Not Harvard, but (being Asian American) this sort of soft characterization as being deficient in personality metrics rings true in my head.
For starters, my father in his full time government job repeatedly got "no leadership potential" reviews. Meanwhile in his part time job with the US Navy, he advanced to the level of captain and in his final act for the Navy led a team that completed its first fully digitized inventory system, saving the Navy billions of dollars, and delivered it under budget and ahead of time. (Fwiw he was non-technical, just "good at making things happen for nerds", his words not mine)
In my personal life, I've encountered several situations where people have expressed to me explicitly or implicitly they didn't consider me to be leader-worthy despite my having successfully managed small teams several times in my career.
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