Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders

The Fundamental Paradox: Confidence versus Competence

At the heart of Chamorro-Premuzic's thesis lies a deceptively simple yet profound observation: we consistently mistake confidence for competence when selecting leaders. This conflation represents one of the most consequential errors in organizational life, affecting everything from corporate boardrooms to political offices. The author argues that our tendency to interpret overconfidence, narcissism, and charisma as leadership potential creates a systematic bias favoring men, who are statistically more likely to display these traits regardless of their actual ability to lead effectively.

The paradox operates on multiple levels. First, the very traits that help individuals emerge as leaders—assertiveness, overconfidence, and self-promotion—are often inversely correlated with leadership effectiveness. While genuine competence involves self-awareness, humility, and the ability to acknowledge limitations, these qualities rarely help people rise to positions of power. Instead, organizational selection processes reward those who project certainty and dominance, creating a fundamental mismatch between how we select leaders and what actually makes leadership successful.

Chamorro-Premuzic supports this argument with extensive psychological research demonstrating that overconfidence is not distributed equally between genders. Men, on average, overestimate their abilities and performance more than women do. This gender difference in self-perception becomes particularly pronounced in competitive, masculine-coded domains like leadership. Women tend to display more accurate self-assessment, which paradoxically disadvantages them in selection processes that reward self-promotion over self-awareness. The result is a systematic filtering mechanism that elevates confident men over competent individuals of any gender.

The author illustrates this dynamic with corporate examples, noting how many organizations celebrate leaders who exude certainty even when facing complex, ambiguous situations that should warrant caution. This cultural preference for decisive confidence over thoughtful deliberation creates environments where incompetent but confident men can thrive while more capable but appropriately humble candidates are overlooked. The paradox thus becomes self-perpetuating: organizations get leaders who match their flawed selection criteria rather than leaders who can actually deliver results.

Narcissism and Psychopathy as Leadership Impediments

Chamorro-Premuzic dedicates considerable attention to the "dark triad" personality traits—narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism—demonstrating how these characteristics, while often mistaken for leadership qualities, actually undermine effective leadership. His analysis challenges the romanticized notion of the charismatic, ruthless leader who achieves results through force of personality and strategic manipulation. Instead, the research reveals these traits as significant liabilities that damage organizations and teams.

Narcissistic leaders, the book explains, are characterized by grandiosity, entitlement, and an excessive need for admiration. While their self-confidence and charisma can be initially attractive to organizations seeking bold, visionary leaders, narcissists ultimately create toxic work environments. They surround themselves with sycophants rather than competent advisors, make reckless decisions to feed their ego, and take credit for successes while blaming others for failures. The author cites research showing that narcissistic CEOs are more likely to engage in corporate fraud, make volatile strategic decisions, and create cultures of fear and dysfunction.

The connection to gender becomes evident when examining prevalence rates: men score significantly higher on measures of narcissism and psychopathy than women. This means that selection processes favoring charisma, boldness, and self-promotion disproportionately advance men with dark triad traits. Chamorro-Premuzic argues that what we often celebrate as "strong leadership" or "executive presence" may actually be warning signs of personality disorders that predict poor leadership outcomes.

Particularly troubling is the book's exploration of how psychopathic traits can facilitate career advancement. Psychopathy, characterized by lack of empathy, manipulativeness, and impulsivity, should disqualify individuals from leadership roles that require caring for others' development and well-being. Yet these same traits can appear as fearlessness, decisiveness, and political savvy during the selection process. The author presents case studies of corporate leaders whose psychopathic tendencies were initially mistaken for strength but eventually led to organizational disasters, from Enron to the 2008 financial crisis.

The Distortion of Leadership Archetypes

A central argument in the book concerns how our cultural archetypes of leadership are fundamentally distorted, modeled on stereotypically masculine traits rather than actual leadership effectiveness. Chamorro-Premuzic traces how historical, cultural, and media representations have created an idealized leader image that emphasizes dominance, aggression, competitiveness, and emotional stoicism—traits more commonly socialized in men and more readily displayed by incompetent men seeking power.

This archetype persists despite overwhelming evidence that effective leadership requires different qualities entirely: emotional intelligence, humility, integrity, and the ability to develop others. The author draws on decades of industrial-organizational psychology research demonstrating that transformational leadership—characterized by inspiration, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration—produces better outcomes than the command-and-control approaches associated with traditional masculine leadership models.

The distortion creates a double bind for women and a free pass for incompetent men. Women who display traditionally feminine leadership qualities—collaboration, empathy, developmental focus—are often dismissed as lacking "leadership presence" or being "too soft." Conversely, women who adopt more assertive, traditionally masculine approaches face backlash for violating gender norms, being labeled as "aggressive" or "difficult." Meanwhile, men can display these same assertive behaviors without penalty, and incompetent men can coast on the mere appearance of fitting the leadership archetype without demonstrating actual capability.

Chamorro-Premuzic illustrates this with examples from political leadership, contrasting the reception of male and female leaders who display identical behaviors. He notes how male politicians' anger is often interpreted as passion while women's anger is seen as emotional instability, how men's ambition is celebrated while women's is questioned, and how men's self-promotion is viewed as confidence while women's is perceived as arrogance. These double standards ensure that the distorted masculine archetype remains dominant, perpetuating the cycle of incompetent male leadership.

The Role of Overconfidence in Career Advancement

The book provides a detailed examination of how overconfidence functions as an unearned advantage in professional environments, particularly benefiting men in their rise to leadership positions. Chamorro-Premuzic presents overconfidence not as a harmless personality quirk but as a systematic distortion that corrupts organizational decision-making at every level, from hiring to promotion to project selection.

Research cited throughout the book demonstrates that overconfident individuals are more likely to speak up in meetings, volunteer for high-visibility projects, negotiate aggressively for promotions and raises, and present their ideas with conviction—all behaviors that organizations reward even when the underlying competence is lacking. This creates what the author calls a "false signal" problem: overconfidence looks like leadership potential to evaluators who lack objective performance data or who rely on subjective impressions formed in interviews and social interactions.

The gender dimension becomes critical because male socialization and cultural norms encourage overconfidence in men while discouraging it in women. From childhood, boys receive messages that they should be bold, take risks, and project strength even when uncertain. Girls, conversely, receive mixed messages about self-promotion and face social penalties for appearing "too confident" or "bossy." These socialization patterns create a confidence gap that becomes a career advancement gap, not because women are less competent but because they are less likely to overestimate and oversell their abilities.

Chamorro-Premuzic illustrates the consequences with workplace scenarios: in performance reviews, men are more likely to attribute successes to their own abilities and failures to external circumstances, while women display the opposite pattern. In salary negotiations, men ask for more and with greater frequency. In meetings, men speak more, interrupt more, and have their contributions valued more highly—not because their ideas are better but because they present them with greater confidence. Each of these moments becomes a micro-decision point where overconfidence translates into career advantage, compound over time into the dramatic leadership gender gap we observe at senior levels.

The Importance of Emotional Intelligence and Self-Awareness

In stark contrast to the overconfident, narcissistic traits that facilitate career advancement, Chamorro-Premuzic argues that emotional intelligence and self-awareness are actually the most reliable predictors of leadership effectiveness. This section of the book presents extensive evidence that leaders with high emotional intelligence create more productive, innovative, and satisfied teams while achieving better organizational outcomes across virtually every measure.

Emotional intelligence, as defined in the book, encompasses self-awareness (understanding one's own emotions and their impact), self-regulation (managing disruptive emotions), social awareness (empathy and organizational understanding), and relationship management (the ability to inspire, influence, and develop others). These capabilities enable leaders to navigate the complex human dynamics that determine organizational success, from managing conflict to building trust to creating psychological safety for innovation.

