It's not your 20 that will save you! No?

I read a recent post , which I can't find again, that said something along the lines of "It's not your 20 values ​​that will help you in life!" The allusion was clear: good students lack social skills and won't make good leaders or even good managers. I looked at the post and searched for answers. And, as always, someone more enlightened responded, obviously, in the most obvious way (Helena Sacadura Cabral): the post is an abusive generalization, it's false, and in her personal case, she had the best grade in her class, got into whatever she wanted, and was only prevented from advancing in the career she wanted because the top positions weren't available to women (Banco de Portugal). Furthermore, and rightly so, she emphasizes that phraseology like this is not only reductive but also completely baseless.

Of course, the answer is 100% correct, and the post is just another facile, unscientific post meant to mislead. Above all, it fails to make a crucial point: this is all easy; you just need to be a good person and have social skills. Of course, the networks are flooded with these and similar things. But finding a negative correlation between grades and social and leadership performance is remarkable, not to say completely ignorant of reality.

To give a few examples—although the list is very long—that I've read and learned about only in Portugal: António Rios de Amorim went to Birmingham for his undergraduate degree. It's not known whether they awarded degrees to bad students there. António Horta Osório was my classmate at Colégio de São João de Brito and was a brilliant student, both at school and at Católica, as well as in his INSEAD MBA. António Portela holds a degree in Economics from FEP and an MBA from Porto Business School. Miguel Stillwell earned an M.Eng. with Distinction in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, Scotland) and an MBA from MIT Sloan (Boston, USA). Miguel Maya earned his bachelor's degree in Business Organization and Management from the Instituto Superior das Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa (ISCTE-IUL) and the Programa de Alto Direcção de Empresas (PADE) – AESE. João Bento holds a bachelor's degree from IST, a master's degree from IST, and a doctorate from Imperial College. Cláudia Azevedo holds a degree in Business Administration from Universidade Católica and an MBA from INSEAD. Ana Figueiredo holds a degree from ISEG and an MBA from The Lisbon MBA. Miguel Sobral, Chief Strategy Officer of Hubexo and former CEO of Vortal, earned an Executive MBA from ISCTE Executive Education. Maria João Carioca, Co-CEO and CFO of Galp, holds a degree from NOVA SBE and an MBA from INSEAD. The list is extensive, but none of them were bad students. Quite the opposite.

Do they all lack emotional skills? Are they all unsuited to their work and to their leadership? I have a positive impression of them all, and I know, because it's true, that they weren't bad students. Not all of them would have been straight A's, but they were all hardworking, disciplined, focused, and organized enough to go far. This discipline that comes from a young age shapes people, forges them in their work, and I only regret that we don't have many more like these good students. On the other hand, it's distressing that we have posts that are decontextualized, lacking any scientific basis, and written by people who, due to their exposure, should take responsibility.

A study that negatively correlates good students with social or leadership skills is yet to be born. Quite the contrary, those that exist, with scientific basis, have a clear advantageous bias for those who were good students. And a final note: a 20 is a result. Everything behind a 20 is another story. And it always remains to be told.