can trip up all but the most successful leaders?

Question

Although very little can be accomplished without well-balanced, multidisciplined teams, molding different viewpoints into a single vision is a task that can trip up all but the most successful leaders.


In this sentence,

what does "all but" mean?

I'd like to know..

Answer 1

In this sentence "all but" means "all except", stating that to achieve the required effect the leaders must be of the most successful.

Answer 2

Substitute "anyone apart from" for "all but". That will give you the same meaning. In other words, what the writer is saying is that molding different viewpoints into a single vision is quite difficult to do, and it's only the most successful leaders who are likely to get it right. Others will probably fail to do so successfully.