The author presents compelling data showing that emotionally intelligent leaders have more engaged employees, lower turnover rates, higher team performance, and better financial results. They create inclusive environments where diverse perspectives are valued, mistakes are treated as learning opportunities, and people feel motivated to contribute their best work. In contrast, leaders lacking emotional intelligence—regardless of their technical expertise or strategic vision—tend to create toxic cultures characterized by politics, fear, and disengagement.

Here again, gender patterns emerge. Research indicates that women, on average, score higher on measures of emotional intelligence, particularly in empathy and social awareness. This should position women as ideal leadership candidates, yet organizational selection processes consistently undervalue these capabilities relative to more masculine-coded traits like assertiveness and competitiveness. Chamorro-Premuzic argues that this represents a catastrophic misalignment between what organizations need in leaders and what they select for, resulting in the systematic elevation of emotionally unintelligent men to positions of power.

The book emphasizes that emotional intelligence is particularly critical in the modern knowledge economy, where leadership effectiveness depends on the ability to attract and retain talented people, foster collaboration across diverse teams, and create adaptive organizations capable of learning and innovation. The command-and-control approaches associated with traditional masculine leadership are increasingly obsolete, yet selection processes have not caught up to this reality, continuing to favor confident men over emotionally intelligent candidates of any gender.

Redefining Leadership Standards and Metrics

Perhaps the book's most practical contribution is its call to fundamentally redefine how we identify, select, and evaluate leaders. Chamorro-Premuzic argues that the persistence of incompetent male leadership reflects not individual failures but systemic failures in how organizations conceive of and measure leadership potential and performance. Fixing the problem requires replacing subjective, biased assessments with objective, evidence-based evaluation methods.

The author advocates for a competency-based approach that focuses on actual leadership behaviors and outcomes rather than demographic characteristics or personality traits. This means evaluating candidates based on their track record of developing talent, building high-performing teams, driving innovation, and achieving sustainable results—not on their confidence, charisma, or resemblance to previous leaders. Such an approach would level the playing field, reducing advantages currently enjoyed by overconfident men and creating opportunities for genuinely competent leaders regardless of gender.

Chamorro-Premuzic details specific assessment methods that organizations can employ, including 360-degree feedback that gathers input from subordinates, peers, and supervisors; structured interviews that focus on behavioral examples rather than hypothetical scenarios; work sample tests that simulate actual leadership challenges; and personality assessments that screen for traits like emotional intelligence, integrity, and humility rather than just extraversion and confidence. When properly implemented, these tools dramatically reduce bias and improve the quality of leadership selection.

The book also addresses the need to redefine success metrics for leaders already in position. Too often, organizations evaluate leaders based on short-term financial performance or individual visibility rather than sustainable value creation and team development. This creates perverse incentives for narcissistic, self-promoting behaviors and punishes the patient, developmental approach characteristic of effective leadership. By shifting evaluation criteria to emphasize long-term outcomes, employee engagement, succession planning, and ethical conduct, organizations can create accountability systems that favor competence over confidence.

Finally, Chamorro-Premuzic argues for transparency in leadership evaluation and selection. When processes are opaque and criteria are unstated, bias thrives and political maneuvering replaces merit. By making standards explicit, collecting data on outcomes, and regularly auditing processes for bias, organizations can create systems that genuinely identify and promote the most capable leaders. This transparency also helps combat the tendency to judge women by their accomplishments while judging men by their potential—a double standard that significantly contributes to male overrepresentation in leadership.

The Business Case for Gender-Balanced Leadership

While much of the book focuses on fairness and equity, Chamorro-Premuzic also presents a compelling business case for gender-balanced leadership, arguing that organizations with more women in leadership positions simply perform better across virtually every meaningful metric. This is not, he emphasizes, because women possess inherently superior leadership abilities, but because current selection processes are so biased toward incompetent men that increasing female representation necessarily improves average leadership quality.

The evidence assembled in the book is extensive: companies with more women in leadership have higher profitability, stronger stock performance, better innovation outcomes, superior risk management, and more engaged workforces. These advantages stem from multiple mechanisms. First, as noted, women leaders tend to display higher emotional intelligence, creating more productive work environments. Second, gender diversity at the top promotes cognitive diversity, reducing groupthink and improving decision-making quality. Third, organizations that successfully promote women have typically reformed their selection processes to focus on competence over confidence, improving leadership quality overall.

Chamorro-Premuzic addresses the common objection that correlation does not prove causation—perhaps successful companies can afford to prioritize diversity rather than diversity causing success. He presents longitudinal studies showing that increasing female leadership predicts future performance improvements, not just vice versa. He also notes that the mechanisms are theoretically sound: better leadership creates better outcomes, and selection processes that favor competence over demographics naturally produce better leaders.

The book also tackles the "pipeline problem" excuse often offered for male-dominated leadership, the claim that there simply are not enough qualified women to fill leadership roles. Chamorro-Premuzic dismantles this argument by showing that women now earn the majority of college and advanced degrees, perform equally or better in most professional contexts, and consistently receive higher competency ratings than their male peers. The problem is not supply but selection bias that filters out competent women while advancing incompetent men.

Perhaps most powerfully, the author argues that gender-balanced leadership is not a women's issue but an organizational performance issue. Companies that fail to address gender imbalance are not just being unfair; they are making poor business decisions that saddle them with lower-quality leadership than their competitors. In an increasingly competitive global economy, organizations cannot afford the luxury of limiting their leadership talent pool to half the population, particularly when their current selection methods are systematically choosing the wrong half.

Cultural and Societal Implications

The book's final major theme examines the broader cultural and societal factors that create and perpetuate the problem of incompetent male leadership, arguing that organizational practices both reflect and reinforce larger patterns of gender inequality. Chamorro-Premuzic situates workplace leadership selection within the context of media representations, political dynamics, educational systems, and family structures that all contribute to gendered expectations about authority and capability.

Media representations play a particularly significant role in shaping leadership archetypes. The author notes how films, television, and news coverage overwhelmingly portray leaders as male, typically embodying traditionally masculine traits like aggression, dominance, and emotional detachment. Even when media features female leaders, they are often depicted as exceptional outliers who succeed by adopting masculine approaches or are punished narratively for their ambition. These representations shape our unconscious associations about what leaders look like and how they behave, creating cognitive schemas that bias our evaluations of real-world candidates.

Educational systems reinforce these patterns through both explicit and implicit mechanisms. Boys are encouraged to speak up, take risks, and compete, while girls receive messages to be collaborative, modest, and agreeable. Teacher expectations, classroom dynamics, and peer interactions all contribute to the confidence gap that later translates into career disadvantage. The author argues for educational reforms that build confidence and leadership skills in girls while teaching boys emotional intelligence and the value of humility—creating a generation better prepared for effective leadership regardless of gender.

The political sphere provides perhaps the starkest examples of the dynamics Chamorro-Premuzic describes, with electoral systems that reward charisma and self-promotion over competence and governance skill. He examines how political campaigns function as extended job interviews that test candidates' ability to project confidence and attack opponents rather than their capacity for effective policymaking. This creates a filtering mechanism that advantages narcissistic men while disadvantaging women and more capable candidates of all genders, resulting in political leadership that poorly serves public interests.

Ultimately, Chamorro-Premuzic argues that addressing incompetent male leadership requires cultural

Transforming Organizational Selection Processes

One of the most critical practical applications from Chamorro-Premuzic's work involves fundamentally restructuring how organizations identify and select leaders. The author emphasizes that companies must move away from relying on charisma and confidence as primary selection criteria. Instead, organizations should implement structured assessment processes that measure actual leadership competencies such as emotional intelligence, humility, and integrity. This means developing multi-stage evaluation systems that include personality assessments validated for leadership effectiveness, 360-degree feedback from peers and subordinates, and situational judgment tests that reveal how candidates handle real leadership challenges.

