Research digest · 25 Oct 2026
Recent work from psychology, business, law, family enterprise and protective security, chosen for what it adds to performance psychiatry, Sentry, Families, Leading Counsel and Prep. Where a piece is industry research rather than peer-reviewed, it says so.
1. The depressed chief executive who does not underperform
BOARDS AND PERFORMANCE · SENTRY
Cheng and Golshan trained machine-learning models on the voice in earnings-call recordings to estimate depression in chief executives. Greater firm risk went with more depression and higher job demands with less; female and older CEOs were less likely to show it. Depressed CEOs saw their tenure tied more tightly to performance, and there was limited evidence of higher, more performance-linked pay. The authors read this as a heightened response to bad news and a muted response to good. On the measures they could observe, these leaders did not perform worse on average.
Two uses. It gives boards a better question than whether the chief executive is coping. And it is a quiet Sentry point: a principal's mood can now be inferred by outsiders from public audio.
Cheng S-Y, Golshan NM (2025) Silent suffering: using machine learning to measure CEO depression. Journal of Accounting Research 63(2):689-767.
https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/joares/v63y2025i2p689-767.html
2. Loneliness at the top is a daily state, and home is where it breaks
CORE PERFORMANCE WORK
An experience-sampling study of 174 UK managers over more than 1,300 working days found that a lonely day predicted a lonelier next day, by way of withdrawal from tasks, from followers and from home life. A recall experiment with 185 managers found no sign that brief loneliness serves any useful purpose; it went with less relational engagement. What broke the cycle was a strong identity outside work, chiefly family.
The clinical lever, then, may lie less in the office than in the evening at home.
“Are you lonesome today?” The negative downstream consequences of daily loneliness for leaders and the buffering role of family identity. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology (2025) 30(6):382-400.
https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000413
3. Narcissistic CEO-chairs set the tone of the boardroom
BOARDS · SENTRY INNER CIRCLE MAP
Working from board meeting transcripts for 88 public firms and 197 chief executives, researchers found that narcissistic CEOs steer board discussion of risk towards a positive tone, most strongly when they also chair the board, and so win more resources for risky strategies. Over time they also pick directors who will follow their lead.
This is the Inner Circle Map in empirical form. The evidence of influence is in the register of the board's conversation rather than the organisation chart.
Setting the tone to get their way: an attention-based approach to how narcissistic CEOs influence the board of directors to take more risk. Strategic Management Journal (2024). Summary via PsyPost.
https://www.psypost.org/how-narcissistic-ceos-steer-boardroom-conversations-toward-risk-taking/
4. Lawyers want help and will not use it, for reasons of discretion
LEADING COUNSEL
The largest study of the legal profession to date, a weighted national sample of about 37,000 US lawyers, found 47.4% screening positive for high burnout and 15.6% for severe burnout. About a fifth met thresholds for moderate to extremely severe depression (21.7%) and anxiety (20.4%), and the young and those working extreme hours fared worst. The telling detail is why they stay away from help: confidentiality (53.3%), fear for reputation or career (49.2%) and lack of time (34.5%).
For lawyers, discretion is not a feature of the offer. It is the offer.
Krill PR, Anker JJ (2026) When demands equal distress: an updated understanding of lawyer mental health and well-being. Journal of Affective Disorders.
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/lawyer_assistance/research/lawyer-well-being/
5. The retired chief executive's void, drawn from the JSE
SUCCESSION
Lamberti and Lew at GIBS interviewed 17 retired chief executives of companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. They describe six linked processes by which identity is rebuilt after leaving: epiphanies, cues from others about how a retired leader should behave, a reckoning of resources, sensemaking, a new narrative, and finally living it. Most had prepared carefully for the company's future and hardly at all for their own. Lamberti, himself a former chief executive, compares the loss to divorce or bereavement.
Useful for succession engagements, for the trainee guide, and for South African conversations where the sample itself carries weight.
