4 ms·

Not from my experience.

by nerpderp83 9y ago

rocqua 9y ago
How so? I've heard what OP said often enough I'd call it folk knowledge. What part do you disagree with?
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  > That leadership piece is what's in demand; and IMO that requires strength in both areas. I'm not the person you asked but for me, the idea that leadership is more in demand than intelligence doesn't ring true (anecdotally, of course). In the course of my career, I've met more than enough capable leaders, but finding people who meet the bar for intelligence is much harder. At some level, this is probably due to the fact that you need far less leadership than you do intelligence: by definition, leaders are a fraction of the workforce, but intelligence is useful at pretty much every level in the org (for white-collar work). I guess I'm lucky enough that I've been in companies that were generally quite well-run; I'm sure the demand for leaders would seem higher in dysfunctional companies where competence in leadership isn't routinely achieved.
  - chrisco255 9y ago
    Yeah if great leaders are plentiful in your organization I would say that's an outlier in my experience. To be clear, there are often many decent managers in any stable organization...however, if we interpret "leader" to be something more, including the ability to drive change and execute, I think those types are few and far between.
  - ianbicking 9y ago
    In my experience leaders are seldom judged on being right, and that's the cognitive portion of their job. A leader may be organized, sociable, disciplined, but a leader also has to make choices. A leader in particular must make a choice if there's no consensus, and so there is not an agreement on the right course of action, and presumably there is no identifiable "right" choice. In fact, though, there is usually a right choice, it's just that no one knows for sure what it is. But as events transpire we learn about the effect of decisions (though we still lack the counterfactual), and often it becomes clear if a decision was right or not. I seldom see leaders judged based on the result of their cognitive decisions. I find there's a strong bias against even attempting to make that judgement. "In hindsight" is used to dismiss criticism: sure, you can say that in hindsight, but I had to make the decision at the time with the information I had. But very few outcomes are actually entirely surprising, we weigh information and risk and probabilities, and these can be improved. An example I remember with particular frustration was Hillary Clinton, repeatedly confirming her decision about the Iraq war given the information she knew at the time. There was lots of information available, she made particular choices about how to weigh the information and risk, and while within her decision framework at the time the choice may have seemed right, clearly her framework was wrong even given her own conclusions. (It's also hard because we expect leaders to always be right, and if they aren't then they shouldn't be leaders, which leaves no room for improvement.)
    - tboyd47 9y ago
      Culturally, we don't seem to consider information gathering and filtering to be a leadership skill. Leaders are just assumed to be the best informed people at any given moment and we don't look how much work they are doing to get that information. If a ruler of a country never steps down off the throne and walks through the marketplace to ask the people what they need, how else will he know? Information gathering is connected to humility and manners in my mind. In order to be well-informed you have to be able to interact with different kinds of people and that requires a lot of social maturity, which according to the researchers, is apparently a "non-cognitive" skill.
      - exelius 9y ago
        Information filtering is absolutely a leadership skill. It's the core component of managing, honestly. You don't want your boss to know all of the mistakes that people make, because it's your job as a manager to fix those. If there are structural or systemic problems, yes. But if one of your team members screwed up, you shouldn't be pointing fingers at your subordinates. As an engineering manager, it's your main job to be the crap filter between your executives and your engineers.
  - nerpderp83 9y ago
    Most leaders don't have intelligence. They have political acumen. Or, their intelligence is focused 98% on gaining positions of leadership, not the act itself.
  - frubar 9y ago
    I'd like to work where you work. My experience with management has been "barely hanging on" to "actively damaging the company" with a few "adequate" and 1 or 2 "inspiring" thrown in the mix.
  - exelius 9y ago
    I guess my point is that intelligent leadership is what's really in demand. :) And yes, I agree. In most white-collar jobs, intelligence is assumed. It's the non-cognitive skills (let's call it emotional intelligence) that are sorely missing.

Not from my experience.

rocqua 9y ago

How so? I've heard what OP said often enough I'd call it folk knowledge. What part do you disagree with?

wutbrodo 9y ago
> That leadership piece is what's in demand; and IMO that requires strength in both areas. I'm not the person you asked but for me, the idea that leadership is more in demand than intelligence doesn't ring true (anecdotally, of course). In the course of my career, I've met more than enough capable leaders, but finding people who meet the bar for intelligence is much harder. At some level, this is probably due to the fact that you need far less leadership than you do intelligence: by definition, leaders are a fraction of the workforce, but intelligence is useful at pretty much every level in the org (for white-collar work). I guess I'm lucky enough that I've been in companies that were generally quite well-run; I'm sure the demand for leaders would seem higher in dysfunctional companies where competence in leadership isn't routinely achieved.
- chrisco255 9y ago
  Yeah if great leaders are plentiful in your organization I would say that's an outlier in my experience. To be clear, there are often many decent managers in any stable organization...however, if we interpret "leader" to be something more, including the ability to drive change and execute, I think those types are few and far between.
- ianbicking 9y ago
  In my experience leaders are seldom judged on being right, and that's the cognitive portion of their job. A leader may be organized, sociable, disciplined, but a leader also has to make choices. A leader in particular must make a choice if there's no consensus, and so there is not an agreement on the right course of action, and presumably there is no identifiable "right" choice. In fact, though, there is usually a right choice, it's just that no one knows for sure what it is. But as events transpire we learn about the effect of decisions (though we still lack the counterfactual), and often it becomes clear if a decision was right or not. I seldom see leaders judged based on the result of their cognitive decisions. I find there's a strong bias against even attempting to make that judgement. "In hindsight" is used to dismiss criticism: sure, you can say that in hindsight, but I had to make the decision at the time with the information I had. But very few outcomes are actually entirely surprising, we weigh information and risk and probabilities, and these can be improved. An example I remember with particular frustration was Hillary Clinton, repeatedly confirming her decision about the Iraq war given the information she knew at the time. There was lots of information available, she made particular choices about how to weigh the information and risk, and while within her decision framework at the time the choice may have seemed right, clearly her framework was wrong even given her own conclusions. (It's also hard because we expect leaders to always be right, and if they aren't then they shouldn't be leaders, which leaves no room for improvement.)
  - tboyd47 9y ago
    Culturally, we don't seem to consider information gathering and filtering to be a leadership skill. Leaders are just assumed to be the best informed people at any given moment and we don't look how much work they are doing to get that information. If a ruler of a country never steps down off the throne and walks through the marketplace to ask the people what they need, how else will he know? Information gathering is connected to humility and manners in my mind. In order to be well-informed you have to be able to interact with different kinds of people and that requires a lot of social maturity, which according to the researchers, is apparently a "non-cognitive" skill.
    - exelius 9y ago
      Information filtering is absolutely a leadership skill. It's the core component of managing, honestly. You don't want your boss to know all of the mistakes that people make, because it's your job as a manager to fix those. If there are structural or systemic problems, yes. But if one of your team members screwed up, you shouldn't be pointing fingers at your subordinates. As an engineering manager, it's your main job to be the crap filter between your executives and your engineers.
- nerpderp83 9y ago
  Most leaders don't have intelligence. They have political acumen. Or, their intelligence is focused 98% on gaining positions of leadership, not the act itself.
- frubar 9y ago
  I'd like to work where you work. My experience with management has been "barely hanging on" to "actively damaging the company" with a few "adequate" and 1 or 2 "inspiring" thrown in the mix.
- exelius 9y ago
  I guess my point is that intelligent leadership is what's really in demand. :) And yes, I agree. In most white-collar jobs, intelligence is assumed. It's the non-cognitive skills (let's call it emotional intelligence) that are sorely missing.