarathons);
16. Tom McGhee, CEO Tough: Aging but Still Driven Execs Stretch Their Limits by Running Marathons, DENVER POST, Dec. 11, 2005, at K1 (describing characteristics of the CEOs who compete in marathons).
17. See, e.g., Andrew Martin, Whole Foods Executive Used Alias, N. Y. TIMES, July 12, 2007, at C1 (describing the actions of Whole Foods' CEO, who created a fictitious online personality to post laudatory comments about his company and his leadership).
18. See Ulrike Malmendier and Geoffrey A. Tate, Superstar CEOs, (University of California Working Paper Group, Paper 2007), available at http://papers.ssrn. com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract-id=9 72725 (noting the frequency of CEOs who write autobiographies and take on public roles).
19. See SANDY WEILL and JUDAH S. KRAUSHAAR, THE REAL DEAL: MY LIFE in BUSINESS and PHILANTHROPY (2006) (recounting the many charitable projects of Citigroup's CEO Sandy Weill, including fundraising for the Weill Medical Center and the renovation of Carnegie Hall).
20. See Crocker H. Liu and David Yermack, Where are the Shareholders' Mansions? CEOs' Home Purchases, Stock Sales, and Subsequent Company Performance (2007), available at http://papers.ssrn. com/sol3/papers.cfrn?abstract-id=970413 (tracking CEOs' purchases of extremely large and costly estates).
21. See Jeffrey Cohen, Yuan Ding, Cédric Lesage and Hervé Stolowy, The Role of Managers' Behavior in Corporate Fraud (July 14, 2008) (unpublished manuscript), available at http://papers.ssrn. com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract-id=l 160076 (noting anecdotal evidence of CEOs who buy sports teams).
22. See Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Expanding Without Managing, N. Y. TIMES, June 12, 2002, at A29 (describing the compulsive desire to acquire new companies exhibited by Dennis Kozlowski, Ken Lay, Bernie Ebbers, Gary Winnick, and John Rigas; Kozlowski was known as "Deal-a-Day Dennis").
23. A. Mechele Dickerson, A Behavioral Approach to Analyzing Corporate Failures, 38 WAKE FOREST L. REV. 1, 4 (2003).
24. See Katherine Hall, Looking Beneath the Surface: The Impact of Psychology on Corporate Decisionmaking, INT'L J. L. and MGMT. (forthcoming), available at http://papers.ssrn. com/sol3/paper s.cfm?abstract-id=993313 (describing the role of cognitive biases in board-level decision making generally);
25. Katherine Hall, The Psychology of Corporate Dishonesty, 19 AUSTL. J. CORP. L. 268 (2006) (describing specific cognitive biases including pre-occupation with self-image, the deflection of negative information and the commitment to a decision already made);
26. Joan MacLeod Heminway, Personal Facts About Executive Officers: A Proposal for Tailored Disclosures to Encourage Reasonable Investor Behavior, 42 WAKE FOREST. L. REV. 749, 768-71 (2007) (describing the cognitive biases and processes that often drive executive behavior);
27. Donald C. Langevoort, Organized Illusions: A Behavioral Theory of Why Corporations Mislead Stock Market Investors (and Cause Other Social Harms), 146 U. PA. L. REV. 101, 108 (1997) (examining the impact of various "systematic 'perceptual filters, '" including over- optimism, commitment to previous decisions, and seeing what one wants to see, especially if it advances one's goals, on corporate decision making).
28. Dickerson, supra note 19, at 5.
29. See Mathew L. A. Hayward and Donald C. Hambrick, Explaining the Premiums Paid for Large Acquisitions: Evidence of CEO Hubris, 42 ADMIN. SCI. Q. 103 (1997).
30. Joann S. Lublin, Aging CEOs Stage Big Deals as Career Finales, WALL ST. J., June 4, 1997, at B1.
31. See generally RAKESH KHURANA, SEARCHING FOR A CORPORATE SAVIOR: THE IRRATIONAL QUEST for CHARISMATIC CEOs (2002) (noting the superhuman abilities often ascribed to new CEOs selected through a search process).