A powerful example from the book involves a technology company that revolutionized its hiring practices by implementing blind resume reviews and structured interviews focused on behavioral evidence rather than charm. Within two years, the percentage of women in leadership roles increased from 18% to 34%, and employee engagement scores rose by 27%. The key was creating standardized evaluation rubrics that assessed candidates on demonstrable competencies like team development, strategic thinking, and ethical decision-making rather than gut feelings about who "looked like a leader." Organizations can begin this transformation by auditing their current selection criteria, identifying where subjective assessments dominate, and replacing them with evidence-based metrics tied to actual leadership outcomes.

Chamorro-Premuzic also recommends implementing "pre-mortems" in the selection process—asking hiring committees to imagine a candidate has failed spectacularly and work backward to identify what warning signs they might have missed. This technique counteracts the halo effect of confidence and forces evaluators to scrutinize potential weaknesses. Additionally, organizations should track long-term outcomes of their leadership selections, correlating hiring decisions with performance metrics 12-24 months later. This data-driven approach reveals which selection criteria actually predict success and which merely predict self-promotion.

Developing Self-Awareness in Current and Aspiring Leaders

The book provides invaluable guidance for individuals seeking to become more effective leaders by developing genuine self-awareness rather than inflated self-confidence. Chamorro-Premuzic argues that the first step is embracing humility and recognizing that leadership effectiveness isn't about having all the answers but about facilitating the best answers from teams. He recommends that leaders actively seek critical feedback through structured mechanisms, not just the positive reinforcement that confident individuals naturally attract. This includes establishing "truth-tellers" in your professional network—people who will provide honest assessments of your weaknesses and blind spots.

A practical exercise the author suggests involves conducting a rigorous self-assessment using validated personality instruments like the Hogan Assessment or NEO-PI-R, which measure traits like narcissism, psychopathy, and emotional stability. Leaders should compare their self-perceptions with how others actually experience them by requesting anonymous feedback on specific behaviors. One executive profiled in the book discovered through this process that while he rated himself highly on "empowering others," his team consistently felt micromanaged and undervalued. This gap between self-perception and reality is exactly what incompetent-but-confident leaders fail to recognize.

For aspiring leaders, particularly women and others who may have been socialized to downplay their competence, Chamorro-Premuzic offers different advice: document your achievements with concrete metrics and learn to communicate your value without discomfort. However, he distinguishes this from empty self-promotion by emphasizing that genuine confidence comes from competence. The practical application is to build verifiable skills, seek stretch assignments that develop leadership capacity, and cultivate sponsors who can advocate for your abilities based on observed performance. The author notes that competent individuals often benefit from leadership coaching that helps them articulate their strengths without feeling inauthentic, while overconfident individuals need coaching that builds self-awareness and humility.

Redesigning Performance Management Systems

Chamorro-Premuzic presents compelling arguments for overhauling performance management to evaluate leaders based on their team's success rather than their personal charisma or self-reported achievements. Traditional performance reviews often reward leaders who are skilled at managing upward—impressing their own bosses—while ignoring how they treat subordinates. The practical application is implementing robust 360-degree feedback systems where subordinate evaluations carry substantial weight in leadership assessments. Research cited in the book shows that subordinate ratings are the strongest predictor of leadership effectiveness, yet they're often given minimal consideration in promotion decisions.

Organizations should establish clear metrics for leadership effectiveness that include team retention rates, employee engagement scores, and the career development of team members. One financial services firm described in the book began tracking how many employees left within 18 months of working under specific managers. They discovered that their three most "impressive" senior leaders—all confident men who performed brilliantly in executive presentations—had attrition rates exceeding 40%, costing the company millions in recruitment and lost productivity. By making these metrics visible and consequential, the organization shifted incentives away from self-promotion and toward genuine people development.

The author also recommends implementing "stay interviews" and exit interviews that specifically probe leadership quality. Questions should move beyond generic satisfaction to examine whether leaders demonstrate integrity, develop their people, make sound decisions, and create psychological safety. This data should be aggregated and analyzed to identify patterns, with poor leadership scores triggering interventions ranging from coaching to removal from leadership positions. Chamorro-Premuzic emphasizes that without consequences for bad leadership, organizations will continue selecting and promoting incompetent individuals who excel at impression management.

Creating Inclusive Leadership Cultures

A crucial practical application involves intentionally building organizational cultures that value competence over confidence and diversity over homogeneity. Chamorro-Premuzic explains that many workplace cultures inadvertently reward masculine-stereotyped behaviors like aggression, dominance, and self-promotion while penalizing feminine-stereotyped behaviors like collaboration, empathy, and humility—regardless of whether these behaviors actually correlate with effectiveness. The practical solution is to explicitly redefine leadership in terms of outcomes rather than styles, making it clear that diverse approaches are not only accepted but expected.

This requires leadership from the top. Senior executives must model humility, acknowledge mistakes, and visibly value input from diverse sources. The book describes a manufacturing company whose CEO instituted a practice of publicly crediting team members for successful initiatives and taking personal responsibility for failures—reversing the typical pattern where leaders claim credit and deflect blame. This cultural shift took approximately 18 months but resulted in more collaborative leadership throughout the organization, with employees reporting feeling safer to take calculated risks and speak up about problems.

Organizations should also examine their informal networks and sponsorship patterns. Research in the book reveals that high-confidence individuals naturally attract sponsors and mentors, while equally or more competent individuals who lack self-promotional skills get overlooked. The practical intervention is creating structured sponsorship programs that match high-potential employees with senior leaders based on performance data rather than personal chemistry. Additionally, organizations should provide bias training that specifically addresses the confidence-competence confusion, teaching evaluators to distinguish between people who talk like leaders and people who actually deliver results.

Personal Career Navigation Strategies

For individual readers navigating organizations that continue to reward incompetence, Chamorro-Premuzic offers practical strategies for career advancement without compromising integrity. The first is to become strategically visible by documenting achievements in ways that create objective records. This means tracking metrics, securing testimonials from colleagues and clients, and ensuring your contributions are visible to decision-makers. The author distinguishes this from empty self-promotion by emphasizing that you're communicating genuine value, not fabricating or exaggerating accomplishments.

The book also recommends developing political savvy—understanding how decisions actually get made in your organization and building relationships with key stakeholders. However, Chamorro-Premuzic emphasizes that competent individuals should use this knowledge to advance worthy projects and talented people, not just themselves. One example involves a program manager who struggled to get resources for her high-performing team because she avoided "playing politics." After reading about organizational dynamics, she began having informal coffee meetings with budget decision-makers, sharing her team's impact data in casual conversation. Within six months, her team received increased funding—not because she became manipulative, but because she communicated their value more effectively.

For those working under incompetent leaders, the author provides survival strategies including documenting decisions and interactions, building strong peer networks for support, and knowing when to leave. He notes that staying too long under destructive leadership can damage your own development and well-being. The practical application is conducting regular career audits: Is this environment allowing you to develop genuine competencies? Are you learning from effective role models? If the answers are consistently negative, it may be time to seek opportunities elsewhere. Importantly, Chamorro-Premuzic advises using interview processes to evaluate potential employers' leadership quality by asking candidates to describe their current leader's management style and how decisions get made—the responses reveal whether the organization values competence or merely confidence.

Educational and Developmental Interventions

The final practical application involves rethinking leadership development and business education. Chamorro-Premuzic argues that MBA programs and corporate leadership training often exacerbate the problem by emphasizing confidence-building and charismatic presentation skills while giving insufficient attention to self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and ethical decision-making. He recommends that educational institutions incorporate validated personality assessments into their curricula, helping students understand their tendencies toward narcissism, hubris, or overconfidence before these traits become entrenched.

Leadership development programs should include substantial components on psychological safety, inclusive leadership, and managing diverse teams—competencies that research shows correlate with effectiveness but that traditional programs often treat as supplementary "soft skills." One business school profiled in the book restructured its leadership course to begin with a month-long module on self-awareness, requiring students to gather anonymous feedback from peers, subordinates, and supervisors, then develop specific plans to address identified weaknesses. Students reported that this uncomfortable process was the most valuable component of their education, fundamentally changing how they approached leadership.

