The Financial Times: Aspiring board level leaders should cultivate skill over charm

If you aspire to be a great leader, then concentrate on doing your best work and cultivate a humble attitude rather than trying to look the part of the charismatic chief executive. Dull though this might seem, research from Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Erasmus University Rotterdam found that the best leaders have earned their stripes and outperform at their work. Although the researchers found that 55 per cent of the time leaders were chosen for more superficial reasons such as charisma, political skill or a prepossessing nature, they had a far better chance of living up to expectations if they had mastered the fundamentals...

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