32. Carly Fiorina at Hewlett-Packard may be one example of this phenomenon. See infra note 115 and accompanying text.
33. William C. Bradford, "Because That's Where the Money Is ": Toward a Theory and Strategy of Corporate Legal Compliance (July 11, 2007) (unpublished manuscript University of Florida Warrington College of Business), available at http://papers.ssrn. com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract-id=95 5428.
34. Mark Maremont, Scholars Link Success of Firms to Lives of CEOs: A Family Death Hurts, Studies Say, As Does Buying a Mansion, WALL ST. J., Sept. 5, 2007, at A1.
35. Id.
36. Markus Glaser, Phillip Schafers and Martin Weber, Managerial Optimism and Corporate Investment: Is the CEO Alone Responsible for the Relation? (AFA 2008 New Orleans Meetings Paper), available at http://papers.ssm. com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract-id=967649.
37. See Renee B. Adams, Heitor Almeida and Daniel Ferreira, Powerful CEOs and Their Impact on Corporate Performance, 18 REV. FIN. STUD. 1403 (2005) (concluding that powerful CEOs are likely to drive firms to "extreme consequences, " both positive and negative);
38. John M. Darley, The Cognitive and Social Psychology of Contagious Organizational Corruption, 70 BROOK. L. REV. 1177, 1190 (2005) (describing the process by which subordinates loyally implement the bad decisions of their leaders).
39. See Steve Fishman, Boss Science, N. Y. MAG., Apr. 1, 2007, at 42, 44-47, available at http://nymag.com/guides/2007/officelife/30010 / ("Research suggests that he who climbs quickly is likely more talkative, social, and at the same time more obviously-obviously is the key word- dominant than his peers. 'He answers to himself, ' as one management consultant puts it. He's self- referential-'I believe... ' is the way he starts every sentence. He has a talent for manipulating others' impressions.... 'He's the one motivated to sell himself to peers.'").
40. See MICHAEL MACCOBY, THE PRODUCTIVE NARCISSIST: THE PROMISE AND PERIL OF VISIONARY LEADERSHIP (2003) (positing that some narcissists-those he terms "productive narcissists"-can not only lead but transform their environments, citing Henry Ford, Bill Gates, and Jack Welch, among others). This book was updated and reissued as MICHAEL MACCOBY, NARCISSISTIC LEADERS: WHO SUCCEEDS and WHO FAILS (2007).
41. MACCOBY, THE PRODUCTIVE NARCISSIST, supra note 32, at 203.
42. Id. at 39.
43. Id. at 9.
44. Id. at xiv.
45. ALAN DOWNS, BEYOND THE LOOKING GLASS: OVERCOMING THE SEDUCTIVE CULTURE of CORPORATE NARCISSISM 17 (1997).
46. MACCOBY, THE PRODUCTIVE NARCISSIST, supra note 32, at 67.
47. Id. at xv.
48. See generally JACK WELCH WITH JOHN A. BYRNE, JACK: STRAIGHT FROM THE GUT (2001).
49. BILL LANE, JACKED UP: THE INSIDE STORY of HOW JACK WELCH TALKED GE into BECOMING THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMPANY 90, 113 (2008). See also John Cassidy, Gut Punch: How Great Was Jack Welch?, NEW YORKER, Oct. 1, 2001, at 112 ("As chairman, Welch interfered in every aspect of GE's operations, down to vetting the scripts for refrigerator commercials. [He also personally negotiated] with Jerry Seinfeld to extend 'Seinfeld' for another season. ").
