Leadership Traits - Intelligence

Extensive research has been done on leadership traits . Among the traits studied have been IQ, personality, and emotional intelligence.

The leadership trait, intelligence is associated via research with many social advantages:

• Employment, economic self-sufficiency, affluence and educational achievement
• There is a strong statistical link between intelligence and general job performance
• Past studies demonstrated that intelligence had the strongest correlation with leadership among traits investigated (intelligence, masculinity-femininity, adjustment, dominance, extroversion-introversion, and conservatism)
• Intelligence and creativity are different from one another, yet related
• People’s mental model of “a leader” tends to include intelligence

It is a leadership strenght when the leader's IQ is slightly higher than that leader's followers. When a leader's IQ is signficantly higher, both leader and follower may be frustrated with the perception that neither "gets it."

Leadership Tips

IQ is necessary but not suffienct to determine leadership capablity. IQ should one input to selecting high potential leaders.

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