News

How Important Is "Executive Intelligence" for Leaders?

Leadership talent is enjoying a perceived "seller’s market," says Jim Heskett. As we select and train future leaders for all levels of our organizations, how much effort do we really spend assessing executive intelligence as opposed to personality and style? What do YOU think? Key concepts include:

* According to Justin Menkes, executive intelligence is the ability to digest, often with the help of others, large amounts of information in order to form important decisions.

* Menkes says, "Personality is not a differentiator of star talent. It is an individual’s facility for clear thinking or intelligence that largely determines their leadership success."

* What do you think is the relative importance of executive intelligence, style, and personality in effective leaders?

The impact of one individual on the performance of an organization has long been debated, and the debate has focused most recently on the controversy over compensation for CEOs. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton cite studies that maintain that no more than 10 percent of the performance of an organization can be attributed to its leader as opposed to other forces. Some might argue that that’s a lot. There is also debate about the most important traits of leadership. Some recent studies continue to examine the personality and style attributes of effective leaders. Others are giving more emphasis to certain forms of intelligence.

Author: James L. Heskett

Full Story: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5449.html

Posted in:

Sorry, we couldn't find any posts. Please try a different search.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.