The Bright Boss
It pays to be bright! Intelligence is linked to job performance. Reviews have shown that IQ is also linked to employment record, economic self-sufficiency, affluence, educational achievement as well as marital stability and lawful behaviour.
When people are asked what characteristics leaders should have, they always say (amongst other things like integrity) ‘Intelligence’ or synonyms such as ‘understanding complex issues’.
A recent review of the research published in the 2004 Journal of Applied Psychology set out to test various propositions. These included: intelligent people emerge as leaders earlier and more often; intelligence causes a leader to appear leader-like; intelligence is related to leadership better when the leader is not stressed; participative rather than directive leaders are seen as less intelligent.
Results show what one might well suspect. Intelligence is modestly but significantly and positively related to leadership – that is, people prefer bight individuals as leaders. But the more intelligence the leader the more effective is the group on both objective and subjective measures.
Why is this the case? Probably because leadership is about making decision; collecting, evaluating and weighing up options; tumbling numbers, etc. Bright people see patterns, connections and trends faster than less bright people.
Bright people also learn faster and more efficiently. In this very fast changing world speed of learning must count for a great deal. And with intelligence probably comes confidence: confidence in one’s abilities. Confidence in a leader is not just attractive it is essential.
Leaders have two related types of intelligence – the former leads to the latter. Psychologists distinguish between fluid intelligence (the native wit or intelligence to solve new, unfamiliar problems) and crystallized intelligence, which is accumulated general knowledge. Both are important. The former dictates the ability to navigate new computer programs; the latter to do crosswords.
Brighter people tend to be better at all tasks. The ‘multiple intelligence’ idea just does not stack up in the empirical literature. Brighter people are good with words and numbers. Brighter people tend to know more.
Being bright is also sexy. Women often use GSOH as a code to mean both intellectually and emotionally bright.
But is was most interesting that intelligence was more related to leadership when people were not under stress. The question is who, when, why and how do people, especially leaders, suffer from stress?
We know that personality and intelligence are not very closely related. Therefore stress proneness (or neuroticism if one dare use the old word) is not associated with big or little intellects. There are bright and dim neurotics. But what the studies do show is that you need to be stable because stress can undo the benefit of your intelligence.
It is of little us being bright if you are anxious, prone to depression or hypochondriacal. You need to be resilient and hardy and bright to be a good leader.
And there is one other finding of interest. The leadership-intelligence link showed up only under directive leaders. May be this is pretty obvious – the power, indeed purpose, of a non-directive leader is such that they have relatively little influence.
It does not matter therefore in very democratic non-directive situations how bright the leader is. But where they are making regular, relevant, salient day-to-day decisions, it sure counts.
However, it may be less useful, even dysfunctional, if a leader’s intelligence substantially exceeds that of the group. The Leader may then become easily misunderstood or deeply threatening.
To many, except perhaps the naïve, politically correct, or social equality fans leaders do better if they are bright. Bright people are seen as more leaderlike, get voted more often as leaders and they do a better job once elected. But only if they are stable and directive.
Being bright is not enough. Sure we need emotional intelligence (social skills) and a balanced temperament. But it is difficult to compensate for not being bright enough. The hard-working, non-delegating, slow-to-click managers never quite make it to the top.
