The science of failing up: Why some leaders rise despite repeated screwups

History is crowded with CEOs who have flamed out in very public ways. Yet when the reckoning arrives, the same question often lingers: How did this person keep getting promoted? In corporate America, the phenomenon is known as “failing up,” the steady rise of executives whose performance rarely matches their trajectory. Organizational psychologists say it’s not an anomaly. It’s a feature of how many companies evaluate leadership.

At the core is a well-documented bias toward confidence over competence. Studies consistently show that people who speak decisively, project certainty, and take credit for wins—whether earned or not—are more likely to be perceived as leadership material. In ambiguous environments, boards and senior managers often mistake boldness for ability. As long as a leader can narrate failure convincingly—blaming market headwinds, legacy systems, or uncooperative teams—their upward momentum may continue.

Another driver is asymmetric accountability. Senior executives typically oversee vast, complex systems where outcomes are hard to tie directly to individual decisions. When results are good, credit flows upward. When results are bad, blame diffuses downward, and middle managers, project leads, and economic conditions become convenient shock absorbers. This allows underperforming leaders to survive long enough to secure their next promotion.

Then there’s the mobility illusion. In many industries, frequent job changes are read as ambition and momentum rather than warning signs. An executive who leaves after short, uneven tenures can reframe each exit as a “growth opportunity” or a strategic pivot. Recruiters and boards, under pressure to fill top roles quickly, often rely on résumé signals, like brand-name firms, inflated titles, and elite networks, rather than deep performance audits.

Ironically, early visibility can also accelerate failure upward. High-profile roles magnify both success and failure, but they also increase name recognition. An executive who runs a troubled division at a global firm may preside over mediocre results, yet emerge with a reputation as a “big-company leader,” making them attractive for a CEO role elsewhere.

The reckoning usually comes only at the top. As CEO, the buffers disappear. There is no one left to blame, and performance is judged in the blunt language of earnings, stock price, profitability, or layoffs. The traits that once fueled ascent, such as overconfidence, become liabilities under full scrutiny.

The central lesson for aspiring CEOs is that the very system that rewards confidence, visibility, and narrative control on the way up often masks weak execution until the top job strips those protections away. Future leaders who want to avoid “failing upward” must deliberately build careers grounded in verifiable results and direct ownership of outcomes because at the CEO level, there is no narrative strong enough to substitute for performance.

Ruth Umoh
ruth.umoh@fortune.com

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com