Why do so many incompetent men become leaders?

Justine – a real person with a fake name – is a smart and inquisitive Belgian accountant who has spent the last 15 years working as the Senior Financial Officer for a large non-governmental organisation.

Although she has continuously delivered beyond expectations and is seen by her manager as one of the most valuable people on the team, she rarely promotes herself. Instead of networking and managing up, she prefers to focus on her job and perform each task as proficiently as possible, letting her accomplishments speak for themselves. When new projects come up, she volunteers for them – but only if she is absolutely sure she can deliver.

Perhaps it won’t surprise you to learn that Justine has seen many of her colleagues get promoted ahead of her – even when they are not as good as her. But through their confidence and assertiveness, they convey the impression that they are not just more competent, but also more driven and leader-like. And since they can continue to rely on Justine to keep the trains running for them, their incompetence is often masked by Justine’s silent but effective contribution.

Those who focus on getting ahead are more likely to be rewarded

Most of us know someone like Justine. Perhaps you even feel a bit like a Justine yourself. In fact, Justine’s story is not an exception but the norm for many of us – both men and women. In any organisation, individuals who focus on getting ahead of their colleagues are more likely to be rewarded by their managers than people who are less driven, even if the ambitious individuals contribute little to the organisation.

Someone I’ll call Stuart – a former coaching client of mine whose name I changed – exemplifies this truth. He has enjoyed a stellar career in public relations and was recently hired by a big Silicon Valley firm to lead its external communications. Anyone who looks up Stuart online will be impressed by his résumé, network and public brand: two TED talks, past senior roles in three Fortune 100 companies, and thousands of social media followers. However, none of these accomplishments reflect Stuart’s ability to lead. In fact, most of his former employees would agree that as a leader, Stuart was primarily absent and had dismal management skills.

But because Stuart devotes most of his time to managing his own reputation with the external world, he is a sought-after leader. To further lubricate his undeserved career success, Stuart performs superbly in job interviews, coming across as driven and charismatic. Since interviews are the most common method for vetting leaders’ potential, the future is bright for Stuart. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about the people who will have to report to him.

The paradox of perception vs. reality in effective leadership traits

Recent research shows that people like Stuart – self-centered, entitled, and narcissistic – tend to emerge as leaders and take control of resources and power in a group, and that these traits are more common in men than in women.

Paradoxically, the same psychological characteristics that enable men to emerge as leaders may actually be responsible for their downfall. What it takes to get the job is not just different from, but also sometimes the reverse of, what it takes to do the job.

Although there are some benefits to overconfidence in a leader – it can produce some self-fulfilling effects, making others believe that the leader is as good as he or she thinks – the downsides are enormous, particularly for others. Overconfident leaders routinely put themselves forward for tasks for which they are not qualified or equipped, and their lack of competence seriously handicaps the performance – and morale – of their teams.

Conversely, individuals who are aware of their weaknesses and have a realistic sense of their limitations could tune in to their subordinates and understand what they need to do to improve, but they would first need to become leaders!

The paucity of objective data for measuring leadership performance

In an environment that selects leaders for overconfidence, people who are overly self-critical – perhaps even a tad insecure – should be in high demand, but they are more likely to be ignored or ridiculed, on the assumption that they are not sufficiently strong or secure to lead. Anyone who has ever coached a leader knows that the most coachable people are unlikely to think of themselves as better than they actually are.

And despite the common perception that confidence is a highly desirable quality, it is desirable only if it is accompanied by actual competence. As both [baseball pitcher] Dizzy Dean and the great Muhammad Ali have said: ‘It ain’t bragging if you can back it up.’ People will generally celebrate your confidence, unless they believe that it is not based on real competence, or that you think more highly of yourself than you should.

Think of any person you ever disliked because he or she seemed arrogant. The problem was not a lack of confidence, but rather too much of it relative to the person’s actual abilities. Unfortunately, for most organisations – unlike in sports or the military – there is little objective data to evaluate the performance of leaders. When you cannot adequately judge competence, it is hard to recognise overconfidence, and the incompetence it masks.