[andxor_]

A leader shows direction(s) and has followers i.e. those that execute.

To show direction, one needs to know his stuff well. Many qualify for this. Getting followers that execute is very hard. Mountains have been written about this, with a lot of them being the typical business school stuff ridden with survivorship bias from following the success stories.

[smugglerFlynn]

In my experience it is the opposite, very few people qualify for "knowing their stuff well". Let me put it this way:

  Successfully executing on something requires _both_ domain knowledge + knowledge how to execute things efficiently. 

This combination is extremely rare, and I think survivorship bias that you mention mostly exists due to original business goals not being defined formally enough - i.e. people commonly valuing "execution as an activity" instead of "execution is getting from A to B". You can execute while failing many times over because you lack knowledge or understanding. You can get recognised and praised for execution because nobody bothered to validate that you actually got the result.

This might sound insane for the IT world, but this is how business often operates on a day to day basis - vague objectives with recognition for effort and process, instead of the actual result.

Which makes "knowing stuff well" an extreme modern leadership blindspot, in my opinion.

[andxor_]

> this is how business often operates on a day to day basis - vague objectives with recognition for effort and process, instead of the actual result.

That's a good point. Perhaps, seen more in larger businesses than smaller ones. As businesses grow, they accumulate support staff. Moreover, planning horizons get longer, so it gets difficult to associate "pnl" and effort concurrently.