Initial selection is key -- I've long contended that I'd rather have two motivated dummies than all unmotivated smart guys you can give me. I can train the dummies; I cannot motivate the unmotivated (and the 'good leadership is required' crock is just that, a crock).

I would also in a Company or on a big staff rather be ten people short than two people over strength. Over strength breeds complacency and goofing off...

I will also echo Eden, who very correctly said:
"Until you have some mechanism for accelerating promotion and less concern for 'fairness' or 'equity' in your officer personnel system, you will have a great deal of difficulty in either discerning, retaining, or managing talent."
Note he rightly leads with "discerning" or identifying. You cannot get there if that step is omitted on the basis that 'anyone with the right credentials' can do it. They can't.

Some in Congress will fight that contention -- that battle needs to be fought; we do not have the luxury of a Draft to compensate for the terrible and glaring shortfall in that 'logic.'