This book explores a central question: What if these two observations—that most leaders are bad and that most leaders are male—are causally linked? In other words, would the prevalence of bad leadership decrease if fewer men, and more women, were in charge?

I argued that the underrepresentation of women in leadership was not due to their lack of ability or motivation, but to our inability to detect incompetence in men. When men are considered for leadership positions, the same traits that predict their downfall are commonly mistaken—even celebrated—as a sign of leadership potential or talent.

Specifically, women elicit more respect and pride from their followers, communicate their vision more effectively, better empower and mentor their subordinates, approach problem solving in a more flexible and creative way, and are fairer and more objective in their evaluation of direct reports. In contrast, male leaders are less likely to connect with their subordinates and to reward them for their actual performance. Men focus less on developing others and more on advancing their own career agenda.

Meta-analytic studies suggest that the gender differences in narcissism have indeed been declining over the past few decades, largely because women have become more narcissistic, rather than men becoming less so. This change reaffirms the danger of encouraging women to lean in or act more like men to climb the corporate ladder. We are only inviting them to strengthen a problematic leadership model and augment rather than reduce current incompetence rates.

Their [Frank Dobbin and Jiwook Jung] results showed that although adding more women to boards did not change the firms’ performance, it led to a decrease in the firms’ stock valuation. These findings highlight an alarming reality: irrespective of the actual performance differences between men and women, people—and, in this case, investors—are unlikely to change their beliefs, and beliefs drive decisions.