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Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#211

Post by emmett »

Correlation is not causation! This article says, very high IQ is anti-correlated with perception of effectiveness.

That might be because having a high IQ causes people to perceive you as less effective.

It also might be because having really high IQ makes you more likely to be promoted, and is independent of other traits (like charisma or conscientiousness) which impact perception of effectiveness and therefore the population of people promoted without really high IQ tends to score higher on those other traits on average. Selection bias, in other words.

Based on the evidence presented, we just don’t know. Everyone arguing over why very high IQ “causes” the effect we are seeing might just be making stuff up, because we don’t know if there is a causal relationship at all.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#212

Post by scruple »

tehlike wrote: post #205
Raphmedia wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. Why do we push files to production on a Friday evening? Why do we snipe hot-fixes into production via FTP? Because we are all crazy & lazy bums, I would guess.

if you have the monitoring in place, and you have done proper canarying, friday evenings are not terrible

Of course. You're more than welcome to risk your own weekend over trivialities. The rest of us only ask that you please keep us out of your plans.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#213

Post by [deleted] »

Jyaif wrote: post #161
tormeh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think you could become president of the US if you just wanted to? Probably not. Trump is smart. I would be in literal, not figurative, disbelief if any president in the history of modern US weren't. The competition for that position is very sharp and only the best make it. There are many problems with Trump, but IQ isn't one of them. Hitler wasn't dumb either. Being a good demagogue is hard. The strategy and s…

> but dumb he ain't He puts himself in trouble all the time via tweets. That's pretty dumb in my book. > Underestimating the guy is unwise I agree with that. Underestimating someone with as little honor and ethics as Trump is dangerous.

[deleted]

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#214

Post by wfo »

goatlover wrote: post #113
insickness wrote: post #53

Immediately when I saw the title I assumed this had something to do with Trump. Both Bush II and Trump have been chided as being stupid. Yet their seemingly stupid demeanor is part of what attracts people. When people come across as super intelligent they can also come across as fake, particularly if there is already an inherent lack of trust in a domain like politics. When Trump tweets, his lack of diplomacy and unp…

And that's kind of scary. I don't want some average Joe I can relate to being the most powerful person in the world. I want someone smarter than me with a lot of solid political experience who knows how to navigate issues while being pragmatic enough to get stuff done. Being president of the US isn't like being a plumber.

If you believe this you will always get a technocrat with a great resume who has spent years enforcing the status quo, and, once elected, will do nothing to change it. If you want anything to be better you need to move away from gatekeeping "qualifications" because they are always bestowed upon proponents of business as usual by proponents of business as usual. What does "smart" mean? They went to Harvard and are therefore best buddies with the ultrawealthy and elites of society? The pundit class says they're smart? Rarely, once in 200 years, you'll get lucky with this approach and land on a class traitor and hero like FDR, but you're actively selecting away from that on purpose.

For a leader, you want a strong vision for the future, passion, a very strong will, charisma. It's ridiculous that people obsess about "intelligence" or "qualifications" -- Obama was brilliant and supremely qualified, how did that work out for us? We picked a constitutional law scholar who continued and made permanent all the constitutional violations of the Bush admin. Friends with the very intelligent economic experts on Wall Street and able to recognize their expertise, he let them run his cabinet and bail themselves out and let them pillage our country's economy.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#215

Post by [deleted] »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #200
WalterBright wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And the Reserve System, established in response to monetary instability, had the power to exercise deliberate control over the stock of money and so could take advantage of this possibility to promote monetary stability. That conjecture is not in accord with what actually happened. As is clear to the naked eye in Chart 1, the stock of money shows larger fluctuations after 1914 than before 1914 and this is true even…

The idea that "the stock of money" is a real, objective thing is rank insanity. The idea that this "stock of money" should magically be constant makes even less sense. There is no stock of money. There are only political decisions, assorted client and patron relationships, and national and international conflicts among interest groups that define social goals and resource distribution. Money is political power counte…

[deleted]

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#216

Post by bsder »

WalterBright wrote: post #16

There could be something else at work here. My father told me that con men preferred to go after smart people, like doctors. The reason is that smart people thought they were too smart to get conned, and hence were more gullible. He was also an economist, and told me that there wasn't an economist born who could stand the idea that the economy would run better (i.e. free market) without their "help". And I've noticed…

> My father told me that con men preferred to go after smart people, like doctors.

If there is one thing that I'm happy about with Ben Carson, it's that he proved that doctors are not generally smart.

They are highly practiced and highly skilled--like a professional athlete. "Smart", however, is only in their narrow field.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#217

Post by chunsj »

Here, smart means intellectual quality and their subject on leadership is private profit making. Why the rest of us should like those smart (highly intellectual, however their interest lies in their own profit) leader?

I'd like to see the study on the subject of public/social interest and I think that the result will be different.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#218

Post by elihu »

It's possible that people have an innate tendency to be resentful of leaders who are smarter than them, but there may be other explanations.

Perhaps high IQ test results correlate with some negative trait that wasn't captured.

Perhaps it's unusually difficult for some reason to simultaneously be successful in business, well liked by employees, and really smart.

Perhaps the population of business leaders contains an abnormally high proportion of highly intelligent sociopaths.

Perhaps high IQ correlates with wealth, and employees tend to be resentful of business leaders who earn, say, 100x or 1000x what they earn.

Perhaps on average high IQ leaders were more likely to have goals that contradicted the goals of the workers (e.g. maximize profit at all costs vs. make this a great place to work).

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#219

Post by baybal2 »

Hasz wrote: post #145
tormeh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think you could become president of the US if you just wanted to? Probably not. Trump is smart. I would be in literal, not figurative, disbelief if any president in the history of modern US weren't. The competition for that position is very sharp and only the best make it. There are many problems with Trump, but IQ isn't one of them. Hitler wasn't dumb either. Being a good demagogue is hard. The strategy and s…

Some of Trump's advisers are not to be underestimated. Their brilliance is in using Trump -- who has off the charts emotional intelligence -- as a president. They frame the issues, he taunts and captivates the press. I would point to the incredible power struggle in the white house as a product of the undue behind-the-scenes influence.

>Some of Trump's advisers are not to be underestimated. Their brilliance is in using Trump -- who has off the charts emotional intelligence -- as a president. They frame the issues, he taunts and captivates the press.

I like that you are one of the few people who seem to pick that up. The setup is almost the same for Russian political establishment, and as you see it worked with devastating efficiency.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#220

Post by kilroy123 »

Balgair wrote: post #178
killjoywashere wrote: post #87

Personal anecdote, but I wonder if my experience as a junior officer in the Navy helped with this. The last comments in the piece are that intelligent leaders should 1) seek creative metaphors and 2) speak charismatically. Coming to the fleet from a bachelor's in physics, I knew I was reasonably intelligent, but also that there were some people much smarter than me (at least my battered ego assured me of that). So, w…

BTW love the username : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here

Me too. :)
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