Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?: (And How to Fix It)

by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Overview

Look around your office. Turn on the TV. Incompetent leadership is everywhere, and there's no denying that most of these leaders are men.

In this timely and provocative book, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic asks two powerful questions: Why is it so easy for incompetent men to become leaders? And why is it so hard for competent people--especially competent women--to advance?

Marshaling decades of rigorous research, Chamorro-Premuzic points out that although men make up a majority of leaders, they underperform when compared with female leaders. In fact, most organizations equate leadership potential with a handful of destructive personality traits, like overconfidence and narcissism. In other words, these traits may help someone get selected for a leadership role, but they backfire once the person has the job.

When competent women--and men who don't fit the stereotype--are unfairly overlooked, we all suffer the consequences. The result is a deeply flawed system that rewards arrogance rather than humility, and loudness rather than wisdom.

There is a better way. With clarity and verve, Chamorro-Premuzic shows us what it really takes to lead and how new systems and processes can help us put the right people in charge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633696327
Publisher:	Harvard Business Review Press
Publication date:	03/12/2019
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	347,944
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the Chief Talent Scientist at ManpowerGroup, a professor of business psychology at University College London and at Columbia University, and an associate at Harvard's Entrepreneurial Finance Lab.

Author social media/website info: drtomascp.com, @drtcp

Table of Contents

1 Why Most Leaders Are Inept 1

2 Confidence Disguised as Competence 17

3 Why Bad Guys Win 39

4 The Charisma Myth 67

5 The Female Advantage 85

6 What Good Leaders Look Like 103

7 Learning to Distrust Our Instincts 125

8 How Leaders Get Better 145

9 Measuring a Leader's Impact 163

Notes 181

Index 203

Acknowledgments 215

About the Author 217

Editorial Reviews

"Each of this year's best business books on talent and leadership is distinguished by startlingly specific diagnoses and descriptions of the roots of our leadership crisis. In the best among them, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor of business psychology at University College London and Columbia University, persuasively argues that today's "epidemic of bad leadership" is caused by a surplus of incompetent men whose flaws perversely enable them to rise to the top." -- strategy+business magazine

Named a Financial Times Business Book of the Month

Named one of "14 business books everyone will be reading in 2019" -- Business Insider

Advance Praise for Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (And How to Fix It):

Cindy Gallop, founder and CEO, IfWeRanTheWorld--
"The single most important book on leadership of our time. This insightful, innovative, original perspective is an absolute must-read for anyone who wants to identify the best leaders for their business and to be the best leaders they can be themselves--men and women alike. This book is now going to be my go-to gift for everyone I know, in business and in life."

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, bestselling author, Seven Steps to Leading a Gender-Balanced Business--
"This wonderful book illustrates how gender balance is a lever for higher business performance. A delightfully honest manifesto to transform traditional, underperforming, overconfident male standards of leadership into something that actually delivers, inspires, and engages. Brilliant and timely."

Barbara Kellerman, James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School--
"As the title--Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?--suggests, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic has written a lively and provocative book. For anyone with an interest in leadership, and in gender differences as they might particularly pertain, the issues he raises and the conclusions he reaches will provide good grist for their collective mill.”

From the Publisher