Lamberti MJ, Lew C (2025) Filling the void: the underlying processes of CEO post-retirement role identity reformation. Personnel Review.
https://repository.up.ac.za/items/b8c1c682-90bf-4a77-ab06-1265a4f4704e
6. In family firms, who feels it is theirs matters more than who owns it
FAMILY ENTERPRISE · FAMILIES
A study of nine family firms across two generations argues that succession is carried by a shared sense of ownership, built from interdependence and identification among family members, with both a practical and an emotional side. An Irish survey of the next generation sharpens the point: 85% held no shares, yet 39% felt a very high degree of psychological ownership, and young men were markedly more likely than young women both to intend to succeed and to feel the business was theirs.
The gap between felt and legal ownership is often where family-office disputes begin.
Pittino D et al. (2026) Bridging generations: the impact of family collective psychological ownership on succession in family businesses. Also: DCU National Centre for Family Business succession report (2025).
https://air.uniud.it/handle/11390/1330583
7. Executive targeting doubled in 2025, and reaches past the chief executive
SECURITY · FAMILIES · SENTRY
An analysis by the Security Executive Council with Mercyhurst University analysts records 424 incidents of targeting against executives from 2003 to October 2025, with 2025 already double the 2024 total. Chief executives were the target in 64% of cases; cyber incidents such as impersonation, swatting and account takeover made up 14%; family members and staff were counted where clearly targeted. A separate survey of 2,352 security chiefs found three quarters reporting a misinformation or disinformation campaign against their company in the past year.
This is industry research from open sources, not peer review, but it is the best current picture of the threat.
Security Executive Council (2025) Executive Targeting Report: analysis of attacks on corporate executives 2003-2025. Allied Universal World Security Report 2025.
8. The rehearsed grievance, not the unhappy employee, is the insider risk
SENTRY
In a survey of 383 people responding to insider scenarios (selling secrets, sabotage, leaking), job dissatisfaction went with resentment and with sympathy for the insider. It did not predict a person's own willingness to act. Anger rumination did: the habit of replaying a slight was the stronger predictor of saying one might do the same, even after allowing for job satisfaction. Younger respondents were more willing.
The sample leaned towards students and the scenarios were hypothetical, so treat it as a signal. Still, it puts a clinical construct at the centre of a security problem, which is the Sentry argument in miniature.
Scott TB, Vasquez EA, Pina A (2025) Factors influencing support for insider threat behaviours: anger rumination and job satisfaction. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management.
https://kar.kent.ac.uk/114497/
9. Expertise hides sleep debt until the task is unfamiliar
PREP
Using the spring clock change as a natural experiment, this study found that amateur forecasters' earnings estimates became markedly less accurate after the lost hour, while professionals held up. Among professional analysts, those with less expertise were hit hardest. Placebo tests support sleep as the cause.
The reading for Prep: the senior client who feels fine on five hours may be partly right, because experience does some of the work. The exposure comes with novelty, in a new role, an unfamiliar deal or a crisis, where there is no stored expertise to lean on. That is the case for measuring rather than asking.
Bazley W, Cuculiza C, Pisciotta K (2025) Sleep disruptions and information processing in financial markets. Management Science 71(4):3146-3165.
https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/mnsc.2022.01102
10. Executives who consulted ChatGPT forecast worse, and more confidently
DECISION-MAKING · SENTRY RED TEAM
About 300 managers and executives forecast Nvidia's share price a month ahead, then either consulted ChatGPT or talked it over with peers. The ChatGPT group grew more optimistic and more confident, gave oddly precise forecasts, and ended less accurate. The peer group grew more cautious and improved. The authors point to the machine's authoritative tone and the absence of the social checks that make people hedge.
AI is becoming a member of the inner circle, and a flattering one. A natural subject for the Red Team.
Parra-Moyano J, Reinmoeller P, Schmedders K (2025) Research: executives who used gen AI made worse predictions. Harvard Business Review, July 2025.
https://store.hbr.org/product/research-executives-who-used-gen-ai-made-worse-predictions/H08SQS
Compiled for Harris Hawkins from published research and reporting. Summaries are paraphrased; consult the sources before citing. Industry surveys are flagged where they appear.