4 ms·

Does IQ correlate with leadership ability?

by GHFigs 17y ago

pw0ncakes 17y ago
It depends how "leadership" is defined. By and large, I am a strong believer in rule by the smart, although culture is a lot more important than IQ. Probably 20-30% of those in the ruling class have a high enough IQ (125+) to be there but less than 1% have sufficient culture. Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney come to mind as examples. They're so uncultured they probably eat steak with their fingers; that such louts could rise to such high levels of influence is a serious problem. And our society is such an ugly mess because people like them (uncultured people, with ugly minds) rise to power and remake the world in their image. I think it's also obvious that most business executives are selected for people-pleasing and crude optimizations (next-quarter profits) rather than vision, creativity, and humanity. The traditional two-tier managerial structure (although excruciatingly flawed and less-than-useless in practice) had the right idea. At one degree above the average (110-125) you have the managers, whom the line workers look to for leadership, but who do not alienate them with their intelligence. At two degrees up (125-145) you have the executives, who can lead and mentor the managers, and whose closer connection to "the metal" gives them a strong voice in the decision-making. At 3 and more degrees, you have strategists and academics who present the information and advise the decisions. However, modern corporate society doesn't work this way; the executives are often mediocrities, the "advisor" class isn't really listened-to, and most of what goes on in academia is self-referential bullshit. "Rule by the smart" is not flawless, of course. Bigger problems than a lack of intelligence in our ruling class are the lack of integrity, vision, and compassion... which are also much harder to measure-- although all of these correlate are correlated much more strongly with IQ than with "leadership" as measured by our current selection process. Therefore, an "IQ meritocracy" would be an improvement. Between a set of 140+ IQers (among whom there would be some who are unfit to lead) and the people running the show now, I'd bet on the first class without hesitation.
dkarl 17y ago
Intelligence dedicated to solving abstract or impersonal problems is worthless for a leader. Therefore, the kind of intellectual talents that show up on an IQ test are not very useful. Someone who takes a problem-solving approach to the world will not make a good leader. Someone who takes a problem-solving approach to his parents, friends, classmates, and so forth will do well. That's because leadership consists in large part of stating and forging a group consensus, perhaps not in that order. A leader rarely suggests a course of action that doesn't immediately make sense to other people. If education and elucidation is required, he does that beforehand. A leader doesn't bother with courses of action that his followers aren't already one little nudge away from accepting, and then he provides that nudge. For this reason, it's best for a leader not to devote too much intelligence to actually solving problems -- he will just come up with useless and distracting ideas. A leader with a lot of credibility can get people to accept a new course of action solely on his own credibility, but if it doesn't work out, he loses a lot of credibility. He mostly needs to stick to courses of action that are credited to other people or which just feel right to his followers. Leading by surpassing excellence is an invention of propaganda. Only after you already have a lot of power and loyalty can you start manufacturing such a myth.
- pw0ncakes 17y ago
  Fair point. The creative visionaries are the people who should be leaders in an ideal or even morally acceptable society, but almost never the people who have the capability to grab power.
- yters 17y ago
  That's a leader in the popular sense. But if being such a leader means he can't think deeply, then he'll have to rely on the intellectuals to provide him with the deep ideas he needs to lead. At that point, who's the leader?
kls 17y ago
no left handedness does.

Does IQ correlate with leadership ability?

by GHFigs 17y ago

Does IQ correlate with leadership ability?

It depends how "leadership" is defined. By and large, I am a strong believer in rule by the smart, although culture is a lot more important than IQ. Probably 20-30% of those in the ruling class have a high enough IQ (125+) to be there but less than 1% have sufficient culture. Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney come to mind as examples. They're so uncultured they probably eat steak with their fingers; that such louts could rise to such high levels of influence is a serious problem. And our society is such an ugly mess because people like them (uncultured people, with ugly minds) rise to power and remake the world in their image. I think it's also obvious that most business executives are selected for people-pleasing and crude optimizations (next-quarter profits) rather than vision, creativity, and humanity. The traditional two-tier managerial structure (although excruciatingly flawed and less-than-useless in practice) had the right idea. At one degree above the average (110-125) you have the managers, whom the line workers look to for leadership, but who do not alienate them with their intelligence. At two degrees up (125-145) you have the executives, who can lead and mentor the managers, and whose closer connection to "the metal" gives them a strong voice in the decision-making. At 3 and more degrees, you have strategists and academics who present the information and advise the decisions. However, modern corporate society doesn't work this way; the executives are often mediocrities, the "advisor" class isn't really listened-to, and most of what goes on in academia is self-referential bullshit. "Rule by the smart" is not flawless, of course. Bigger problems than a lack of intelligence in our ruling class are the lack of integrity, vision, and compassion... which are also much harder to measure-- although all of these correlate are correlated much more strongly with IQ than with "leadership" as measured by our current selection process. Therefore, an "IQ meritocracy" would be an improvement. Between a set of 140+ IQers (among whom there would be some who are unfit to lead) and the people running the show now, I'd bet on the first class without hesitation.

dkarl 17y ago

Intelligence dedicated to solving abstract or impersonal problems is worthless for a leader. Therefore, the kind of intellectual talents that show up on an IQ test are not very useful. Someone who takes a problem-solving approach to the world will not make a good leader. Someone who takes a problem-solving approach to his parents, friends, classmates, and so forth will do well. That's because leadership consists in large part of stating and forging a group consensus, perhaps not in that order. A leader rarely suggests a course of action that doesn't immediately make sense to other people. If education and elucidation is required, he does that beforehand. A leader doesn't bother with courses of action that his followers aren't already one little nudge away from accepting, and then he provides that nudge. For this reason, it's best for a leader not to devote too much intelligence to actually solving problems -- he will just come up with useless and distracting ideas. A leader with a lot of credibility can get people to accept a new course of action solely on his own credibility, but if it doesn't work out, he loses a lot of credibility. He mostly needs to stick to courses of action that are credited to other people or which just feel right to his followers. Leading by surpassing excellence is an invention of propaganda. Only after you already have a lot of power and loyalty can you start manufacturing such a myth.

pw0ncakes 17y ago
Fair point. The creative visionaries are the people who should be leaders in an ideal or even morally acceptable society, but almost never the people who have the capability to grab power.
yters 17y ago
That's a leader in the popular sense. But if being such a leader means he can't think deeply, then he'll have to rely on the intellectuals to provide him with the deep ideas he needs to lead. At that point, who's the leader?

kls 17y ago

no left handedness does.