50. LANE, supra note 41, at 202 ("Really! You played with him? What did he say [about me]?").
51. Id. at 3.
52. CHRISTOPHER BYRON, TESTOSTERONE INC. : TALES of CEOs RUN WILD 49 (2004).
53. See generally JAMES B. STEWART, DISNEY WAR (2005).
54. Id. at 83.
55. Id.
56. Id. at 514 (recounting Eisner's habit of writing down the French version of Disney-D'Isner. "Now look at this, " he would say. "D'Isner... is Eisner without the D.").
57. Id. at 532.
58. See MONICA LANGLEY, TEARING DOWN THE WALLS: HOW SANDY WEILL FOUGHT HIS WAY to THE TOP of THE FINANCIAL WORLD... AND THEN NEARLY LOST IT ALL 95, 364, 366 (2004) (noting Weill's maintenance of a scrapbook containing "fan letters" addressed to him; his "delight" at the number of times his picture was featured in the society pages of the New York Times, and the costly portrait he ordered of his wife and himself, which was unveiled at a black-tie corporate gathering). Weill's most visible acts of narcissism involved putting his name on the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.
59. See KAREN SOUTHWICK, EVERYONE ELSE MUST FAIL: THE UNVARNISHED TRUTH ABOUT ORACLE and LARRY ELLISON 1, 22, 45, 133, 153-54 (2003) (noting Ellison's inability to tolerate anyone who stands up to him; his discomfort with anyone who might be perceived as a worthy successor; his relentless desire to outperform Bill Gates; and his preoccupation with his personal legacy). "He's a narcissistic loner who thrives on being the center of attention and power." Id. at 291. See also MATTHEW SYMONDS, SOFTWAR: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT of LARRY ELLISON and ORACLE 182 (2003) (noting Ellison's exercise of power and inability to delegate). "Whether he was suggesting a solution to some obscure engineering issue concerning the database, deconstructing some back-office process at Oracle to understand what was needed from applications to automate a business flow seamlessly, tweaking a sales compensation plan to eliminate perverse incentives, designing a 'portlet' for Oracle's executive dashboard, penning the latest ad, or sharpening an online sales presentation, Ellison was everywhere." Id. at 285.
60. CHRISTOPHER M. BYRON, MARTHA INC.: THE INCREDIBLE STORY of MARTHA STEWART LIVING OMNIMEDIA 102 (2002) (noting that Stewart viewed her employees as "not much more than stage props in the Martha Stewart Story... the lifelong drama in which she played the starring role"). Stewart has exhibited a monumental need to control her environment. Stewart once told Oprah Winfrey, "I can almost bend steel with my mind. I can bend anything if I try hard enough. I can make myself do almost anything." Id. at 25.
61. See generally TOM BOWER, OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE: THE RISE AND RUIN OF CONRAD AND LADY BLACK. (2006).
62. Id. at 64.
63. Id. at 57.
64. Dan Lovallo and Daniel Kahneman, Delusions of Success: How Optimism Undermines Executive' Decisions, HARV. BUS. REV., July, 2003, at 57, 58.
65. Mathew Hayward has suggested that over-optimism derives from a combination of excess pride, failure to get the right help, failure to read the situation, and failure to anticipate adverse consequences. MATHEW HAYWARD, EGO CHECK: WHY EXECUTIVE HUBRIS is WRECKING COMPANIES and CAREERS and HOW to AVOID THE TRAP 11 (2007). Troy Paredes has suggested that over-optimism may be a result of (1) the tournament process by which CEOs are selected; (2) the amount of power that is entrusted to CEOs; and (3) the vast compensation that is paid to CEOs. See Paredes, supra note 7 at 678 (tournament), 680 (power), 678, 713-20 (compensation).
66. KURT EICHENWALD, CONSPIRACY of FOOLS: a TRUE STORY 370 (2005).
67. Id. at 466.
68. OM MALIK, BROADBANDITS: INSIDE THE $750 BILLION TELECOM HEIST 9 (2003) (noting that, under Ebbers' management, WorldCom bought up "about 70 companies and pushed the stock up 7, 000 percent").