Organizations investing in leadership development should similarly prioritize programs that build genuine competencies over those that simply boost confidence. This means extended development experiences with real accountability, not just inspirational weekend retreats. Chamorro-Premuzic recommends action-learning projects where aspiring leaders tackle actual organizational challenges with coaching support, receiving continuous feedback on how their approach affects others. The key is creating environments where future leaders develop self-awareness and humility alongside strategic and operational skills, ensuring that confidence derives from demonstrated competence rather than delusion.

The Confidence-Competence Gap

At the heart of Chamorro-Premuzic's thesis lies a fundamental disconnect between confidence and competence that pervades leadership selection processes. The author argues that organizations systematically confuse confidence with competence, mistaking charisma and self-assurance for actual leadership ability. This cognitive error creates a pathway for individuals—particularly men—who display high levels of confidence but lack the underlying skills necessary for effective leadership.

The framework reveals that confidence is often inversely related to self-awareness and competence. Truly competent individuals tend to be more aware of their limitations and therefore display appropriate levels of humility. In contrast, incompetent individuals frequently lack the metacognitive ability to recognize their own shortcomings, a phenomenon related to the Dunning-Kruger effect. This creates a paradox: those least qualified to lead often appear most confident in their abilities, while those with genuine expertise may seem hesitant or uncertain because they understand the complexity of leadership challenges.

Chamorro-Premuzic provides compelling evidence from organizational psychology research showing that overconfidence in men is consistently rewarded in selection processes. He cites studies demonstrating that when men and women display equal levels of competence, the more confident individual—statistically more likely to be male—receives higher ratings for leadership potential. This bias becomes self-reinforcing: organizations promote confident individuals who then become role models for what leaders should look like, perpetuating a cycle that favors style over substance.

The author emphasizes that this gap has profound consequences for organizational performance. When confidence becomes the primary selection criterion, companies end up with leaders who excel at self-promotion but struggle with the actual demands of leadership: building teams, making sound strategic decisions, and creating psychologically safe environments where others can thrive. The result is a leadership landscape populated by individuals who are better at getting leadership positions than actually leading.

The Three Dark Side Traits

Chamorro-Premuzic introduces a critical framework centered on three personality traits that paradoxically help individuals emerge as leaders while simultaneously making them terrible at the job: narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. Collectively known as the "Dark Triad," these traits are more prevalent in men and are often mistaken for leadership qualities during selection processes.

Narcissism manifests as grandiosity, entitlement, and a constant need for admiration. In leadership contexts, narcissistic individuals appear charismatic and visionary, qualities that appeal to those making promotion decisions. They excel in interviews and presentations, projecting supreme confidence in their abilities. However, once in positions of power, narcissistic leaders create toxic environments characterized by poor decision-making, resistance to feedback, and a focus on personal glory rather than organizational success. The author points to research showing that while narcissists are more likely to emerge as leaders, they consistently underperform once installed in leadership roles.

Psychopathy in the workplace—distinct from criminal psychopathy—involves charm, manipulation, and a lack of empathy. Chamorro-Premuzic explains that subclinical psychopaths can be highly effective at navigating corporate politics, appearing bold and decisive while actually being reckless and unconcerned with the welfare of others. Studies suggest that psychopathic traits are significantly overrepresented in executive suites compared to the general population, with estimates ranging from 3-12% versus approximately 1% in the broader population.

Machiavellianism describes a calculated, strategic approach to interpersonal relationships focused on personal gain. Machiavellian individuals excel at office politics, building alliances based on utility rather than genuine connection. While this trait can help people ascend organizational hierarchies, it undermines the trust and collaboration essential for effective leadership. The author argues that organizations inadvertently select for this trait by creating competitive, zero-sum promotion systems that reward political maneuvering over collaborative achievement.

The framework's power lies in explaining why these destructive traits persist: they provide short-term advantages in leader emergence while creating long-term costs in leader effectiveness. Organizations continue to promote individuals with Dark Triad traits because the selection process prioritizes the very qualities these individuals excel at displaying.

Gender Differences in Leadership Competence

One of the book's most provocative frameworks addresses the systematic gender differences in how leadership competence develops and is evaluated. Chamorro-Premuzic argues that women, on average, possess more of the traits associated with effective leadership, yet face higher barriers to achieving leadership positions. This creates a competence paradox: the gender that demonstrates better leadership abilities is underrepresented in leadership roles.

The author presents extensive research showing that women score higher on emotional intelligence, conscientiousness, and transformational leadership behaviors—all predictors of leadership effectiveness. Women leaders tend to be more collaborative, better at developing talent, and more focused on long-term organizational sustainability. Meta-analyses of leadership effectiveness studies consistently show that female leaders receive higher ratings from subordinates, peers, and superiors on most leadership competencies.

However, this competence advantage doesn't translate into proportional representation in leadership because of what Chamorro-Premuzic calls "gendered selection criteria." Organizations claim to value collaboration, emotional intelligence, and team development, but actually promote based on confidence, assertiveness, and political savvy—traits more commonly displayed by men and often associated with the Dark Triad. This creates a double bind: women who display stereotypically feminine traits are seen as lacking leadership potential, while women who adopt more assertive, masculine styles face backlash for violating gender norms.

The framework reveals how gender stereotypes contaminate leadership evaluation. The same behaviors receive different interpretations based on the leader's gender: assertiveness in men is seen as confidence, while identical behavior in women is labeled as aggression. Ambition in men signals leadership potential; in women, it raises concerns about likability. These biases operate largely unconsciously, making them particularly difficult to address through traditional diversity training approaches.

Chamorro-Premuzic argues that the solution isn't simply adding more women to existing leadership structures, but fundamentally reconceptualizing what leadership means and how it's evaluated. By maintaining selection systems designed to identify confident, assertive individuals, organizations perpetuate gender imbalances while simultaneously selecting for traits that predict poor leadership performance regardless of gender.

The Leadership Mismatch Framework

The book introduces a comprehensive framework explaining why there's such a profound mismatch between the traits that help people become leaders and those that make them effective leaders. Chamorro-Premuzic calls this the "leader emergence versus leader effectiveness" distinction, arguing that modern organizations have optimized for the former while neglecting the latter.

Leader emergence refers to the process by which individuals are identified as having leadership potential and subsequently promoted into leadership positions. This process heavily favors traits like confidence, extraversion, assertiveness, and political skill. These characteristics help individuals stand out in competitive environments, perform well in interviews, and navigate organizational politics. The framework shows how selection committees, influenced by implicit leadership theories shaped by historical precedent, look for individuals who match their mental prototype of what a leader should look like—typically a confident, assertive male.

Leader effectiveness, conversely, depends on an entirely different set of competencies: emotional intelligence, integrity, humility, judgment, and the ability to develop others. Effective leaders create high-performing teams, make sound strategic decisions, and build organizational cultures where talent can flourish. Research consistently demonstrates that these traits predict actual leadership outcomes—team performance, employee engagement, innovation, and organizational success—but they're often invisible or undervalued in selection processes.

The mismatch occurs because the traits that make someone good at getting leadership positions (emergence traits) are often negatively correlated with the traits that make someone good at being a leader (effectiveness traits). For example, overconfidence helps in interviews but leads to poor decision-making in executive roles. Political maneuvering helps in promotions but undermines trust essential for team performance. The framework explains why so many organizations find themselves with charismatic leaders who consistently underdeliver.

Chamorro-Premuzic provides a particularly illuminating example from political leadership, noting that voters consistently prefer confident, charismatic candidates over those who demonstrate actual policy expertise or collaborative skills. This same dynamic plays out in corporate boardrooms, where directors select CEOs who project confidence and vision rather than those with proven track records of developing talent and driving sustainable growth. The author argues that until organizations align their selection criteria with the actual demands of leadership, they will continue producing this mismatch at scale.

