Is good leadership always genius? Was his good leadership all the way up there at genius level? Is working hard to bring out the ideas of your staff worthy of genius-level praise? If he was more humble no-one might have called him a genius, although he would still be respected.

I think there is plenty of room for praising people for quite astonishing accomplishments, but I don't necessarily equate accomplishment with genius. It's not a knock on someone if they really pull something off but they don't get called genius. Genius is in the mind.