You may think this has an obvious answer, but pause a second. For many Conservative Party members - who have long searched for strong personalities to spearhead their agenda - Badenoch emerged as, and was celebrated for being, a figure with the ability to confront political enemies and lead the charge on culture war issues, speaking truth to institutional woke power and pushing back against progressive ideologies.
Yet a rather timid opening few weeks as party leader has shown a leader lacking in vision, and even coherence, on many of these issues, let alone someone with a grand plan for what Britain's future should be.
Her inconsistency on critical issues and her inability to articulate a policy agenda suggests a leader more concerned with scoring points in political skirmishes than engaging her opponents head on. As the Tories stay alive by the grace of Labour's catastrophic start in government, Badenoch risks missing a golden chance to fix the machine, keeping the party as one of empty slogans.
Take immigration. Last week, Sir Keir Starmer took aim at Badenoch's inconsistency, highlighting her past advocacy for looser immigration rules - a stance starkly at odds with the current public demand for stricter controls. Think about how humiliating this should be for a Tory leader, whose party was recently booted out of office in large part because of immigration levels.
At PMQs this week, Starmer again went toe-to-toe over who had the worst record on immigration. Too early, a pattern is emerging, with the Tory opposition leader able to be lambasted time and again over her record. There are five more years of this to come: two party leaders who accept the country has failed on migration, but are both as inconsistent as the other on the issue. In such a scenario, the Tory will always come off second best.
Under the Tories last year, net migration hit a record high of over 906,000. Though Badenoch has since said her party got its migration policy "wrong" and pledged to set a "strict numerical cap" she has yet to commit to a number - and is still unable to commit to leaving the ECHR. So one is forced to ask: how is she to achieve meaningful change?
The fear must be that she is doomed to prioritise economic liberalism - which far too many Tories forget is not conservatism - whilst failing to address issues on state function, multiculturalism and mass immigration, in the hope that shouting loudly enough about the "woke mob" will distract people from the fact that there is nothing new on offer.
Badenoch has offered little in terms of practical solutions to anything at the top of most voters' agendas, at the exact moment the nation is crying out for something beyond student idealism. She remains fixated on the optics of "owning" her opponents as if she were a 2015 YouTuber, ignoring the fact that she leads a political party on the very edge of survival.
Her inability to rise above petty squabbles and her preference for culture wars soundbites over clear policy leaves the party ill-prepared for the challenges ahead. This might in part be forgivable if she were good at the media stuff, but waffling on about not being scared of Dr Who and descending into a spat with the vice president of Nigeria suggests she's not especially adept at this either.
Against this backdrop emerges Reform. The party's continued progress only underscores the Conservatives' vulnerability under Badenoch. Instead of addressing the threat of Farage's Right-wing bona-fides by refocusing on bread-and-butter issues, Badenoch hasn't yet even tried to see off this insurgency. If that sounds like weakness, it's because it is - and voters can sense it.
Robert Jenrick, having licked his wounds post leadership contest, has already begun new manoeuvres, broadcasting his political vision for the future of the Tories far and wide. If she doesn't change course soon, the Tories risk yet another humiliation at the polls. The question remains just how long the Tories will stick together behind yet another flailing leader.