Society and organizations invest heavily in selecting the best leaders, and existing research shows a positivity bias by focusing on the bright side of leadership. Should we focus on finding the best leaders or avoiding the worst? Our new paper provides robust evidence for an “avoid-the-worst” principle in human leadership preferences. We found that the top 100 business schools emphasize good leadership far more than the prevention of bad leadership. But actual employee experiences from 9.9 million Glassdoor reviews show that people mentioned their leader 70% more often in the negative than positive section, and negative leader mentions predicted company ratings 1.5 times more strongly. A bad-leader mention was also associated with 30% higher odds of leaving a company within the first year among former employees, whereas a good-leader mention is associated with only 5% lower odds of leaving. We also have causal evidence across 40 countries (N = 51,433) revealing that people were more willing to sacrifice time and money to avoid a bad leader than obtain a good leader (across both morality and competence). Our research suggests that people care more about avoiding the worst leaders than getting the best. But our leading schools are focused on the opposite issue. The central question of institutional design may not be who should rule, but how to prevent bad leaders from doing too much damage. This research was led by @H_Sjastad and @jareefbnmartuza Read the full paper here: osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/8g…