69. Id. at 31 (noting that Ebbers borrowed some S900 million, posting his WorldCom stock as collateral).
70. BOWER, supra note 53 (passim).
71. Id. at 384. "Black believed his destiny was glory, regardless of the odds." Id. at 248.
72. See STEWART, supra note 45, at 129.
73. See, e.g., id. at 111-12 (noting Eisner's infatuation with Dick Tracy, which he thought would perform like Raiders of the Lost Ark. The film receipts "barely covered production and marketing costs. Merchandise tie-ins languished mostly unsold.")
74. Laura Cohn, Christie Whitman Starts to Get Some Respect, BUS. WK., Aug. 27, 2001, at 61 ("When Jack Welch speaks, the White House-any White House-usually listens. So it came as a shock when Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman announced on Aug. 1 that General Electric Co. (GE) would be responsible for the biggest dredging project in U. S. history. Despite the vociferous objections of GE Chief Executive Welch, a Bush campaign contributor, the EPA received White House approval to order the estimated $460 million cleanup of the Hudson River.").
75. ANDREW S. GROVE, ONLY THE PARANOID SURVIVE: HOW to EXPLOIT the CRISIS POINTS THAT CHALLENGE EVERY COMPANY and CAREER 12-14 (1996).
76. Marsh, supra note 5 (quoting Philip Burguieres, former CEO of Weatherford International).
77. TAPPIN and CAVE, supra note 8, at 13.
78. GROVE, supra note 67, at 117 ("Fear plays a major role in creating and maintaining... passion. Fear of competition, fear of bankruptcy, fear of being wrong and fear of losing can all be powerful motivators.").
79. See EICHENWALD, supra note 58, at 164 (noting company-wide pressure to help Enron "make its numbers" at year end), 295 (noting that, "if [Enron] didn't hit its numbers, its executives wouldn't get their bonuses").
80. IVAN FALLON and JAMES SRODES, DREAM MAKER: THE RISE and FALL of JOHN Z. DELOREAN (1983).
81. MIKE WILSON, THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOD and LARRY ELLISON: GOD DOESN'T THINK HE'S LARRY ELLISON 229 (1997).
82. BILL GEORGE WITH PETER SIMS, TRUE NORTH: DISCOVER YOUR AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP 173 (2007) ("Around 8:30 p. m. on my way home, I pulled over to the side of the Merritt Parkway and said to myself, 'I don't know where to go. I don't want to go home. There's just no place to go.'")
83. Jack Welch, for example, was well-known for his "volcanic eruptions." LANE, supra note 41, at 311. Welch regularly could be heard yelling at his direct reports: "YOU DUMB SHIT!" and "You asshole! You're in deep shit! You get this cleaned up or you're outta here."
84. Id. at 124, 281. His shouting could even be heard through his "soundproof office door. Id. at 201-02.
85. Welch "actually seemed to enjoy picking fights with his executives.... It was Welch's way of asserting control-the street-corner tough kid and bully from North Salem keeping his gang members in line." BYRON, supra note 44, at 123.
86. Michael Eisner regularly launched into "tirades" against his Disney colleagues (typically behind their backs). STEWART, supra note 45, at 161-62, 252.
87. Eisner is variously described as "storming" through the office, "beside himself when Michael Ovitz refused to resign, and "furious" on several other occasions.
88. Id. at 253, 256, 266, 272, 375, 448. At one meeting, Eisner yelled at one of his senior managers: "Eisner looked like he might explode, his eyes bulging." Id. at 449.
89. Charles Arthur, In Microsoft's Cool World, Top Man Was Mister Angry, INDEPENDENT (London) Jan. 15, 2000. As a young CEO, Gates' temper sometimes drove away customers. JAMES WALLACE and JIM ERICKSON, HARD DRIVE: BILL GATES and the MAKING of the MICROSOFT EMPIRE 152 (1992) (describing Intel's decision not to buy from Microsoft after a Gates temper tantrum). Gates was described as "confrontational, " "absolutely purple he was screaming so much, " subject to "screaming fits, " and "visibly angry, sometimes throwing his pencil. He often yelled or pounded his fist on the table to make a point."