The Hubris-Humility Spectrum

A central framework in the book examines the role of hubris versus humility in leadership, arguing that organizations systematically overvalue hubris while undervaluing humility. Chamorro-Premuzic defines hubris as excessive pride and dangerous overconfidence, particularly regarding one's own abilities and the correctness of one's beliefs. Humility, conversely, involves accurate self-assessment, openness to feedback, and a focus on continuous learning.

The framework demonstrates that hubris provides significant advantages in leadership selection. Hubristic individuals project certainty and decisiveness, qualities that appear attractive during times of uncertainty or crisis. They make bold promises, present simplistic solutions to complex problems, and radiate the kind of confidence that makes others feel secure. In selection contexts—whether interviews, elections, or board evaluations—this confidence translates into perceptions of competence and leadership ability.

However, once in leadership roles, hubris becomes catastrophically counterproductive. Hubristic leaders ignore warning signals, dismiss contrary evidence, suppress dissenting opinions, and make reckless decisions. They're unable to learn from mistakes because they cannot acknowledge making them. Chamorro-Premuzic cites extensive research on corporate failures, showing that hubristic CEOs are more likely to pursue value-destroying acquisitions, engage in financial fraud, and resist necessary strategic pivots. The author points to high-profile examples like the 2008 financial crisis, where hubristic leadership in major banks led to systematic underestimation of risk.

Humility, while less flashy, predicts superior leadership outcomes across multiple dimensions. Humble leaders create psychologically safe environments where team members feel comfortable raising concerns and suggesting innovations. They make better decisions by actively seeking diverse perspectives and acknowledging the limits of their own knowledge. They build stronger teams because they focus on others' development rather than personal aggrandizement. Research on "Level 5 Leadership," popularized by Jim Collins, shows that the most successful corporate transformations are led by individuals who combine professional will with personal humility.

The framework's critical insight is that organizational selection systems are calibrated to reward hubris precisely because it's visible and compelling, while humility appears weak or indecisive. Chamorro-Premuzic argues that reversing the leadership crisis requires inverting this valuation: actively screening out hubristic candidates while deliberately seeking humble ones. This represents a fundamental challenge to conventional leadership mythology, which celebrates bold, visionary individuals rather than thoughtful, collaborative ones.

Data-Driven Leadership Assessment

Perhaps the most actionable framework in the book involves Chamorro-Premuzic's advocacy for data-driven, scientifically validated approaches to leadership assessment. The author, an organizational psychologist, argues that the leadership selection crisis stems largely from reliance on subjective judgment, unstructured interviews, and gut feeling rather than empirical evidence about what predicts leadership effectiveness.

The framework begins with the premise that leadership potential and effectiveness can be measured reliably using validated psychometric tools. Decades of industrial-organizational psychology research have identified specific personality traits, cognitive abilities, and competencies that predict leadership success. Tools like structured behavioral interviews, cognitive ability tests, and personality assessments based on the Five Factor Model provide substantially more predictive validity than traditional selection methods. Yet most organizations continue to rely primarily on unstructured interviews and resume reviews, which research shows have minimal predictive power and maximum susceptibility to bias.

Chamorro-Premuzic outlines a comprehensive assessment framework that includes multiple data sources: personality assessments measuring traits like emotional stability, conscientiousness, and openness; cognitive ability tests evaluating judgment and decision-making capacity; 360-degree feedback capturing how individuals actually behave in leadership contexts; and structured interviews focusing on past behavior rather than hypothetical scenarios. The key is combining multiple validated measures to create a complete picture of leadership potential.

The author provides compelling evidence for this approach's effectiveness. Organizations that implement data-driven selection see measurable improvements in leadership quality: higher employee engagement, better financial performance, reduced turnover, and fewer ethical violations. Companies like Google have famously adopted analytical approaches to leadership selection, using algorithms and structured evaluation processes that significantly outperform traditional methods. The framework shows that when organizations commit to evidence-based selection, they can dramatically reduce the gender gap in leadership while simultaneously improving leader quality.

Critically, Chamorro-Premuzic addresses common objections to data-driven approaches, including concerns about dehumanizing the selection process or missing intangible leadership qualities. He argues that current subjective processes are far more dehumanizing, systematically excluding talented individuals based on irrelevant characteristics like gender, appearance, or social background. Properly implemented assessments focus on actual capabilities and potential, making selection more fair and meritocratic. The framework represents a call to professionalize leadership selection by applying the same scientific rigor used in other high-stakes domains like medicine or engineering.

Strengths of the Argument

Chamorro-Premuzic's central thesis represents a significant contribution to leadership studies by challenging deeply entrenched assumptions about what makes an effective leader. The book's primary strength lies in its evidence-based approach, drawing from extensive psychological research and organizational data to support its claims. Rather than relying on anecdotal evidence or popular management wisdom, the author grounds his arguments in peer-reviewed studies, meta-analyses, and longitudinal research spanning decades of industrial-organizational psychology.

The framework distinguishing between confidence and competence stands as one of the book's most valuable contributions. Chamorro-Premuzic meticulously demonstrates how these qualities diverge in practice, showing that the traits that help individuals emerge as leaders—particularly overconfidence, charisma, and narcissism—often correlate negatively with leadership effectiveness. This distinction is supported by compelling data from assessment centers, 360-degree feedback studies, and organizational performance metrics. The author's willingness to identify gender as a critical variable in this dynamic adds necessary nuance to discussions about leadership that often remain frustratingly abstract.

Another considerable strength is the book's accessibility without sacrificing intellectual rigor. Chamorro-Premuzic translates complex psychological concepts—such as the Dark Triad personality traits, transformational leadership theory, and emotional intelligence frameworks—into language that resonates with general readers while maintaining scientific precision. His use of concrete examples from business, politics, and popular culture illustrates abstract principles effectively, making the research findings tangible and memorable.

The book also excels in its diagnostic clarity. By identifying specific mechanisms through which incompetent leaders rise—including the halo effect of confidence, the exploitation of in-group biases, and the confusion of charisma with capability—Chamorro-Premuzic provides readers with conceptual tools to recognize these patterns in their own organizations. The discussion of how traditional masculine traits are conflated with leadership potential offers a particularly incisive analysis of gender dynamics in professional settings, supported by robust empirical evidence showing that stereotypically feminine leadership qualities often correlate more strongly with team performance and organizational success.

Limitations and Weaknesses

Despite its strengths, the book exhibits several notable limitations that merit careful consideration. The most significant weakness involves the occasional oversimplification of the gender binary. While Chamorro-Premuzic's central argument about masculine overconfidence versus feminine competence is statistically supported, the presentation sometimes risks essentializing gender differences. The author generally acknowledges that he's discussing average tendencies and socially constructed behaviors rather than innate characteristics, yet the repeated framing of "men" versus "women" can inadvertently reinforce the very gender stereotypes the book seeks to deconstruct.

The book would benefit from more extensive discussion of intersectionality—how race, class, sexual orientation, and other identity markers interact with gender to shape leadership opportunities and evaluations. While Chamorro-Premuzic briefly acknowledges these factors, the analysis remains predominantly focused on gender as a singular variable. This limitation is particularly significant given research showing that women of color face distinct barriers that differ substantially from those encountered by white women, and that the "confidence gap" manifests differently across racial and ethnic groups.

Another weakness concerns the book's treatment of cultural variation. The research cited derives predominantly from Western, particularly Anglo-American, organizational contexts. Leadership expectations, the valuation of confidence versus humility, and gender role expectations vary considerably across cultures. What registers as appropriate confidence in American corporate culture might be perceived as arrogance in Japanese or Scandinavian contexts. The universalizing tendency in the book's prescriptions doesn't adequately account for these cultural differences, potentially limiting the applicability of its recommendations in global organizations or non-Western settings.

