Why is it that binary, though? Surely somewhere between "incompetent" and "world-class" there's space for execs who are "good enough to earn their reports' respect but with room to grow in a few areas"?
It's not binary, from an objective perspective. The thing is, if you even think that his advice might apply to your situation, the exec in question has lost your respect. That means that they lost their reports' respect several months ago (the CEO is always the last to know), and you have a major problem on your hands.
I don't know about that. It'd be really easy for a credulous person to read that article and think "oh, some of my execs aren't world class yet. Guess I'd better replace them."
Yeah, once you've lost the respect of your reports (or failed to ever gain it) you can't do your job as a manager or executive, period. But that doesn't mean that great execs are born rather than made or that nobody should put any effort into developing a great manager into a new exec or a new exec into a great one, which the article seems to fallaciously suggest.
