A trait I've noticed when working with or arguing with the products of elite universities is the incessant ability to respond to most challenges in the form of a blank stare. Harvard grads in particular, but I've noticed it in some military officers as well.
They won't get riled up, they won't back down, they won't...well...do anything in particular.
While being incredibly infuriating, it also makes them nearly impossible to read or assess. Are they smart? Are they dolts? No idea!
This enigma-like quality can get one very far in certain contexts. The ability to operate in elite positions, without becoming ruffled is a tremendously valuable skill.
The downside of course is that if things really do go pear shaped, the normal response is to show some kind of stress reaction and hopefully buckle down and get to work. Not acting like there is anything in particular going on just makes those around you wonder if the ol' gears are actually turning at all. Are they out of touch? Do they care? It can be tremendously demotivating to those around.
A company I worked for early in my carerr had to let two people with this trait go (both top-tier uni graduates) because the management didn't think they were taking a then current crisis seriously enough. We came to find that with both of them, they were effectively doing no work at all as there was almost no extra work that came out of their leaving.
When asked why they were kept around for so many years, promoted etc., management simply responded that they seemed well poised, like they knew what was going on, attended tons of meetings, sent out lots of email...so it looked like they were burning furnaces of activity.
When the crisis struck, they kept plodding along this track, scheduling meetings, refusing to let them run long, sending out dozens of emails a day, long after the rest of the team had changed behavior patterns to deal with the issue. It became such a nuisance, especially the content free, but tightly scheduled meetings, that they were finally put under higher scrutiny.
It's a office-space-esque/dilbert-esque lesson I've kept with me through my career and have run into this trait dozens of times.
I've personally found it so infuriating a trait to work with that I'm loath to hire people from certain majors in certain universities under the assumption there is some kind of communications coursework that teaches people to respond with this blank stare.
I've coined the term "the management stare" for this phenomenon.
On the other hand, the people who I've found to be top performers were consistently the dynamic, emotive people in an organization. They responded rapidly and naturally to changing conditions, showed outward emotions and got really emotionally involved in conversations, meetings and tasks. They brought an energy to the company that drove the rest of their peers along with them.