Sometimes the stakes are so high, the demand so great, the responsibility so awesome that there's going to be no in-between.
I'm reading some Bruce Catton books on the Civil War and that's how it was for whoever was commander of the armies of the North. There were a few (very few) decent generals but the times demanded greatness and success and anything less was failure. Those who weren't great couldn't get away with it -- decent was failure and they were replaced. But if you could succeed, you'd be President (Grant did and was). No in-between.
It's not fair, it's just the way it is. And thankfully, not very often.
It's nothing personal -- just the combination of a specific need and one person that are an exact fit at that one moment. And when the stakes are high enough the exaltation of a successful person can carry beyond that moment and need.
Grant was a great general, and it got him elected president. But he was only an average president. The need and the person and the moment were no longer an exact fit.
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