90. Id. at 159, 162, 250, 280. Once, when a subordinate protested the workload, "Gates exploded, slamming his fist down on the table to get his point across and carrying on in a rage."
91. Id. at 283. During the government's antitrust case against Microsoft, Gates "erupted" in an interview with the Washington Post. KEN AULETTA, WORLD WAR 3.0: MICROSOFT AND ITS ENEMIES 15 (2001).
92. Ballmer once legendarily threw a chair across the room while engaged in a tirade about Google. "F. Eric Schmidt [Google's chairman and CEO] is a f p I'm going to f bury that guy. I have done it before. I will do it again. I'm going to fkill Google." RICHARD S. TEDLOW, ANDY GROVE: THE LIFE and TIMES of an AMERICAN 302 (2006).
93. JOHN WOOD, LEAVING MICROSOFT to CHANGE the WORLD: AN ENTREPRENEUR'S ODYSSEY to EDUCATE the WORLD'S CHILDREN 7 (2007).
94. See Anthony Bianco and Heather Timmons, Crisis at Citi, BUS. WEEK, Sept. 9, 2002, at 34.
95. BYRON, SUPRA NOTE 52, AT 299-301 (SCREAMING AT EMPLOYEES), 9, 171 (SCREAMING AT CHILDREN), 281-82 (AN ENCOUNTER WITH A LOCAL TRADESMAN THAT ESCALATED INTO A CHARGE OF ASSAULT), 254 ("SNARLING" AT A DINNER GUEST), 182 (SCREAMING AT A JOURNALIST).
96. ID. AT 172.
97. ROBERT I. SUTTON, THE NO ASSHOLE RULE: BUILDING a CIVILIZED WORKPLACE and SURVIVING ONE THAT ISN'T 10 (2007).
98. Marsh, supra note 5 (quoting Philip Burguieres).
99. Faces of Depression: Philip Burguieres, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ takeonestep/depression/fac es-philip. html (last visited Dec. 12, 2008) (quoting Philip Burguieres).
100. See Susan Percy, Suicide and Mental Health Int'l, Quiet Pain: CEO Depression and Suicide, http:// suicideandmentalhealthassociationinternational.org/quietpain. html (last visited Oct. 1, 2008).
101. Susan Brink, CEO Sufferings Trickle Down, U. S. NEWS and WORLD REP, Sept. 29, 2003, at 60 (describing the cover-up strategies of CEOs suffering from depression).
102. BOWER, supra note 53, at 130.
103. BYRON, supra note 52, at 311.
104. EICHENWALD, supra note 58, at 396.
105. See generally Randall S. Peterson, Brent D. Smith, Paul V. Martorana and Pamela D. Owens, The Impact of Chief Executive Officer Personality on Top Management Team Dynamics, 88 J. APPLIED PSYCHOL. 975 (2003).
106. Fishman, supra note 31, at 47.
107. See WALLACE and ERICKSON, supra note 76, at 152 ("Microsoft overcommitted itself and set unrealistic deadlines, but as far as Gates was concerned, it was more important to get the sale and worry about the consequences later. And Gates had supreme confidence that he could handle those consequences.");
108. WILSON, supra note 73 (noting numerous occasions when Ellison promised products Oracle was at the time incapable of providing). "Very often, Ellison would say that something was in the database that hadn't yet been done." SYMONDS, supra note 51, at 72.
109. STANLEY BING, CRAZY BOSSES: FULLY REVISED and UPDATED 68 (2007).
110. Arijit Chatterjee and Donald C. Hambrick, It's All About Me: Narcissistic CEOs and Their Effects on Company Strategy and Performance 5 (May 4, 2006) (unpublished study, Pennsylvania State University's Smeal College of Business) available at http://jacksonleadership. com/pdfs/Narciss istic-CEOs-05-04-06-ASQ.pdf.
