The Relentless Pursuit of Excellence: A Conversation with Barry Conchie

In a world where mediocrity is tolerated and performance is often secondary to comfort, Barry Conchie stands as a fierce advocate for leadership excellence. A renowned leadership consultant and co-author of Strengths-Based Leadership and The Five Talents That Really Matter, Barry has dedicated his career to helping organizations identify and develop the leaders who will drive meaningful, long-term success. In our conversation, he challenged conventional hiring processes, exposed the inefficiencies of leadership selection, and reinforced the urgent need to hold leaders accountable. His message is clear: performance is not optional—it is the price of admission.

The Broken System of Leadership Selection

Most organizations believe they are hiring the right leaders, but Barry argues otherwise. He points to Frank Schmidt and John Hunter’s (1998) meta-analysis, which summarized 75 years of selection research and found that unstructured interviews—still the norm in many executive hiring processes—are nearly useless in predicting leadership success. The common practice of round-robin interviews, where candidates meet with multiple executives in a loosely structured format, does not increase the likelihood of selecting the right leader. Instead, it allows bias to dominate the decision-making process, leading organizations to repeatedly hire the wrong people.

So, what works? McDaniel et al. (1994) and Sackett & Zhang (Revisiting Meta-Analytic Estimates of Validity in Personnel Selection: Addressing Systematic Overcorrection for Restriction of Range 2024) demonstrated that structured interviews—where all candidates are asked the same job-relevant questions, with responses evaluated against clear criteria—nearly double the predictive validity of leadership selection. Barry advocates for a single, well-structured panel interview with three assessors: one asking questions, two taking notes, and all scoring responses immediately against predefined competencies. This approach removes much of the bias and absent an accredited psychometric assessment tool, dramatically increases the likelihood of selecting a leader who can actually perform.

Leadership as a Unique Constellation of Strengths

Many companies attempt to create a universal leadership profile, listing attributes such as strategic thinking, agility, and trustworthiness without considering their true impact on performance. Research by Zaccaro, Kemp, & Bader (2004) suggests that leadership effectiveness is multidimensional—great leaders do not fit a single mold. Instead, the most successful leaders focus on their strongest attributes and build teams that complement their weaknesses.

Similarly, Gallup’s Leadership Research (2017) found that top-performing leaders do not attempt to be well-rounded. Instead, they surround themselves with individuals whose strengths fill the gaps in their leadership approach. Rather than pushing leaders to improve every weakness, organizations should identify and develop those with exceptional, specific capabilities and ensure they are supported by strong, diverse teams.

Accountability: The Missing Ingredient in Leadership

Perhaps the most striking part of our conversation was Barry’s unyielding stance on accountability. He believes that too many organizations allow underperformers to stay simply because they meet the minimum standard of “being able to do the job.” This, he argues, is a disastrously low bar for survival. Instead, organizations should ask a much more powerful question: Is this the best talent we can get?

When companies fail to hold leaders accountable, they are not just tolerating mediocrity—they are actively damaging their business. Barry reinforced this with a simple but powerful reality: millions of lives are dependent on an organization’s performance. Employees rely on leadership to make sound decisions that provide job security, financial stability, and career growth. Customers depend on organizations to deliver products and services at the highest possible standard. When leadership is weak, people suffer. Organizations cannot afford to be easy places to survive. Instead, they must demand excellence and ensure that every leader continuously re-earns their place.

Turnover: A Necessary Component of Excellence

Many organizations see turnover as a problem to be solved, but Barry takes a different stance: turnover is necessary. Specifically, organizations should aim for chosen turnover—the strategic removal of individuals who are not meeting the ever-rising standards of leadership excellence. He argues that organizations must constantly evolve, and some leaders will be unable to keep pace. Rather than allowing them to linger in roles they no longer fit, companies must make hard but necessary decisions to bring in better talent.

He warns against the opposite extreme—losing high-potential individuals due to poor leadership. One of the biggest red flags in an organization is when top salespeople and high performers leave because they are managed by tenured but ineffective leaders. This is a clear sign that turnover is needed at the leadership level, not among the frontline employees.

The ROI of Leadership: Why Performance is Non-Negotiable

Leadership effectiveness is not an abstract concept—it has a direct impact on an organization’s financial performance. However, many executives struggle to define exactly how leadership influences the bottom line. Barry frequently encounters executive teams that cannot even agree on describing? the three most important metrics driving their business. Without clear priorities, organizations cannot effectively measure leadership’s contribution to success.

This lack of clarity allows weak executives to survive because their performance is never objectively assessed. Barry argues that there must be consequences for both high and low performance. Top-performing leaders should be rewarded—not just financially, but also through increased responsibilities and recognition, but not necessarily promotion (promotion should never be a reward). Conversely, leaders who consistently fail to deliver must face the reality that they are not the right fit, and they should be encouraged to find jobs that are a better fit.

A company’s survival depends on its leaders performing at the highest level. Barry rejects the modern entitlement mentality that suggests employees deserve fulfilling careers without earning them. Success is not a right; it is something leaders must continually prove through their performance. This is not about being harsh—it is about being honest about what it takes to run a world-class organization.

Final Thoughts: The Relentless Pursuit of Excellence

The biggest takeaway from my conversation with Barry was this:good? leadership is rare, and leadership excellence is even rarer. Organizations cannot afford to settle for mediocrity. They must actively seek out the best talent, hold leaders accountable for results, and make performance the foundation of their culture.

Too many organizations have made survival easy. Barry challenges us to change that. He envisions a world where leaders must re-earn their place every year—where the expectation is not just competence, but excellence. If more organizations embraced this mindset, the impact would be profound. Employees would thrive under strong leadership, customers would receive better products and services, and businesses would achieve unprecedented success.

In the end, leadership is not about titles or tenure. It is about performance. And the sooner we make that the standard, the better off our organizations—and society—will be.

Recommended Readings

• Conchie, B. (2024). The five talents that really matter.
• Conchie, B., & Rath, T. (2008). Strengths-based leadership: Great leaders, teams, and why people follow. Gallup Press.
• Gallup. (2017). State of the American workplace. Gallup, Inc.
• McDaniel, M. A., Whetzel, D. L., Schmidt, F. L., & Maurer, S. D. (1994). The validity of employment interviews: A comprehensive review and meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79(4), 599–616. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.79.4.599
• Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1998). The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings. Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 262–274. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.2.262
• Revisiting meta-analytic estimates of validity in personnel selection: Addressing systematic overcorrection for restriction of range - PubMed
• Zaccaro, S. J., Kemp, C., & Bader, P. (2004). Leader traits and attributes. In J. Antonakis, A. T. Cianciolo, & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The nature of leadership (pp. 101–124).