The solutions proposed, while thoughtful, sometimes feel insufficient relative to the systemic nature of the problems identified. Chamorro-Premuzic advocates for better assessment tools, structured interviews, and data-driven selection processes—all valuable recommendations. However, these technical fixes may underestimate the depth of cultural resistance to changing leadership paradigms. Organizations implement these improved processes within broader societal contexts that continue to reward masculine displays of confidence and dominance. The book could engage more deeply with the organizational change management challenges inherent in transforming deeply embedded leadership cultures.

Empirical Foundation and Methodology

The empirical foundation of Chamorro-Premuzic's argument deserves careful scrutiny, as it represents both a significant strength and a source of potential critique. The author draws extensively from meta-analytic research—studies that synthesize findings across multiple individual studies—which provides robust statistical power. His citations of research by Alice Eagly on gender and leadership, studies on the Dark Triad personality characteristics, and data on the predictive validity of various selection methods all represent well-established findings in organizational psychology.

Particularly compelling is the book's use of longitudinal data showing that leaders selected through competency-based assessments outperform those chosen through traditional interview processes. Chamorro-Premuzic references studies tracking leadership effectiveness over years, demonstrating that initial impressions and confidence displays prove poor predictors of long-term performance. This temporal dimension strengthens the argument considerably, as it addresses the common objection that confident leaders might eventually "grow into" their roles.

However, the book's empirical approach has methodological limitations worth noting. Much of the research on leadership effectiveness relies on subjective evaluations—360-degree feedback, supervisor ratings, and team satisfaction surveys—which, while valuable, introduce their own biases. The very cultural prejudices that favor confident men in selection might also influence how their leadership is subsequently evaluated. Chamorro-Premuzic acknowledges this circularity but doesn't fully resolve the challenge of measuring leadership effectiveness independent of the biases that shape leader selection.

Additionally, while the author presents correlation data compellingly, the causal mechanisms sometimes remain underdeveloped. For instance, the book demonstrates that narcissistic traits correlate with leadership emergence but also with leadership failure. The precise mechanisms explaining why organizations continue selecting narcissistic leaders despite available evidence of their ineffectiveness deserves deeper exploration. Is this primarily a principal-agent problem, a collective action failure, or something else entirely? The book gestures toward explanations but doesn't always pursue them with the same rigor applied to establishing correlations.

Theoretical Contributions

From a theoretical perspective, Chamorro-Premuzic makes several noteworthy contributions to leadership studies, most notably his integration of personality psychology with organizational behavior and his challenge to implicit leadership theories. The book synthesizes research streams that often remain siloed—trait-based personality research, social psychological studies of bias, and organizational performance data—creating a comprehensive framework for understanding leadership selection failures.

The author's application of evolutionary psychology to explain persistent preference for overconfident male leaders represents an interesting, if somewhat speculative, theoretical contribution. He suggests that organizational hierarchies may recapitulate ancestral patterns where displays of dominance and certainty conferred reproductive advantages, even when these displays didn't correlate with actual competence. This evolutionary framing helps explain why obviously counterproductive selection patterns persist despite their irrationality, though it risks determinism if overstated.

Chamorro-Premuzic's reconceptualization of leadership as service rather than dominance aligns with and extends transformational and servant leadership theories. By framing authentic leadership as fundamentally about enabling others' success rather than personal aggrandizement, he provides theoretical grounding for preferring humility, emotional intelligence, and integrity over charisma and confidence. This theoretical reframing has significant normative implications, shifting leadership discourse away from heroic individualism toward collective effectiveness.

However, the book's theoretical framework occasionally suffers from insufficient engagement with critical perspectives on leadership. Feminist organizational theorists, critical management scholars, and postmodern critics of leadership discourse have developed sophisticated analyses of how leadership constructs reproduce power inequalities. While Chamorro-Premuzic's argument implicitly aligns with many of these critiques, direct engagement with this scholarship would strengthen the theoretical foundations and potentially address some of the limitations regarding intersectionality and cultural variation mentioned earlier.

Practical Applicability

Evaluating the book's practical applicability requires considering both its actionable insights and implementation challenges. Chamorro-Premuzic provides concrete recommendations that organizations can implement: replacing unstructured interviews with structured behavioral interviews, utilizing validated psychometric assessments, implementing blind resume reviews, and establishing clear competency frameworks. These evidence-based practices have demonstrated effectiveness in reducing bias and improving selection outcomes across various organizational contexts.

The book's emphasis on measuring leadership effectiveness through objective outcomes—team performance, employee engagement, retention rates, and long-term organizational results—offers practical guidance for organizations seeking to evaluate their leaders more rigorously. By focusing attention on results rather than style, Chamorro-Premuzic provides a framework for holding leaders accountable to meaningful standards. His discussion of how to distinguish between leaders who are merely popular and those who are genuinely effective offers valuable diagnostic tools for boards and senior management.

However, practical implementation faces significant obstacles that the book acknowledges but perhaps underestimates. Many of the recommended interventions require substantial organizational investment in assessment tools, training, and process redesign. Smaller organizations or those with limited human resources capacity may find comprehensive implementation challenging. Moreover, the interventions assume a level of organizational rationality and good faith that may not always exist. When existing leaders have themselves been selected through the flawed processes the book criticizes, they may resist changes that would retrospectively question their own legitimacy.

The book also provides limited guidance on managing the political dynamics of implementing these changes. Introducing competency-based assessment and reducing reliance on confidence and charisma will inevitably encounter resistance from those who have benefited from existing systems. Change management strategies, coalition building, and navigating organizational politics receive insufficient attention relative to their importance in actualizing the book's vision. Organizations seeking to implement Chamorro-Premuzic's recommendations would benefit from supplementary resources addressing these implementation challenges more directly.

Relevance and Timeliness

The book's relevance has arguably increased since its publication, as conversations about workplace equity, toxic leadership, and organizational culture have intensified. The #MeToo movement, increased attention to diversity and inclusion, and growing awareness of how workplace cultures can be hostile to women and minorities have created receptivity to Chamorro-Premuzic's message. His argument that organizations are selecting for the wrong qualities in leaders resonates in an era when high-profile leadership failures have generated widespread skepticism about traditional corporate leadership.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the leadership responses it elicited provided a natural experiment that largely validated the book's thesis. Research emerging from the pandemic showed that countries led by women generally experienced better health outcomes, with leaders like Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand demonstrating precisely the competence-over-confidence approach Chamorro-Premuzic advocates. The contrast between empathetic, science-driven leadership and blustering overconfidence became starkly visible, lending empirical support to the book's arguments in real-time.

Contemporary discussions about remote work, hybrid organizations, and the future of work also increase the book's relevance. As organizations reconsider fundamental assumptions about how work gets done, they have opportunities to similarly reconsider leadership models. The shift away from physical presence as a marker of commitment and performance creates space to question other traditional leadership signals, including the confidence displays that Chamorro-Premuzic critiques. The book provides intellectual ammunition for those seeking to build more equitable and effective organizations in this transitional moment.

However, potential backlash should be acknowledged. In some quarters, discussions of gender equity and challenges to traditional masculine leadership models have generated reactionary responses. The book's framing, particularly its title, might alienate some readers who could benefit from its insights, potentially limiting its impact. Whether the intentionally provocative framing ultimately expands or constrains the book's influence remains an open question, though it undoubtedly succeeded in generating attention and discussion.

Overall Assessment

In final evaluation, "Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?" represents an important and largely successful intervention in leadership studies and organizational practice. Chamorro-Premuzic has produced a work that combines scholarly rigor with accessibility, making complex research comprehensible without oversimplifying. The book's central thesis—that organizations systematically confuse confidence with competence and masculine display with leadership capability—is well-supported and has significant explanatory power for persistent patterns of leadership failure.

The book makes its strongest contributions in three areas: first, in marshaling empirical evidence demonstrating the divergence between traits that predict leadership emergence and those that predict leadership effectiveness; second, in identifying specific psychological and organizational mechanisms that perpetuate incompetent leadership; and third, in providing a normative framework for what leadership should prioritize—collective success over individual glorification, competence over confidence, and integrity over charisma.

