Why men are more likely to be narcissists (sorry, guys, it’s just science)

As a series of studies led by Amanda Goodall from City, University of London, showed, organizations do better when led by experts in the field. Hospitals have better outcomes if their leaders are doctors rather than businesspeople or finance people. In sports, basketball teams perform better when managed by an all-star basketball player, and Formula One teams win more if they are managed by successful former racing drivers. Similarly, universities are more likely to excel when their presidents have a background in science and research rather than being career administrators.

Going from leadership incompetence to leadership competence is not easy, but compelling evidence attests to the efficacy of well-designed, albeit rare, leadership development programs. So, some programs do work. But their effectiveness is built on making leaders aware of their limitations, persuading them to replace their toxic habits with more effective ones, and linking those habits to critical business performance metrics. There are ways of doing it right, and helping leaders improve can make organizations more effective.

In sum, bad leaders are unlikely to turn into talented, inspirational, or high-performing leaders. Yes, they can change, but most leaders won’t improve much beyond what you have seen them do in the past, especially if they are left to their own devices. Human inertia makes professional development interventions, such as executive coaching, indispensable, though a much more effective strategy for improving the quality of leaders would be to focus more time, effort, and resources on selecting talented people into leadership roles. As in any other area, prevention is a much better option than treatment, and while there’s no need to choose between one and the other—both should be pursued—leaders will be much more likely to improve when they have been correctly selected.

More precisely, traits such as confidence, narcissism, psychopathy, and charisma advance individuals’ careers without improving the success of the groups they lead. Clearly, we would be better off if we sifted out individuals with such traits, as opposed to rewarding them. The success of teams and organizations is more important than an individual’s personal success, especially when individual victory harms the rest of the group.