CEO Shortlist: Why do bad leaders rise to the top?

As the tech buzz becomes ever louder, executives are turning back to basics. In the future, many workers will likely be using AI to help them do the technical parts of their jobs. This is likely to free people up for more collaborative work, which means interpersonal skills may become more valuable to executives than ever. Some expect AI to diminish the relative importance of technical skill. Interpersonal skills, therefore, may become more important to executives than ever. This edition of the CEO Shortlist points to new research on why we need more emotionally intelligent leaders and how we can pick them. We also double-click on deep-cut AI concepts, transforming a centuries-old bank, and more.

What’s new

Hitting your stride. The early years of a CFO’s tenure are often about scoping out the challenge and pulling together the core team. Midtenure is when the best finance leaders get bold. Our interviews with eight CFOs shed light on how leaders can rise to the occasion.

Reinvent the finance function—and yourself—with “Faster, smarter, bolder: How midtenure CFOs shift into a higher gear,” by Ankur Agrawal , Cristina Catania , Christian Grube , and John Kelleher .

What’s now

The never-ending story. Business transformation is more than a one-off; it’s an attempt to build a new company on the fly. Successful transformations set their sights far beyond next year’s financial targets, instead thinking decades—or even centuries—into the future. Frankly, most such transformations don’t work. But those that do, as in the case of 240-year-old US bank BNY Mellon, offer inspiration.

What would American founding father Andrew Mellon do? We don’t know, exactly, but we know what leaders of today’s BNY Mellon did. Hear more from Roman Regelman, former senior executive at BNY Mellon, in “Driving long-term business transformation,” by Kevin Carmody .

What’s next

Your prompt reply is appreciated. Today’s business leaders are no strangers to AI (especially if they’re staying up to date with our publishing). But quick: what does prompt engineering mean for your existing employees? How is tokenization in payments different from tokenization in large language models? Or what needs to happen for AI to be capable of empathy?

Got AI? Then you’ve likely got questions as well. Fill in the gaps in your understanding with “What’s the future of AI?,” a new package of McKinsey Explainers with insights from Michael Chui , Alex Singla , Kate Smaje , Lareina Yee , and many more.?

What’s needed

Hot air rises to the top. According to new research, gender—before abilities, competencies, interests, and personalities—is one of the strongest predictors of whether someone reaches a leadership role. And that’s not all. The men who benefit from antimeritocratic discrimination, says author and psychologist Dr. Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic , often exhibit traits that hamper organizational progress.

Listen to the good doctor weigh in on “Why so many bad bosses still rise to the top,” the latest episode of the McKinsey Talks Talent podcast, featuring Chamorro-Premuzic and McKinsey talent leaders Bryan Hancock and Brooke Weddle .

We hope you find these ideas inspiring and helpful. See you next time with four more McKinsey ideas for the CEO and others in the C-suite.

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