The issue
It’s a question that has long puzzled researchers: why do so many business leaders rise to power despite poor performance? One would assume that organisations would naturally favour top performers. Yet, new research reveals that the rise of underperforming leaders may be less accidental than it seems.
Most explanations in past research focus on failures in the selection process, including the Peter Principle,1 which asserts that good employees are often promoted beyond their level of competence, to a point where their skills no longer align with new responsibilities.
But through their research work, Prof. Christian Zehnder and Benjamin Tur at HEC Lausanne, along with Matthieu Légeret, now at University of Zurich, bring a new perspective to this long-standing puzzle. They point out that whenever a group chooses somebody as a leader it means that this person is no longer available as a follower.2 There is therefore a trade-off. If the individual promoted to leader is also a good follower that competency is lost to the group.
Why it’s important
For the success of the organisation, it can be more efficient to promote less talented individuals to lead in order to preserve the best talent of those working at the lower level. Keeping the most competent followers in their current roles and promoting less competent individuals to lead the group can therefore be the best option.
What the professor has to say
“Our research shows that it might be optimal to choose less competent individuals as leaders. This is new thinking and may sound counterintuitive at first. But businesses have to consider the benefits to the whole group and how we select individuals from it,” explains Christian Zehnder, Professor of Organisational Decision Making at HEC Lausanne.
Zehnder continues: “it means you should not only look at leader competencies, but also follower competencies among staff. If the person with the highest leadership potential is also among the best followers, you need to carefully consider whether this person adds more to the group as a leader or a follower. If the cost of losing a top follower is too high, it might be better for the group to appoint a leader with lower potential.”
However, the professor also clarifies: “of course, we do not claim that appointing incompetent leaders is generally advisable. Our point is that in certain settings – particularly when leadership is only moderately important but time-consuming, and when the most promising candidates for the leadership role also tend to be highly productive followers – appointing a less competent leader can be the more efficient choice for the group as a whole.”
Conclusion
The question this research raises is — how do you create a corporate structure where you keep the best followers in their jobs and motivate less competent followers to take on leadership roles? This can be done by pay structures that reward the best followers to stay in their job so they don’t want to become leaders.
“This is where internal communication can help. Explanations about how the group benefits from more competency among followers matter. More research is needed to understand how this culture can be communicated,” concludes Zehnder.
References
- Peter Principle, Wikipedia, Accessed, May 2025
- How good can bad leaders be? The opportunity costs of leader selection, Matthieu Légeret, Christian Zehnder, Benjamin Tur, The Leadership Quarterly, Volume 36, Issue 2, March 2025
