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  • Chapter 4 - Hybris and Leadership

  • from Part I - Hybris in Classical Greece
  • Edited by Douglas Cairns, University of Edinburgh, Nick Bouras, King's College London
  • With Eugene Sadler-Smith, University of Surrey
  • Foreword by David Owen, The Daedalus Trust
  • Book:
    Hubris, Ancient and Modern
    Published online:
    18 December 2025
    Print publication:
    04 December 2025, pp 88-108

  • Summary

    This chapter focuses on Alcibiades’ love–hate relationship with the people of Athens to explore the notion of hybris in the context of leadership. Drawing on the social identity theory of leadership, I argue that the Athenians’ ambivalent attitude towards Alcibiades was a result of his complex interaction with two central aspects of Athenian social identity. Insofar as the Athenians perceived themselves as an imperialist and aristocratic city, Alcibiades was a ‘prototypical’ Athenian in that he embodied and articulated the most extreme form of Athenian imperialism. Insofar as the Athenians perceived themselves as ‘middling’ citizens, however, Alcibiades’ private and public conduct (couched by Thucydides in the language of transgression and hybris) was an affront to the dominant egalitarian political ethos. The analysis of Alcibiades’ mutable relationship with the Athenian people highlights the ways in which a leader’s hybris can manifest itself and how it can impact negatively on the leadership process.