Managing Leadership^®

A physician once told me that the specialty he had entered was the elite of all medical fields – only the smartest doctors, he said, could get into it; the rest contented themselves with what was left. There are a lot of interesting things about this claim, but the one that initially attracted my attention was the presumption that any MD not in his specialty was not as smart as him.

Many of us make such assumptions about one field or another, or about people in top positions. We think they’re not only smart, but smarter than other people – smarter than those who have not attained their visible marks of success.

Do you think that’s true? Is it not possible, for instance, that someone vastly more intelligent than the greatest ever rocket scientist, if you will, is simply fascinated with, say, the study of insects? Maybe he or she became a postal carrier, or happily struggles to master the tympani. Perhaps our genius stayed home to care for the family, and has come to devote him or herself anonymously to the welfare and advancement of others.

Are you aware of people around you in your family, social circles, community, or at work who seem to be spectacularly capable or intelligent, albeit in what might appear to be unspectacular endeavors or roles? Do they seem embarrassed or unhappy? Do you or they doubt the veracity of your impressions of their abilities on the basis of their more or less ordinary circumstances?

How about the presumption that a degree from certain schools points inevitably to superior intelligence – does that sound right to you? Is there supposed to be some sort of mechanism that somehow causes all the smart people to go – or at least to want to go – to such schools? Are there not countless reasons why much sharper people – and great numbers of them, to boot – might not go to supposedly humbler institutions, or even not go to school at all?

Why do we make such assumptions? Why do we place such weight on the infallibility of such indicators? Would we not be wiser to seek out and benefit from the vast range of genius all around us? Might it not be better if we spent less time seeking means for expressing our own putative brilliance, and more in acknowledging, identifying, and sharing in that of these countless others?

Indeed, perhaps there is more moral in this story than merely the unlikely self-regard or unexpected distribution of intelligence. We’ll look more at that possibility in the future.

In the meanwhile, we return next to our current topic of the nature of leadership with a discussion of leadership development. Have a great weekend – see you on Monday!

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Today’s tip: In line with today’s subject, please see this profile in the current edition of The Economist, about a CEO who takes this view of his role: “You always have around you specialists who know much more than you,” he says. “So you ask them questions and you challenge them on their answers. And from time to time, you have to make decisions.” There is neither a presumption here that he has to be the source of expertise, nor that those who possess it do so infallibly. What he does do is the fundamental duty of the manager: when the time comes, make decisions.

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