Paranoid CEOs hide from government, react strongly to competitors

The higher CEOs score on measures of paranoia, the more likely they are to avoid lobbying government, according to new research of 925 CEOs across 774 firms by Associate Professor Aaron Hill.

But hiding doesn’t always work. If sanctioned, or hauled in front of Congress – as Boeing’s CEO recently was to answer for the 737 Max plane’s safety failures – paranoid CEOs switch to lobbying hard for protections. Likewise, paranoid CEOs react strongly to competitive actions by rivals, responding with their own competitive attacks.

Read more about this research in this story from UF News.