Ex-CEO Christopher E. Kubasik, Lust, and Public Tall Poppy Syndrome.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Romans 6:12 (ESV)
One goal of my blogs is to introduce and differentiate private versus public TPS. This concept matters because I believe private TPS is more common than public TPS and largely unrecognized. By understanding the mechanics and dark emotions of public TPS, the populace can move from understanding a public psychosocial situation to a private one in which they were a party but do not have a "hat to hang it on," an inkling of "what just happened", or how to prevent future occurrences.
Last week's blog, Carl Sagan, Harvard, and Peer-to-Peer Tall Poppy Syndrome was an example of peer-to-peer TPS—Sagan's tribe (Harvard); the tribe cut him down, not the public. This week's example has elements of both private and public TPS—the initiating circumstances were private because it occurred within company confines. But the CEO was a TP, and his actions had national implications across both the private and public workforce.
L3Harris Technologies is not simply a defense contractor but the product of a long transformation in the American aerospace and defense industry. It is really the story of two companies—Harris Corporation and L3 Technologies—coming together to create a different kind of defense company.
For much of its history, Harris was fundamentally a communications and electronics company. Its roots stretched back more than a century, and over time it evolved toward sophisticated radio, communications, electronic warfare, surveillance, and space technologies. L3, meanwhile, had grown through a series of acquisitions into a major supplier of military electronics, communications, sensors, and intelligence systems.
A decisive moment came in 2019, when Harris and L3 merged in an all-stock transaction. The merger closed on June 29, 2019, creating L3Harris with roughly $17 billion in annual revenue and 50,000 employees.
The underlying strategic idea was important. Rather than simply selling individual pieces of military equipment, L3Harris wanted to become a company that could solve an entire mission problem.
It builds sophisticated communications systems and radios, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, electronic warfare equipment, space payloads and sensors, missile technologies and other mission systems.
L3Harris has increasingly positioned itself as the company that could provide the technology linking those pieces together. That is why the company's current description emphasizes end-to-end technology connecting space, air, land, sea, and cyber. In fiscal 2025, L3Harris generated approximately $21.9 billion in revenue, with $38.7 billion in orders and $27.5 billion in backlog.
Christopher E. Kubasik was born in 1961 in Cheverly, Maryland, and followed what initially looks like a fairly conventional path into corporate America. He studied accounting at the University of Maryland and graduated magna cum laude in 1983. Later, he attended Northwestern's Kellogg executive program, completed a Defense Acquisition University program for senior military acquisition officials, and earned an executive engineering certificate from Carnegie Mellon.
Interestingly, Kubasik was not originally an engineer. He was an accountant who gradually moved from finance to operations, strategy, and eventually leadership at enormous technology companies.
His first major professional chapter was at Ernst & Young. Kubasik spent roughly 17 years there, rising to partner in 1996. His work included government contractors and high-technology companies, giving him an unusually valuable combination of financial expertise and familiarity with the defense industry.
Then, in 1999, he made the jump from advising companies to running one. He joined Lockheed Martin as controller. Within a few years, he was moving rapidly upward. He was only 48 when he became president and COO of America's largest defense contractor and was widely regarded as a likely successor to CEO Robert Stevens.
And then everything collapsed. Lockheed discovered that he had been involved in a long-term extramarital relationship with a subordinate employee. The company conducted an ethics investigation. On November 9, 2012, Stevens asked Kubasik to resign, and Kubasik did so.
After leaving Lockheed, Kubasik spent 2013–2015 in smaller advisory roles. And then, in 2015, another enormous opportunity appeared. L3 Technologies hired him as President and COO, marking the beginning of his second act.
In 2018, he became CEO and chairman of L3 Technologies. Then came the enormous 2019 merger of L3 and Harris Corporation. Kubasik became vice chairman, president and COO of the newly created L3Harris Technologies. In June 2021, he became CEO, and in 2022, he became chairman as well.
In other words, he had climbed back almost exactly to where he had been before the first fall. And then he proceeded to transform L3Harris.
In August 2026, history repeated itself—but with an important difference.
L3Harris announced that Kubasik was leaving the company after the board completed an investigation and determined that he had violated the company's code of conduct.
The company did not publicly specify the conduct in its initial announcement. It emphasized that the matter was unrelated to financial reporting, operational performance, or customer relationships. Kubasik left without severance and forfeited approximately $58 million in unvested stock, according to subsequent reporting.
Reuters described the departure as a board-determined code-of-conduct violation but noted that the specific misconduct wasn't disclosed.
More recent reporting by The Wall Street Journal says women at L3Harris had raised concerns about Kubasik's behavior in earlier years, including a formal sexual-harassment complaint in 2023, and that a subsequent investigation led to his removal. Kubasik has denied misconduct and inappropriate relationships.
The confirmed corporate fact is that L3Harris's investigation found a code-of-conduct violation; the precise underlying conduct has not been fully disclosed by the company.
Kubasik's paradox is his extraordinary resilience (see Resilience and the Tall Poppy Syndrome) and vulnerability. His professional talents were apparently never the central issue in either departure. His career repeatedly demonstrates his ability to understand finance, operations, technology, and the defense industry at the highest level.
But twice, conduct outside the company's core business performance cut down an executive who had reached the top. Between those two falls, however, he managed something very few executives ever accomplish: he came all the way back.
That makes Kubasik's story less a conventional corporate biography than a story about ambition, failure, reinvention, power—and the limits of personal redemption.
Leadership is not simply about intelligence. It is not simply about strategic vision. It is not simply about delivering financial results.
A CEO operates under a different standard. Trust, judgment, and conduct matter. So does a virtuous life (see Ben Franklin, Virtues, and the Tall Poppy Syndrome). And when that trust is broken, even an extraordinarily successful executive can be justifiably cut down.
Tall Poppy Syndrome Newsletter
Join the newsletter to receive the latest updates in your inbox.
