Deliverables missed. Targets unachieved. Teams in disarray. Trouble sprouting. All these are signs of leadership failures. All these are signals of problems in management. All these are warnings of mishandling by people in charge. Such issues may warrant leadership changes. Sometimes they do but many times they do not. More often than not you see company after company sustaining leaders who have not performed.
This is substantiated by the leadership reports that are emerging around the world. Trust in Leadership abilities is in a free-fall. According to DDI Leadership forecast study of 2025, leadership is almost now an endangered species. From 2022 to 2024, trust in immediate managers took a dramatic nosedive from 46 percent to 29 percent. This 17 percent decline exposes an increasing skepticism toward managers, who are the frontline connection to the workforce and vital to team cohesion and morale.
Trust in senior leaders remained low for the second consecutive period, with only 32 percent of leaders expressing confidence in them. That is a whopping 68 percent employees voting against the caliber of Leadership they are working with or for.
The strange thing is that despite all the above, many of these so-called leaders not only survive but rise and thrive. They leave organizations only to occupy even more senior positions in other organizations. They become members of important committees. They are involved in many strategic projects.
They are featured in many industry councils. They head regional forums. They lead many national task forces. That is why many of these task forces remain paper tigers. That is why many of these forums become vacation retreats. That is why these industry councils are just Businessmen GTs. The problem is that while these leaders survive and thrive many competent and brilliant leaders at lower levels get disenchanted and leave. They see what the upper management do not see: the disconnect. They see the undeserving rise.
They see the incompetent being rewarded. This erodes any affiliation with the organization. This creates a culture of disengagement. And, this disengagement leads to a disconnect with sustainability eventually. Put your 3 D goggles and start seeing through the third dimension of these confident incompetents:
Confident incompetent#1— the swashbuckling non-doer- As a leadership development coach, I have seen many of them in companies big and small. They are special. They have amazing presence. Their energy is oozing. They can charm a snake. But they also bite those who can see through them.
The textile industry of Pakistan, at the time that it took off, was a great haven for them. These people with their sophisticated English-speaking skills took advantage of textile quotas. They brought in global brands like Levi’s, Ralph Lauren, and DKNY. This created a huge buzz in the industry. They were invited to speak on forums.
In their swashbuckling style, they mesmerized the audience with the story of how they won over the US and European fashion brands. Their talk carried them till the company found out that the orders were there but to deliver them on quality and time was not there. The boom in textiles simmered down, but many of these not so shiny stars changed companies and joined other industries on their past repute. Finally, after having been with some top textiles names at higher and higher salaries they rose further. With an impressive CV of top names they would get a position full of perks as part of some public private partnership body to promote textiles.
Confident incompetent#2— the complex simpleton- I remember my first encounter of this category of leaders. I was invited on a leadership seminar to speak. The speaker just before me was sitting next to me. On introductions, I was surprised to see him dressed very simply. When his turn came to speak, I was very impressed by his down to earth yet very learned way of tackling the topic. He was factual, speaking in both languages, giving great examples and quoting poetry. Wow I thought, finally a leader with substance.
He was heading a big conglomerate. Over a period of time, as I heard and saw more of him, I discovered that the man was living on “borrowed wisdom”. He would shamelessly but very factually tell stories of achievement that belonged to other people.
He would use other people’s quotes in a way as if he himself is reciting his own stuff. In the company he was heading, he was considered a master manipulator. His brilliant analysis would fool anybody. His approachable behaviour would deceive many. Such leaders can last a long time despite being incompetent because they would borrow all credit of things going well as their own and dump all things going wrong on others. The company finally gets rid of them but after some disaster. They meantime find greener pastures.
Confident incompetent#3— the loyal lobbyists- These are the traditional “more loyal than the king” guys who know their position is not based on competence but on loyalty. They have the ear of the big guys. They are the guardian of the personal secrets of the owners. By the way, this is not just restricted to the Pakistani Seth organization.
In many private sector and multinational firms this is the way to do corporate climbing. In the financial sector of Pakistan, which included local and foreign banks, the new guy would have a whole team joining together. Since they would be “the team” handpicked by the guys who matter, unhappy employees could do little. When the failure shows up, they hang on, waiting for their lobby to get them in a plushier job.
Confident incompetent#4— the boardroom gamer- Finally, the politically savvy boardroom player. This is a phenomenon I saw in multinationals. These people would know that the local guys are answerable to their foreign heads. They would create networks with foreign board members. Selective information would be passed to create biases. Their association would be so strong that even if the local people, sick of their incompetence refuse to retain them, they would get a much more lucrative posting internationally through their boardroom buddies.
As the incompetent leaders rise, companies and economies fall. The present crisis in the world is less of an economic issue than a leadership issue. Those who choose such leaders and then choose to sustain them despite their failure need to develop their discerning ability. They unfortunately may be blinded by their own incompetence to see through these false filters of assumed competence. As William Shakespeare said, “What a terrible era where idiots govern the blind”.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
The writer is a columnist, consultant, coach, and an analyst and can be reached at [email protected]
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