// And yet so few of the executives I've worked for have had good communication skills.

This is very different than my experience (finance and FAANG) where the people I worked for were almost always excellent communicators able to line up hundreds or thousands of people to "row" in the same direction.

Another point of my own experience: I was always very technical, but iterating on my ability to communicate/lead has made me a thousand times more productive/ impactful.