111. Id. at 13, 18.
112. Donald C. Langevoort, The Organizational Psychology of Hyper-competition: Corporate Irresponsibility and the Lessons of Enron, 70 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 968, 974 (2002).
113. DOWNS, supra note 37, at 36 ("The narcissist is inflexible and intolerant of differing viewpoints....").
114. Id. at 28 ("The narcissist creates a working environment that lacks trust, then finds that others often mistrust her in return. ").
115. Id. at 37 ("The narcissistic manager denies the humanity of others, choosing to view them as objects, or modules, to be moved about the game board of the organization. ").
116. Id. at 59. ("[A narcissist measures] success not in profit and loss, but in the economies of personal achievement and glory.").
117. Id. at 51, 54.
118. See supra note 41 and accompanying text. Welch was said to be "almost fanatical" about his own presentations. BYRON, supra note 44, at 104.
119. BYRON, supra note 52, at 300.
120. Belinda Jane Board and Katarina Fritzon, Disordered Personalities at Work, 11 PSYCHOL., CRIME & L. 17 (2005).
121. See, e.g., Michael Maccoby, Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons, HARV. BUS. REV., Jan. -Feb. 2000, at 92: [Narcissists are typically not comfortable with their own emotions. They listen only for the kind of information they seek. They don't learn easily from others. They don't like to teach but prefer to indoctrinate and make speeches. They dominate meetings with subordinates. The result for the organization is greater internal competitiveness at a time when everyone is already under as much pressure as they can possibly stand.
122. MACCOBY, THE PRODUCTIVE NARCISSIST, supra note 32, at 130-31.
123. Mathew L. A. Hayward, Violina P. Rindova and Timothy G. Pollock, Believing One's Own Press: The Causes and Consequences of CEO Celebrity, 25 STRATEGIC MGMT. J. 637 (2004).
124. John A. Byrne, William C. Symonds and Julia Flynn Siler, CEO Disease, Bus. WK, Apr. 1, 1991, at 52. Interestingly, there is an observable correlation between the receipt of a "Best CEO" award and a decline in corporate performance. Malmendier and Tate, supra note 14, at 3.
125. See Ulrike Malmendier and Geoffrey Tate, CEO Overconfidence and Corporate Investment, 60 J. FIN. 2661 (2005).
126. Lovallo and Kahneman, supra note 56, at 58.
127. Langevoort, supra note 20, at 974.
128. See Donald C. Langevoort, Managing the "Expectations Gap" in Investor Protection: The SEC and the Post-Enron Reform Agenda, 48 VILL. L. REV. 1139, 1150 (2003) (noting how CEO expectations can migrate to CFOs and subordinates, who then also get caught up in meeting unrealistic goals).
129. See generally ALEX BERENSON, THE NUMBER: HOW THE DRIVE FOR QUARTERLY EARNINGS CORRUPTED WALL STREET and CORPORATE AMERICA (2003).
130. See Former CEO Indicted in WorldCom Scandal, SEATTLE TIMES, Mar. 3, 2004, at E1 (noting that, in pleading guilty to securities fraud, WorldCom CFO Scott Sullivan told the court "I took these actions, knowing that they were wrong, in a misguided effort to preserve the company to allow it to withstand what I believed were temporary financial difficulties.").
131. Carly Fiorina may be one such example. She insisted she did not need help in orchestrating the integration of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq. HP's board ultimately decided otherwise. See Craig Johnson, The Rise and Fall of Carly Fiorina: An Ethical Case Study, 15 J. LEADERSHIP and ORG. STUDIES 188 (2008) (tracing the board's growing insistence that Fiorina hire a chief operating officer and the board's ultimate decision to demand her resignation);
132. Ben Elgin, The Inside Story of Carly's Ouster, BUS. WK., Feb. 21, 2005, at 34 ("the board's proddings of Fiorina to bolster HP's operations talent went largely unheeded.").
