I come from a generation that grew up believing that “anyone could become president one day” and it was a worthy ambition back then (perhaps less so today). Still, it is a pretty common belief in the United States that leadership is a universal aspiration and attainable for anyone willing to work for it. We are led to believe that leadership is just a matter of desire, confidence, and determination, that anyone (or everyone) can be a leader. The reality is more complex.
Just because you want to be a leader, are a leader or call yourself one, doesn’t automatically mean that you will be good at it. Although it may be true that anyone can be a leader (or given a title), some are better than others and many just aren’t capable of being “president one day”.
I’ve seen a lot of people aspire to leadership positions, but so few of them really possess the capability required to be effective, especially at higher levels of organizational complexity.
This idea can feel a bit un-American because it challenges a deeply held belief about opportunity and achievement. The belief that “If I work hard, I can achieve anything I want”, “I can be president of this company someday.” It’s true to a degree, but I’ve seen some bad promotions.
Giving someone a title before they have the capability weakens an organization. I’ve also seen some successes, almost always conditional: when leaders aspire to be the best at the level they find themselves, and are only promoted when their ability to handle complexity expands to match their new role.
Let’s explore this in more detail. Organizational theorist Elliott Jaques, in his work on Requisite Organization, observed that organizations function best when people occupy roles that match their actual capability rather than their ambition. As a result, one of the most important distinctions in leadership development is understanding the difference between wanting to lead and being capable of leading.
Let’s talk about the difference between ambition and capability.
Ambition relates to what a person wants. Capability relates to what a person can successfully accomplish, particularly when facing increasing complexity, uncertainty, and responsibility. Too often, organizations confuse the two.
A highly ambitious employee may aggressively pursue promotions, volunteer for high-profile assignments, and express a strong desire to reach senior leadership. These behaviors demonstrate motivation and drive (valuable qualities for sure), but they do not necessarily indicate whether they have the ability to handle the complexity of executive decision-making (which is more important for leadership success).
Conversely, some highly capable individuals may have relatively modest ambitions, preferring to contribute as experts or specialists rather than seeking authority over others. They might need some encouragement and a good leader to help move them to the next level. Promoting either type of emerging leader can hinder an organization.
Ambition is not enough to make you a capable leader.
This distinction sits at the heart of Elliott Jaques’ theory of Requisite Organization. Jaques frames it for us by saying that organizations contain different layers, or strata, of work. Each stratum involves a different level of complexity and a different time horizon for decisions and accountability. Effective leadership requires the capability to operate within the complexity of a particular stratum.
According to Jaques, organizational hierarchy is not merely a matter of power or status. Instead, hierarchy exists because different roles require different levels of cognitive processing and judgment. The manager of a small team, the director of a business unit, and the chief executive officer are not doing the same “work.” They are operating at fundamentally different levels of complexity.
For example, a frontline supervisor may be responsible for problems that can be resolved over days or weeks. A middle manager may need to think months ahead. An executive may make decisions that unfold over years. As the complexity and time span of responsibility increase, the capability required to succeed also increases. This is where the concept of strata becomes particularly important.
In Requisite Organization, each stratum represents a level of work characterized by a specific type of complexity and time-span capability. Individuals who perform effectively in one stratum may struggle when promoted into a higher one. This does not mean they are unintelligent or incompetent. It simply means that the complexity of the new role or the time span that they are being asked to operate in exceeds their current capability.
Many organizations wrongly assume that outstanding performance at one level automatically predicts success at the next. An exceptional engineer becomes an engineering manager. A successful sales manager becomes a vice president. A talented vice president becomes the president. Sometimes these promotions work, but often they do not (or it takes more time).
The reason is that success in one stratum does not guarantee capability in another. Moving upward requires a qualitative shift in how problems are understood, how decisions are made, and how uncertainty is managed. Jaques thinks that people develop capability over time. This leads to another important concept in his theory: trajectory.
Capability has a trajectory.
Trajectory refers to an individual’s potential growth in capability across their career. Some individuals demonstrate a steep trajectory, suggesting they will be capable of operating effectively at higher strata. Others may plateau at a level where their growth flattens. This idea often creates controversy in corporate American because it suggests that people differ not only in current performance but also in their future promotability and their capacity for handling organizational complexity.
We already recognize this reality in other domains. You can be an avid runner, but not every runner can become an Olympic athlete, regardless of how much you desire it (or practice), the talent and capability need to be there. I may practice relentlessly and become the best basketball player I can become. I might be able to “play with anyone” but does that mean I should be able to play in the NBA? I’m 5’8”. It is simply not going to happen, and no one would question it. I’d have to have extraordinary talent to make it, like Steph Curry’s three-point shooting or Spud Webb’s quickness and vertical jump (Spud Webb was 5’7”, had a 46” vertical jump, and won the 1986 NBA Slam Dunk Contest; an outlier for sure.) Ambition and effort matter, but they must interact with underlying capability. Leadership is no different.
