🥊 When titans clash: What CEO feuds reveal about ego, identity & culture

This week in workplace whiplash 🌀

When egos dominate headlines, it’s easy to miss the quieter chaos unfolding in HR. From rising employee stress to AI takeover fears, here’s what’s been keeping us on edge this week:

• 😰 Employee stress is a business risk — not an HR problem
  HBR warns that treating stress as a “personal issue” sidelines its impact on productivity and profitability, urging C-suite buy-in to integrate stress metrics into core business strategy.
  👉HBR

• 🌈 DEI is non-negotiable
  The HR Director highlights fresh data showing gender-diverse firms are 25% more likely to see higher profits — and that rises to 36% for ethnically and culturally diverse companies — cementing DEI as a bottom-line driver.
  👉 The HR Director

• 🤖 AI recruiting roundup
  This week’s highlights from LinkedIn: Walmart rolled out an AI interview coach; Meta announced a sweeping AI-driven hiring overhaul; and Salesforce snapped up AI recruiting startup Moonhub.
  👉Linkedin

When leaders are busy tweeting at each other, someone’s still got to manage the humans behind the headlines. Because when ego takes the wheel, it’s HR left rerouting the culture crash.

A former colleague once told me her CEO’s Twitter account was more stressful than any board meeting. “I refresh it like I’m waiting for a PR crisis to land,” she said. “He tweets, and we’re instantly in damage control.”

Sound familiar?

The Musk–Trump feud is loud, personal, and weirdly addictive. But it’s also a case study in what happens when power, personality, and organisational identity collide. This isn’t just about billionaires throwing shade, it’s about how leadership ego can shape (or wreck) workplace culture.

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🧠 When the ego is the organisation

Musk’s personal brand is so tightly bound to X, Tesla, and now xAI, that it’s hard to tell where he ends, and the company begins. That’s not by accident.

Psychological research calls this identity leadership, when leaders embed their own values, quirks, and priorities into the DNA of an organisation. While that can drive alignment, it also means turbulence in their personal life (or Twitter feed) reverberates across the org.

And when the leader picks a public fight with, say, a former president? And it doesn’t just stay online. Inside the company, people feel the fallout.

👀 The power–performance trade-off

Ego isn’t inherently bad. Confident, visionary leaders can drive great performance. But when ego tips into narcissism, things get messy.

Research shows that narcissistic leaders are often perceived as exploitative and self-serving, leading to heightened employee stress, lower job commitment, and a breakdown in psychological safety. Which is obviously terrible for retention.

Harvard Business Review warns that when leaders wield unchecked power, it often hides poor judgment, fuels overconfidence, and stifles dissent — all of which can quietly unravel a company from the inside. In Musk’s case, even his biggest fans are starting to question whether the chaos is worth the innovation.

🔥 From boardroom to battlefield

So what’s the HR cost of high-conflict leadership?

1. Reputational risk: Employees don’t want to be associated with toxic public figures. Especially when the brand feels indistinguishable from the boss.

2. Culture erosion: When every value is filtered through one ego, dissent and diversity suffer.

3. Psychological safety: Who speaks up when they know the leader might subtweet them? Amy Edmondson’s work on psychological safety makes it clear: when psychological safety is low, employees stop speaking up — and that silence quickly stifles learning, creativity, and innovation.

🛠️ HR, it’s time to de-centre the founder

Sure, you can’t fix a personality. What you can do is design systems that protect culture from the fallout:

• Build shared leadership: Spread decision-making beyond the top. Research shows founder-CEOs often override team input, which stifles engagement. Shared leadership isn’t just nice, it’s necessary.

• Protect dissent: Anonymous feedback only works if it’s heard. MIT Sloan highlights leadership behaviour and work design as key to shifting toxic dynamics — especially when one voice dominates.

• Depersonalise values: Your values should outlast anyone in a corner office. Yet, as MIT Sloan warns on CEO succession, boards often put it off, leaving organisations dangerously founder‑centric when transitions are needed most.

Final thought

Musk vs. Trump might be popcorn-worthy. But for those inside the orbit, it’s not entertainment, it’s culture in freefall.

When a leader’s personal vendetta becomes your company’s brand, HR has two choices: stay silent or start safeguarding culture like it actually matters.

Because if your org is shaped by one man’s Twitter beefs, you don’t have a culture. You have a crisis.