Managing Leadership^®

One of the characteristics demanded of the über-leader by today’s leadership gurus is intelligence, a surpassing degree of mental power that leaves the rest of us gasping in wonder in its wake. But this, like many prescriptions of that movement, is hogwash.

Indeed, that nonsense begins with the suggestion that we need individual leaders at all. What we need is managers. And more specifically, as we have noted here before, please do save us from the geniuses.

Consider this quote from a must-read post by Richard Posner at The Becker-Posner Blog:

What is required at the top levels of government is not brilliance, but managerial skill, which is a different thing, and includes knowing when to defer to the superior knowledge of a more experienced but less mentally agile subordinate.”

The post is characterized by a peculiarly academic indifference to the emotional impact of some of its terminology and conclusions, but in this case that only adds more striking contrast to the features of the discussion. For example, while most of us are able to acknowledge that we have juniors with greater knowledge and experience, we are also able to admit that we are often surpassed by them in mental agility, as well.

But the point is that great intelligence - not just even, but especially, at prodigious levels - is not necessarily helpful, but rather more commonly is harmful to the performance of a “leader” and his or her organization. Posner notes, for example, that our most intelligent Presidents were typically not our greatest, and indeed were often among our worst.

On the contrary, our greatest Presidents were more likely to have been noted, to put it mildly, for their lack of extraordinary intellectual gifts. As we pointed out last week, greatness often comes precisely from the specific absence of what the modern leadership movement argues to be necessary to “leadership.”

There are always two things going on in discussions about the characteristics of great persons: The first is an effort to discover what made them what they were, and the second is the implication that we should try to emulate that in order to become great, ourselves. Note the transformation: we study those who were absorbed in their efforts to accomplish something, in our own self-absorbed efforts to leapfrog our way to greatness.

The solution is in the work, not in us. Cultivate management - not leadership - skills.

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