The science behind executives who fail but continue to climb the career ladder

History is full of CEOs who failed in very public ways. Still, when the reckoning comes, the same question often persists: How did this person continue to be promoted?

In corporate America, the phenomenon is known as “failing up,” the continued rise of executives whose performance rarely matches trajectory. Organizational psychologists say this is not an anomaly. It’s a feature of how many companies evaluate leadership.

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At the heart of the problem is a widely documented bias that favors confidence over competence.

Studies consistently show that people who speak firmly, convey confidence, and take credit for victories—deserved or not—are more likely to be perceived as good leadership.

In ambiguous environments, boards and senior executives often confuse boldness with capability.

As long as a leader can convincingly explain a failure—by blaming market headwinds, aging systems, or uncooperative teams—his advancement can continue.

Another factor is asymmetric responsibility. Senior executives typically oversee vast, complex systems where results are difficult to directly relate to individual decisions.

When the results are good, credit goes up. When they’re bad, the blame spreads downward, and middle managers, project leaders, and economic conditions become convenient buffers.

This allows underperforming leaders to survive long enough to secure the next promotion.

There is also the illusion of mobility. In many industries, frequent job changes are interpreted as ambition and drive rather than warning signs.

An executive who leaves after short, irregular stints may frame each departure as a “growth opportunity” or a strategic shift.

Recruiters and boards, pressured to fill C-suite roles quickly, often rely on resume signals such as reputable companies, inflated job titles and elite networks rather than in-depth performance audits.

Ironically, early visibility can also accelerate failure upwards. High-profile roles magnify both success and failure, but they also increase name recognition.

An executive who leads a troubled division of a global company may deliver mediocre results and still walk away with a reputation as a “big company leader,” making him attractive for a CEO role elsewhere.

Reckoning usually only comes at the top. As CEO, the buffers disappear. There is no one else to blame, and performance is judged in the straightforward language of profits, share price, profitability or layoffs.

Traits that once boosted advancement, like overconfidence, become liabilities under full scrutiny.

The central lesson for aspiring CEOs is that the very system that rewards trust, visibility, and control of the narrative along the way often masks poor execution—until the top job strips away those protections.

Future leaders who want to avoid “failure to the top” need to deliberately build careers based on verifiable results and direct accountability for outcomes, because at the CEO level, there is no narrative strong enough to replace performance.