About this source
Nick Leeson recounts how concealment, fear of failure, and absent controls turned a £10K mistake into the £862M collapse of Barings Bank. Lessons on risk, escalation, and incentive design.
Frameworks extracted
5 totalSELFongoing
Working-Class Overachiever Trap
Massive need for success plus fear of failure plus no perceived ceiling produces operators who can't say stop
STRmonths
The Bonus Short-Termism Trap
Outsized bonuses tied to annual P&L manufacture the exact behaviour they're meant to reward
LEADweeks
Systemic Breakdown Audit
Catastrophic failures require multiple control layers to fail simultaneously — find them all
MINDweeks
The Dual Mask Cost
Projecting unshakeable confidence in markets while internally collapsing accelerates the damage
FINongoing
The Concealment Spiral
Small hidden errors compound into catastrophic losses through delayed escalation