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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 a

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.