Why We Select the Wrong Leaders
Organizations often look for well-rounded leaders. Research shows that performance primarily comes from distinctive strengths, not from average profiles.
Why being ‘good at everything’ is the fastest route to mediocre leadership
Almost every organization we speak to says they are looking for top-tier talent for leadership roles. In practice, however, they often select something quite different. More often than not, the choice falls on a well-balanced personality, a leader with predictable behavior and few visible weaknesses. It sounds logical and feels safe. At the same time, this is exactly why leadership in many organizations remains mediocre.
The spiky profile
Most organizations work with competency lists on which leaders are expected to score at least a “satisfactory” across the board. The ideal leader, in that view, is someone who scores an 8 on everything. The question is whether that logic holds up in a competitive market.
Leadership that truly moves organizations forward rarely comes from balance. It comes from differentiation. Research by McKinsey & Company (2013) already showed that leaders with a “spiky” profile have the greatest impact on growth. These are leaders who are exceptionally strong in a few critical competencies and merely adequate in the rest.
What recent research confirms
The recent article Strengths-Based Leadership: A Critical Review (Breevaart et al., 2025) shows that team performance increases significantly when leaders operate from their unique strengths rather than trying to level out their weaknesses.
Key insights:
Performance: People excel when they do what they are naturally good at.
Engagement: Energy, ownership, and effectiveness increase when focusing on strengths.
Impact: Leadership is less about being “complete” and more about being distinctive.
Effective leaders are therefore not balanced, they are spiky.
A spike alone is not enough
Many leaders have a clear strength. They may be strategically strong, commercially sharp, or exceptional at building teams. But that strength alone does not automatically create impact. The potential of a “spike” is only realized when it is paired with the discipline to show consistent behavior.
McKinsey’s 2025 research on growth performance shows that the gap between ambition and results comes down to a limited number of behavioral choices:
Priority: Growth truly takes precedence in time and attention.
Speed: The courage to choose experimentation over perfection.
Customer focus: Decision-making consistently anchored in customer value.
Talent: Deliberate deployment of talent as an accelerator.
Execution: A tight organization with clear accountability.
A leader may have a strong spike in strategy, but without execution discipline, the impact fades. Success lies in the combination of a distinctive strength and the execution power to make it deliver, every day.
Implications for selection
This requires a fundamentally different view on recruitment, selection and executive search:
Conclusion
Many organizations say they are looking for A-players, but in practice select B+ profiles. Not because they fail to see the difference, but because choosing a distinctive profile can feel risky. In reality, choosing mediocrity is the greatest risk of all.
Sources:
Breevaart, K., Bakker, A. B., Hetland, J., & Olsen, O. K. (2025). Strengths-Based Leadership: A Critical Review. Journal of Management.
McKinsey & Company. (2013). Developing leadership capabilities.
McKinsey & Company. (2025). Achieving growth: Putting leadership mindsets and behaviors into action.
Interested in exploring how to apply this strategy within your organization?
Get in touch, we’d be happy to think along with you.