133. GEORGE, supra note 74, at 30.
134. Donald C. Langevoort, Resetting the Corporate Thermostat: Lessons from the Recent Financial Scandals About Self-Deception, Deceiving Others and the Design of Internal Controls, 93 GEO. L. J. 285, 307 (2004).
135. In one case, a CEO's vituperative e-mail to his management team giving them a two-week ultimatum to "shape up, " was leaked to the press, causing the company's stock to fall 22 percent. Philip Delves Broughton, Boss's Angry E-mail Sends Shares Plunging, DAILY TELEGRAPH (London), Apr. 6, 2001.
136. SUTTON, supra note 82, at 29.
137. Id. at 27.
138. See Board Leadership and Composition, supra note 1 (noting that, in addition to current and former CEOs, 21 % of board members are now active or retired division managers or functional unit leaders, not CEOs).
139. Hall, Looking Beneath the Surface, supra note 20, at 17.
140. See Marleen A. O'Connor, The Enron Board: The Perils of Groupthink, 71 U. CIN. L. REV. 1233 (2003). (describing the "groupthink" theory and analyzing its application in the context of Enron's board).
141. Langevoort, supra note 117, at 310.
142. Simple mechanisms for diagnosing narcissism may include measuring the size of the CEO's picture in the annual report, counting references to the CEO in a company's press releases, and the length of the CEO's entry in Who's Who. See Chatterjee and Hambrick, supra note 94 (describing methodology for identifying CEOs with narcissistic traits). It may also include an assessment of the CEO's use of the corporate jet. See David Yermack, Flights of Fancy: Corporate Jets, CEO Perquisites, and Inferior Corporate Returns, 80 J. FIN. ECON. 211 (2006) (tracing the use of corporate jets by CEOs).
143. This issue is especially important in companies with a young workforce. "Younger staffers simply won't stick around to work for idiot bosses.... Their reaction to a command-and-control leader who blasts off mean missives or ridicules customers? Post the comments on a blog." Diane Brady, Charm Offensive: Why America's CEOs Are Suddenly So Eager to Be Loved, BUS. WK., June 26, 2006, at 76.
144. The use of a "sidekick" or "foil" is often recommended, particularly for so-called "visionary" leaders. Successful visionary-foil relationships include Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer and Warren Buffctt and Charlie Munger. See generally HAYWARD, supra note 57, at 104-05. See also MACCOBY, THE PRODUCTIVE NARCISSIST, supra note 32, at 54 ("Almost every productive narcissist CEO today has an obsessive COO (and if they don't they probably should).");
145. Paredes, supra note 7, at 679, 681 (suggesting that a "chief naysayer" might serve as an important counterweight to an overconfident CEO).
146. See O'Connor, supra note 123, at 1252 (describing the "gladiatorial" nature of the executive selection process);
147. Marleen A. O'Connor, Women Executives in Gladiator Corporate Cultures: The Behavioral Dynamics of Gender, Ego, and Power, 65 MD. L. REV. 465 (2006) (noting that women face systematic disadvantages as they ascend in the corporate hierarchy).
148. See, e.g., Langevoort, supra note 20, at 971 (noting that the tournament process is "skewed in the direction of rewarding those who are highly focused at the business of competing, which of necessity means the cognitive ability to block out concerns-like difficult ethical problems-that are likely to be distracting");
149. Donald C. Langevoort, Overcoming Resistance to Diversity in the Executive Suite: Grease, Grit, and the Corporate Promotion Tournament, 61 WASH. and LEE L. REV. 1615, 1630, 1631 (2004) (noting that the tournament process usually results in the selection of Machiavellian candidates who are "ethically and socially nimble" and who are "extremely aggressive vis-a-vis out-group members").
150. Hall, Looking Beneath the Surface, supra note 20, at 19.