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.

For instance, in one study, students performing in the bottom 25th percentile of the class on tests of grammar, logical reasoning, and humor rated themselves as above the 60th  percentile. In contrast, top performers consistently underestimated just how much better they were than their peers. In the same study, people performing above the 87th percentile rated themselves as being in the 70th to 75th percentile.

Leaders better able to identify and manage emotions are also better able to motivate others, and most of the variability in transformational leadership arises from levels of EQ.

As a consequence, organizations often assume that a leader’s career success reflects his or her performance—the more senior a leader, the more talented the person must be.

Although these [psychometric] tests may often seem too abstract to relate to everyday work problems, they are without doubt the best single predictor of job performance, and they remain a useful indicator of leadership potential even when other tools and data are taken into account.