Hubris

I have been watching Star Wars “The clone wars” animated series and was thinking about the reason why the Jedi were routed by the end of The revenge of the Sith movie. 

There are some interesting conclusions that I reached and decided to pen them down in a way that is understood by someone who doesn’t follow Star Wars. A lot of folks that are in leadership positions possess traits that can be identified as an ability to inspire, create a vision, take calculated risks etc. these people are identified as “Leaders” what is missed however in this identification is easily over looked traits that can be identified with pride, over confidence, a tendency to preach rather than discuss. These easily over looked traits are collectively known as hubris.  The exact dictionary meaning is excessive pride or over confidence. 

Hubris is not the same as narcissistic behaviour. Narcissism is excessive interest in the way one looks or in ones own needs many times at the expense of others. Hubris very often comes from a self serving bias. It is the belief that people tend to ascribe success to their own abilities and effort. Very often the starting point is a string of successes which results in the person rejecting any negative feedback from others. It starts to manifest as behaviour where the person would only focus on the achievement and strengths but will negate any fault and or failure. The knowledge based industry is full of folks that exhibit this trait; very often wondering what happened when the next big thing is created and tend to be left behind. The unfortunate part is that hubris is seen as a trait that need to be cultivated if you want to get ahead or again a position of power. The belief is that some level of hubris is the price to pay for great leadership.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Belief in one’s ability is needed but not at the cost of humility. One can see it on the sport field too. Sportspersons who have exhibited hubris tend to loose their way. The all time great sportspersons were those that tempered their belief with humility. 

Hubris does not allow the individual to continue growth by learning more.it tends to restrict the individuals sight by using blinders (in this case the blinders only allow the individual to see what they want to see). Knowledge is acquired when you loose the blinders and view the subject on a larger scale.

The Jedi (The good guys from a point of view in Star Wars) failed due to their collective hubris. They had to be almost wiped out for them to see the folly. (In one way Darth Vader was truly the chosen one - at the end of revenge of the Sith there were 2 Jedi and 2 Sith left; perfect balance. The other force sensitive characters did not identify as Sith or Jedi) 

It’s fairly easy to acquire hubris; all it needs is for your pride and ego to be stoked. More difficult is to identify hubris once acquired and then to let go. 

C