Its limitations—occasional gender essentialism, insufficient attention to intersectionality and cultural variation, and underdeveloped implementation guidance—represent opportunities for further development rather than fatal flaws. These gaps suggest directions for future work by other scholars and practitioners building on Chamorro-Premuzic's foundation. The book succeeds in its primary objective of reframing conversations about leadership selection and effectiveness, providing both analytical tools and normative arguments for organizational change.

For organizational leaders, human resources professionals, and anyone interested in workplace dynamics, the book offers valuable insights and practical guidance. For scholars, it provides a useful synthesis of disparate research streams and identifies fruitful areas for further investigation. While not without limitations, "Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?" represents a significant contribution to our understanding of why organizations persistently make poor leadership choices and what might be done to improve outcomes. Its core message—that we should select leaders based on their likely effectiveness rather than their ability to project confidence—seems simultaneously obvious and revolutionary, which perhaps indicates both the depth of the problem and the promise of Chamorro-Premuzic's proposed solutions.

Book Fundamentals

What is the main argument of "Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?"

The central thesis of Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic's book is that our inability to distinguish between confidence and competence results in too many incompetent men rising to leadership positions. The author argues that we systematically mistake common masculine traits—such as overconfidence, narcissism, and charisma—for leadership potential, while overlooking genuine leadership qualities like humility, integrity, and emotional intelligence. This selection error occurs because we conflate the qualities that help people become leaders with those that make people effective leaders. Chamorro-Premuzic presents scientific evidence showing that many characteristics we associate with leadership emergence actually predict leadership failure, creating a systemic problem where the wrong people consistently reach positions of power, particularly men who display unwarranted confidence.

Who is Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and what qualifies him to write this book?

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is an organizational psychologist and professor of business psychology at University College London and Columbia University. He serves as the Chief Innovation Officer at ManpowerGroup and has extensive experience in leadership assessment and talent management. His academic credentials include a PhD in psychology, and he has published over 130 scientific papers on personality, intelligence, and leadership. Chamorro-Premuzic has worked with organizations worldwide to improve their talent identification and development processes. His expertise combines rigorous academic research with practical consulting experience, allowing him to bridge the gap between psychological science and real-world leadership challenges. He regularly contributes to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and The Guardian on topics related to leadership, talent, and organizational behavior.

What does Chamorro-Premuzic mean by "incompetent" leaders?

When Chamorro-Premuzic refers to "incompetent" leaders, he specifically means individuals who lack the essential qualities that predict effective leadership performance. These are leaders who may have successfully climbed the organizational ladder but fail to deliver positive outcomes for their teams and organizations. Incompetent leaders typically exhibit traits like overconfidence without substance, inability to inspire genuine commitment, lack of emotional intelligence, and narcissistic tendencies that prioritize self-promotion over team success. The author emphasizes that incompetence doesn't necessarily mean complete lack of ability, but rather a significant gap between the perception of capability and actual performance. These leaders often create toxic work environments, high turnover, and poor organizational results despite appearing confident and authoritative on the surface.

Is this book specifically about male leaders or does it address leadership in general?

While the book's title focuses on men, Chamorro-Premuzic addresses leadership selection problems more broadly while highlighting a specific gender dimension. The author argues that our flawed leadership selection criteria disproportionately advantage men because many stereotypically masculine traits—such as aggression, overconfidence, and dominance—are mistakenly associated with leadership potential. The book examines how these selection biases create barriers for women and others who display more effective but less stereotypically "leader-like" behaviors. Chamorro-Premuzic presents data showing that when women do become leaders, they often outperform their male counterparts on key leadership metrics. The book ultimately advocates for gender-neutral, competence-based leadership selection that would benefit everyone by placing more qualified leaders—regardless of gender—in positions of authority.

What evidence does the author use to support his arguments?

Chamorro-Premuzic grounds his arguments in extensive scientific research from psychology, organizational behavior, and management studies. He cites meta-analyses examining thousands of leaders across different industries and cultures, showing statistical patterns in leadership effectiveness. The book references personality assessments, 360-degree feedback data, and longitudinal studies tracking leaders over time. He draws on findings about narcissism, emotional intelligence, psychopathy, and other personality traits, connecting them to leadership outcomes. The author also presents data on gender differences in leadership styles and effectiveness, including studies showing women leaders often receive higher ratings from subordinates and peers. Additionally, he includes real-world examples from corporate failures, political leadership disasters, and successful organizations that have implemented better selection practices, all supported by empirical evidence rather than anecdotal observations.

Practical Implementation

How can organizations improve their leadership selection processes according to the book?

Chamorro-Premuzic recommends several concrete strategies for improving leadership selection. First, organizations should rely on data-driven assessments rather than gut feelings or interviews alone, using validated personality tests, cognitive ability measures, and structured assessments. Second, companies should clearly define what effective leadership looks like in their specific context by identifying the competencies that actually predict success. Third, organizations need to reduce bias by implementing blind resume reviews, diverse selection panels, and standardized evaluation criteria. Fourth, he advocates for 360-degree feedback and multi-rater assessments to get comprehensive views of leadership potential. Finally, companies should track leadership effectiveness over time and use this data to refine their selection processes. The author emphasizes that systematic, evidence-based approaches consistently outperform traditional methods that rely heavily on confidence and charisma.

What specific assessment tools does the author recommend for identifying good leaders?

The book advocates for using scientifically validated psychometric assessments that measure traits associated with leadership effectiveness. Chamorro-Premuzic specifically recommends personality inventories that assess the Big Five traits, particularly focusing on high conscientiousness, emotional stability, and agreeableness while screening for excessive narcissism and psychopathy. He supports using emotional intelligence assessments, as EQ strongly predicts leadership success. Cognitive ability tests are also valuable for measuring problem-solving capacity and learning potential. The author endorses 360-degree feedback tools that gather perspectives from subordinates, peers, and supervisors to provide a comprehensive view of leadership behavior. Additionally, he suggests situational judgment tests and assessment centers that simulate real leadership challenges. Critically, Chamorro-Premuzic emphasizes these tools should be used in combination rather than isolation, and organizations should validate them against actual leadership outcomes within their specific context.

How can individuals avoid selecting incompetent leaders when they have hiring authority?

Individual decision-makers can improve their hiring by first recognizing their own biases, particularly the tendency to equate confidence with competence. Chamorro-Premuzic advises creating structured evaluation criteria before meeting candidates and sticking to these standards rather than relying on impressions. Hiring managers should prioritize evidence of past performance and measurable achievements over presentation skills and charisma. He recommends asking candidates about failures and how they handled them, as responses reveal emotional intelligence and learning capacity. Decision-makers should seek input from multiple perspectives, especially from people who would work under the potential leader. The author also suggests being skeptical of excessive self-promotion and instead valuing humility and self-awareness. Finally, individuals should implement trial periods or probationary roles where possible, allowing them to observe actual leadership behavior before making permanent decisions.

What can individual employees do if they work under an incompetent leader?

Chamorro-Premuzic acknowledges this challenging situation and offers several strategies. First, employees should document problematic behaviors and their impacts objectively, creating a factual record if escalation becomes necessary. Second, seek mentorship and support from competent leaders elsewhere in the organization to maintain professional development. Third, focus on building a strong peer network for mutual support and collaboration, compensating for poor leadership from above. The author suggests providing upward feedback through official channels if the organization has mechanisms for this. Employees might also focus on developing portable skills that increase marketability if the situation becomes untenable. Importantly, Chamorro-Premuzic emphasizes that staying under truly toxic leadership long-term damages career development and wellbeing, so employees should seriously consider moving to better-led organizations. He notes that voting with your feet sends important signals to companies about the costs of poor leadership.

How can women use the insights from this book to advance their leadership careers?

