Some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.
A leadership survey by human resources firm DDI is reported today on BBC news. It suggests a link between early achievements at school and later success in business.
I wonder if today’s leaders are being fully honest here and have full recall of the facts of their younger selves. Because an alternative view is that today’s high achievers were so often the underachievers in education, whether because of dyslexia, or because they did not conform (eg Winston Churchill, Richard Branson). Of course, this alternative view is an uncomfortable one for those of us working in higher education…
PR Studies 
I picked up on this as well. As someone who has managed two companies’ graduate recruitment schemes this article (also reported in the FT, Independent and Telegraph) wasn’t surprising (though the figure was).
As for your comment, I think you confuse academic performance and leadership at school. The two aren’t necessarily linked, hence the recruiters reliance on results is misjudged.
Better indicators would be the sort of activities the report mentions. Leadership on voluntary organisations, where one has to manage by getting people to do things because they want to, is a really good indicator.