You can point out outliers but statistically most CEOs have been selected to some extent for reasons that don’t involve KSAs. Only one such example: average height of a CEO in an S&P 500 company is a standard deviation higher than the average male. Average height of a founder of a top 10 S&P company in terms of market cap is a standard deviation lower (Bezos, Zuck, Huang all 5’7", Brin 5’8", Gates is a relative Goliath at 5’10").

I’ll let you ruminate on the disparity in height between moderately successful promoted CEOs and unimaginably successful founders and why that is such in a culture that views height positively.

Most executives are hard working sure, but also pageant winners. If you want to learn how to claw at colleagues you’ll learn a lot from a random CEO.