Hero Syndrome
The term “Hero Syndrome” began receiving notoriety in the early 1980’s when Los Angeles police officer Jimmy Wade Pearson planted a fake bomb[1] on the Turkish Olympic team’s bus near the Los Angeles airport, during the summer Olympics. Pearson then “miraculously” was the officer who not only located the explosive device, but ripped the wires from it and ran with the device across the airport tarmac and deposited it in a safe location.
In his paper, "The Hero Syndrome", Arkansas State Trooper Ben D. Cross makes a strong case for why this should be called "Hero Complex". https://www.cji.edu/site/assets/files/1921/the_hero_syndrome.pdf[2]
The noted author Laura Bergman Fortgang[3] defined Hero Syndrome in 2012 as follows
- "It is an unconscious need to be needed, appreciated or valued that disguises itself as a good thing, but threatens to make you bitter and to overextend you.[4]"
Being the Single Point of Failure
One of the ways to identify a hero complex is if a single person is the only person who knows how to execute critical functions, who the contacts are to resolve an issue or how to fix/upgrade/maintain a system.
A Linkedin Article by Lance Charlton further articulates the issue:
- "Hero syndrome is a phenomenon that affects people who seek heroism or recognition, usually by creating a desperate situation which they can resolve. These individuals are sometimes forced into this situation due to their employer being under-resourced, they are pressured into thinking that they are the only capable individual to carry out such as task, or on the other hand, people struggle to delegate as they feel obliged to be the one who achieves success[5]."
There is discussion about how the Hero Complex affects delegation, as the "Hero" may want to be responsible for everything so that the credit comes to them.
This subject matter is also covered in the book The Phoenix Project
Additional References:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-berman-fortgang/hero-syndrome_b_1900657.html
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hero-syndrome-work-place-lance-charlton/
Impact
Process - Undocumented processes fail or cannot be executed when the tribal knowledge is lost.
Budget - If too much tribal knowledge becomes compartmentalized into a single individual, that individual leaving imparts excessive costs to the organization to rebuild those processes from the ground up.
Staffing - Hero syndrome impacts Talent Retention, causes Burnout and can stifle Professional Development.
Bottleneck - As all information must be funneled through the 'hero', this person becomes a bottleneck impeding progress.
Risk from Single Point of Failure - The hero becomes a single point of failure and potentially a risk to the business.