The book provides several strategic insights for women pursuing leadership. First, understanding that many traditional selection processes are biased toward confidence over competence allows women to navigate these systems more strategically without necessarily adopting counterproductive masculine behaviors. Chamorro-Premuzic suggests women should seek organizations that use data-driven, objective selection criteria rather than subjective evaluations. Second, women can leverage their statistical advantages in emotional intelligence, humility, and transformational leadership by making these strengths visible through concrete results and feedback. Third, building alliances with decision-makers who understand evidence-based leadership can create sponsorship opportunities. The author also encourages women to request objective performance metrics and 360-degree feedback that document their effectiveness. Finally, women should advocate for improved selection processes within their organizations, as better systems benefit both their careers and organizational performance overall.

Advanced Concepts

What is the relationship between narcissism and leadership according to the book?

Chamorro-Premuzic explores the complex relationship between narcissism and leadership, distinguishing between leadership emergence and effectiveness. Narcissistic traits—grandiosity, self-confidence, dominance, and charisma—help individuals rise to leadership positions because these characteristics create an impression of competence and authority. However, research consistently shows that narcissistic leaders underperform once in power. They make risky decisions, resist feedback, create toxic cultures, fail to develop talent, and prioritize self-promotion over organizational success. The author cites studies showing that moderate narcissism might provide some benefits in terms of vision and ambition, but high levels predict failure. The problem is that selection processes often cannot distinguish between healthy confidence and pathological narcissism. Narcissists are skilled self-promoters who excel in interviews and impression management, allowing them to systematically game traditional leadership selection processes while ultimately damaging organizational performance.

How does the book explain the concept of "leadership emergence" versus "leadership effectiveness?"

This distinction is central to Chamorro-Premuzic's argument. Leadership emergence refers to the process of being selected for or rising to leadership positions—essentially, being perceived as leader-like and gaining authority. Leadership effectiveness refers to actual performance in leadership roles, measured by team performance, employee engagement, organizational outcomes, and other objective metrics. The book's core insight is that the traits predicting emergence often differ from or even contradict those predicting effectiveness. Confidence, assertiveness, and charisma help people emerge as leaders, while humility, emotional intelligence, and integrity predict effective leadership. This mismatch creates systematic selection errors. The author presents research showing weak or even negative correlations between emergence and effectiveness, meaning that the people who most easily become leaders are not necessarily those who lead most effectively once in position.

What does Chamorro-Premuzic say about emotional intelligence and leadership?

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is presented as one of the most important yet undervalued leadership qualities. Chamorro-Premuzic defines EQ as the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions in oneself and others. Research cited in the book shows that leaders with high emotional intelligence create more engaged teams, better organizational cultures, and superior business results. EQ enables leaders to build trust, navigate conflicts, provide effective feedback, and inspire genuine commitment rather than mere compliance. The author notes that women score higher on average than men on many EQ measures, yet this advantage is often overlooked in leadership selection. Traditional selection processes emphasize traits like assertiveness and confidence while underweighting emotional intelligence. Chamorro-Premuzic argues that organizations should explicitly assess and prioritize EQ in leadership selection, using validated tools rather than assuming charismatic or confident individuals possess emotional intelligence.

What role does overconfidence play in poor leadership according to the research presented?

Overconfidence is identified as a critical factor in leadership failure throughout the book. Chamorro-Premuzic presents research showing that overconfident individuals overestimate their abilities, take excessive risks, resist feedback, and fail to learn from mistakes. While confidence helps people get selected for leadership roles—appearing decisive and authoritative—overconfidence leads to poor decision-making once in power. The author cites studies demonstrating that men typically display higher levels of overconfidence than women, particularly in stereotypically masculine domains like business and politics. This gender difference in overconfidence partly explains why men dominate leadership ranks despite not outperforming women. Overconfident leaders surround themselves with yes-people, ignore warning signs, and attribute failures to external factors rather than learning from them. The book argues that modest underconfidence, coupled with actual competence, produces better leadership outcomes than overconfidence, as it motivates continuous learning and improvement.

How does the book address the concept of "hubris" in leadership?

Hubris, or excessive pride and arrogance, is examined as a particularly destructive leadership trait that often develops after leaders gain power. Chamorro-Premuzic explains that initial success, media attention, and lack of accountability can transform even moderately confident leaders into hubristic ones. Hubristic leaders believe they are infallible, ignore expert advice, take reckless risks, and pursue grandiose projects that serve their ego rather than organizational needs. The author presents case studies of corporate and political leaders whose hubris led to spectacular failures. He notes that hubris is often reinforced by organizational cultures that treat leaders as heroes and fail to provide critical feedback. The book argues that preventing hubris requires systemic safeguards including strong boards, transparent accountability mechanisms, and cultures that value humility. Chamorro-Premuzic suggests that early-career humility assessments and ongoing 360-degree feedback can identify hubris risks before they cause serious damage.

Comparison & Evaluation

How does this book differ from other leadership books on the market?

Unlike most leadership books that prescribe how to become a leader or improve leadership skills, Chamorro-Premuzic's book challenges the fundamental systems that select leaders in the first place. While popular leadership literature often celebrates charismatic CEOs and offers success formulas, this book takes a critical, evidence-based approach grounded in psychological research rather than anecdotal success stories. The book's gender perspective is also distinctive, explicitly examining how masculine traits are overvalued in leadership selection. Rather than offering inspirational narratives, it presents uncomfortable truths about systemic failures backed by scientific data. The focus on incompetence rather than excellence represents a problem-focused rather than aspiration-focused approach. Additionally, Chamorro-Premuzic addresses organizational and societal systems rather than individual development alone, arguing that fixing leadership requires fixing selection processes, not just training better leaders.

What are the main criticisms or limitations of the book's arguments?

While the book presents compelling research-based arguments, some limitations deserve consideration. Critics might argue that Chamorro-Premuzic overgeneralizes gender differences, as there is substantial overlap between men and women on most traits and individual variation matters more than group averages. The book's focus on corporate and political leadership may not fully translate to other contexts like military, nonprofit, or entrepreneurial settings where different traits might predict success. Some readers find the tone occasionally polemical, potentially alienating those who might otherwise engage with the ideas. The practical implementation guidance, while present, is less developed than the problem diagnosis. Additionally, the book primarily draws from Western organizational contexts, raising questions about cultural generalizability. Some critics also note that while the book effectively critiques existing systems, the proposed solutions require organizational buy-in that may be difficult to achieve given entrenched interests and unconscious biases.

Does the book offer solutions or just critique the current system?

Chamorro-Premuzic provides both critique and solutions, though the emphasis leans toward diagnosing the problem. The prescriptive elements include implementing data-driven assessment tools, using validated psychometric tests, establishing 360-degree feedback systems, creating diverse selection panels, and tracking leadership effectiveness metrics over time. The author advocates for explicitly valuing traits like emotional intelligence, humility, and integrity in selection criteria. He suggests organizational culture changes that reward actual performance rather than self-promotion. However, some readers feel the solutions section is less developed than the problem analysis. The book acknowledges that implementing these changes faces significant obstacles, including resistance from current leaders who benefited from flawed systems, unconscious biases favoring traditional leadership profiles, and lack of accountability for poor leadership selection. The author presents the solutions as evidence-based best practices rather than easy fixes, emphasizing that systemic change requires commitment from organizations and society.

How well does the book balance academic rigor with accessibility for general readers?

Chamorro-Premuzic generally succeeds in making academic research accessible to non-specialist readers without oversimplifying complex findings. The book translates psychological concepts into clear language, uses relevant examples from business and politics, and avoids excessive jargon. The author's writing style is engaging and occasionally provocative, making potentially dry research findings interesting. However, some readers find certain sections dense with research citations, which strengthens credibility but can slow the reading experience. The book assumes some familiarity with business contexts and organizational dynamics, which may challenge readers without professional experience. Chamorro-Premuzic includes enough scientific detail to satisfy informed readers while providing sufficient explanation for those new to