It amazes me to see middle age men do this. After you have seen it once, you get a sense of it pretty fast. When I first had a taste of business success, I became an incredible arrogant ass. Like most, the next economy downturn was not just humbling but life changing in many ways. I have no need to be seen as the best in my business. I have a great need to try to be the best. Getting accolades is nice but self satisfaction is much better.
When I got my first supervisory job (a half-dozen engineers worked "for" me) I had to fire someone for incompetence. My boss and the HR manager and I met with him, explained what was happening, and I gave him a specific design task and a reasonable time (two weeks, I think) to get it done. He was gone by his own choice before the time was up.