The central cause, argues Tomas Chasmorro-Premuzic, of the low numbers of women recruited into leadership, ranging from 36% in bottom tier management to only 6% at CEO level, isn’t that they aren’t competitive, assertive, bold, talented or in some other ill-defined way, enough like men; but rather that a persistent systematic mistake is made during the recruitment process. A mistake that leads to many of the opportunities, up to 74% according to one survey quoted, being filled with incompetent men.

Hence the question isn’t: how can we get more women into management, but rather, how do we stop so many incompetent men filling the available positions?