Do ‘C’ students run the world?

Leadership begins where excuses end.

Kobe Joseph

Have you heard the saying, “The ‘C’ students run the world.”? The quote has been attributed to Harry Truman, though Chat GPT informs me that the truth of the quote’s origin is only, “plausible but unverified.”

Regardless of who said it, behind many popular quotes lies some degree of wisdom, so let’s start by checking the validity of it. Do the early educational achievers – valedictorians, ivy leaguers, and so on – come to dominate the business world, or do we see plenty of the so-called ‘C’ students on top?

When documenting the educational backgrounds of Fortune 500 CEOs in 1999, David Kang, a Dartmouth Tuck professor, found that the most common bachelor’s degree held among them was not from Stanford, Harvard, MIT, West Point, or any other elite university – it was having no degree at all. While there certainly are academic elites at the top, there are just as many great leaders who found their stride later and rose to the top.

So… how does this work? What can bring supposed ‘A’ students down to normalcy and ‘C’ students into success?

A critical factor to look at is a simple mindset difference. The ‘A’ student often considers himself or herself to be gifted – innately smart, talented, and born with outstanding ability – whereas the ‘C’ student might not hold the same internal assumptions.

These internal assumptions can affect something called your locus of control. If you have an external locus of control, you tend to believe circumstances dictate your life. With an internal locus of control, you more so believe that you dictate your life. People who get labelled as “intelligent” or “talented” can often attribute their success to traits they possess but cannot change, contributing to the formation of an external locus of control. The unseen benefit to those with a less exceptional start is that they can more often identify themselves with controllable qualities, such as being “hard-working” or “reliable” and develop an internal locus of control.

This matters because it completely changes how you recover from adversity.

Imagine you’re faced with this scenario, which I found myself in a few weeks ago: you’re presenting an analysis to an executive and, suddenly, they tell you your dataset is wrong (and it is). Whose fault is it? There’s two ways to respond:

1. Well, someone gave me the wrong data. It was their fault.
2. I should have been more diligent, tested my assumptions, and found the problem. It was my fault.

If you choose option 1, while it may be true, you’ll find no way to improve upon the error. You didn’t cause it, so why should you fix it? But, if you respond with option 2, you can find ways to learn and become better – all because you took ownership of an issue that might not have been your mistake.

In your organization, even when you make a mistake (as we all do inevitably), don’t follow it up with a much more serious error: the fundamental attribution error, where you think success is a result of your character, but failure is blamed on your circumstances. When you believe external factors cause your problems, you won’t sharpen your internal toolset to prevent them from reoccurring.

In truth, your GPA, SAT, or technical expertise alone won’t get you all the way to the finish line – so own the problems and find ways to improve from them, or else you’ll get passed by someone who does.

When an initiative doesn’t hit its targets, a product must be recalled, or a workplace accident occurs, who usually gets the blame? The person in charge, whether it’s the product manager or the CEO.

So, if you want to be a great leader, then start owning things now. Own the issue even when, “It’s not my fault,” because you won’t be responsible for something tomorrow if you don’t take responsibility for it today.

What do you think? Where have you seen talented people fall behind in the workplace?