This perspective can sound elitist or exclusionary, but Jaques viewed it as a practical observation of the corporate world rather than a value judgment. Every stratum contributes essential work. Organizations require skilled contributors at all levels. Effectiveness depends on matching capability to role rather than ranking human worth via an organizational chart. Career paths and compensation models can facilitate some misguided motivations, which can create a sense of entitlement around promotion and the associated increase in pay. We should consider them as two separate issues. This insight also challenges a popular narrative regarding equality of outcomes.
Not everyone should be president.
We rightly believe that everyone should have the opportunity to develop, learn, and compete fairly. But, as uncomfortable as it may sound, equal opportunity does not imply identical capability, so not everyone should be president. Unfortunately, many organizations promote employees based primarily on ambition, visibility, or political skills. The result is predictable. Newly promoted leaders find themselves overwhelmed by responsibilities for which they are not yet prepared. Decision quality declines. Teams become frustrated. Performance suffers. In these situations, the problem is not a lack of desire or ambition. The problem is a mismatch between role complexity and individual capability.
This clashes with the optimistic belief that anyone can rise to the highest level if they simply work hard enough. That belief is only ”half” true. Let’s agree that to be an effective CEO or President it requires extraordinary judgment, strategic thinking, resilience, and decision-making capability. Many may aspire to the office. Very few possess the capability required to perform it effectively. The same principle applies at every level of your organization.
Not everyone can successfully lead a multinational corporation, manage a hospital system, or run a university. These roles demand levels of complexity-handling that exceed the requirements of lower positions. Let’s also consider that not everyone can manage a $20 million project, direct a marketing team, or run a crew. By the way, the person who runs that multinational corporation might fail at running a crew. It’s hard to translate context and perspective when there are too many strata in between (more than two). The right leadership capability is needed at every level. Recognizing this reality should not discourage people. Instead, it should promote a more sophisticated understanding of leadership development. Leaders can be developed.
What should leadership development actually look like?
The key question is not, “How quickly can I become a leader?” The better question is, “What is my current capability, what is my trajectory, and what experiences will help me grow to get there?” From this perspective, leadership development is less about cultivating ambition or confidence and more about progressively expanding one’s ability to manage more and more complexity. Experience, mentorship, coaching, challenging assignments, reflection, and learning all contribute to this growth. Some individuals will eventually thrive at very high levels (strata). Others will make their greatest contributions at levels that more closely match their capabilities and interests. Both outcomes are good.
The real lesson (from Jaques) is that organizations work best when they align roles, strata, and capability. Frustration lives in misalignment. Leadership should not be a prize awarded to the most ambitious. It is a responsibility that requires the capacity to handle a specific level of organizational complexity.
Ultimately, not everyone is going to be president. Some lack the necessary capability. Some have not yet developed it. Some simply have different aspirations. Understanding this distinction helps organizations make better decisions, helps individuals pursue realistic development paths, and reminds us that leadership is not about status or money. It is about capability. Ambition may open the door, but only capability allows someone to succeed once they walk through it.
This is where coaching and mentoring can help accelerate the development timeline for leaders. It can also help “expose” the leadership gaps that someone might possess. That being said, every coaching relationship should start with two questions: “Are you aware of your “areas of development?” and “Do you want some help to improve your capability?” The answers can come from the leadership candidate themselves (ideally), or they can come from the boss. In both cases, if the answer is “no” to either question, coaching won’t work. Fortunately, the answers are almost always “yes”, and coaching/mentoring creates a nice organizational “compromise.”
Where talented, emerging leaders can get the developmental support they need to be more successful leaders at the next level (especially when they have already been promoted to that level). Remember, companies generally only promote (or want to promote) the folks who have already proven themselves at some level. These people don’t want to fail, and you don’t want to lose them.
So, if they begin to struggle in their new role, it is probably not entirely their fault. They may not be ready for the role (very common), or they don’t have the right leadership capability above them (also common, but a more sensitive issue, especially when their leader is an owner or family member). Coaching, over an extended period (at least 6 months, often a year) will help determine if the emerging leader can tilt their leadership trajectory upward. One-on-one interaction, with some objective personality and leadership assessments create reference points. It doesn’t take that long (usually around 3 months) before it can become evident whether someone can and/or will expand their capability. Happily, this kind of support is usually successful. Occasionally a difficult conversation might follow, but it will result in a better outcome for the person and the organization. There is a better way.
Think about your own leadership trajectory.
You are smart, capable and ambitious and so you get promoted a lot. At every new level, you figured it out and made it work, of course. But your leadership learning curve (trajectory) had a cost associated with it; personal and organizational.
Now, imagine if you could have had some mentoring/coaching, with industry context and scenarios presented to you along the way, coupled with non-threatening performance feedback. How much better and faster could you have elevated to your role? More importantly, how much more effective could your whole organization have become, and how much sooner?
Leadership development should not be a lonely process. The whole organization should participate in it; coaching and mentoring as a part of the company culture. Perhaps, on occasion, bringing in someone from the outside to help with the more complicated folks. This is the better way.