Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders • Hacker News Board

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#151

Post by killjoywashere » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 10:23 PM UTC

trevyn wrote: post #135

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…

Do you have examples or references for the types of charismatic speech and creative metaphors you used?

Charisma: if you like it, it's charisma, if you don't it's a sense of entitlement.

Metaphors: they're cooked up in the moment.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#152

Post by Raphmedia » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 10:23 PM UTC

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #27

>The study’s lead author, John Antonakis, a psychologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, suggests leaders should use their intelligence to generate creative metaphors that will persuade and inspire others—the way former U.S. President Barack Obama did. “I think the only way a smart person can signal their intelligence appropriately and still connect with the people,” Antonakis says, “is to speak in char…

A smart leader need more than technical/logical intelligence. They need emotional intelligence and charismatic/social intelligence. Who cares if you can repeat all the numbers of PI when you are not able to look a crowd in the eyes and pick up subtle social cues?

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#153

Post by robocat » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 10:26 PM UTC

louithethrid wrote: post #62

The problem with highly intelligent people is that they have a competition among themselves, and the most intelligent one coming out of those competitions is usually the one with the most measurable success (money) for the least amount of measurable input (work). Meaning, there is a herd effect at work here, where renomee is nothing and looking down among the less intelligent ones is everything. Thus its a race away…

The smartest people I know mostly have widely different goals, and mostly don't use money as a proxy for a measure of success (however I am not from the US...)

> competitions is usually the one with the most measurable success (money) for the least amount of measurable input (work)

I remember thinking this way during my education years, but out in the real world I have learnt otherwise.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#154

Post by maxxxxx » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 10:26 PM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #129

lobo_tuerto wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the same boat as you. I hate politics and back-stabbing environments. Why can't everybody just do what it's supposed to do in a work environment?

People who "hate politics" tend to create a lot of it. Being politically savvy/expedient is as much about knowing how to get along with people as it is getting what you want.

Since I made the original comment I just want to clarify that I made no judgement on political savvy. My point was that there are a lot dimensions to smartness so "smart leader" is a meaningless word by itself. Smart in what way?

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#155

Post by wolfgke » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 10:27 PM UTC

Raphmedia wrote: post #143

Zak wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to ask... Why did sailors try to drive through the closed base gate and test 440V circuits with their fingers?

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.

> I don't know. Why do we push files to production on a Friday evening?

Because we worked for the whole week on it and now want that other people can see it on their weekend. Since we are so proud of our work and trust in its quality, we are willing to do an extra shift on the weekend, should problems occur.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#156

Post by booleandilemma » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 10:27 PM UTC

mlevental wrote: post #71

rb808 wrote: post #40

Related: 'George W. Bush is smarter than you'. Elite leaders often make themselves look dumber than they really are. https://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/

this is a crock. it was a crock when it was written and it's still a crock now. the idea that someone can for 8 years in the spotlight disguise themselves so much so that appear wholly opposite is ludicrous. it takes months for professional actors to produce 90 minutes of performance - the guy was on camera for literally weeks. he's not "smarter than you" this kind of revisionist nonsense is politically motivated - p…

You don’t become president of the United States by accident.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#157

Post by endisukaj » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 10:28 PM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #72

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #27

>The study’s lead author, John Antonakis, a psychologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, suggests leaders should use their intelligence to generate creative metaphors that will persuade and inspire others—the way former U.S. President Barack Obama did. “I think the only way a smart person can signal their intelligence appropriately and still connect with the people,” Antonakis says, “is to speak in char…

It would be nice, before giving Barack Obama as an example of how to act, to present some evidence that he was an exception to this trend. For example, was his IQ significantly above 120? I'm not saying it was or wasn't, or that he was or wasn't perceived as an effective leader, but they give no reason why this data point should be an example to follow.

Are we still usig IQ as an argument un-ironically?

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#158

Post by quadcore » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 10:28 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #70

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…

1. it's not smart men cons are after, it's overconfidence. most truly "smart" people admit uncertainty and exhibit healthy skepticism. doctors, like many professionals, tend to be rewarded for exhibiting overconfidence. 2. people tend to call decisions poor because they result in perceived bad outcomes (from the perspective of the person making the judgment), without considering the range of all possible outcomes (th…

Also, smart-asses have money.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#159

Post by jpeloquin » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 10:28 PM UTC

Infernal wrote: post #26

zafka wrote: post #3

I would really like to see this study reproduced in an engineering environment. I wonder if the same trend holds, just a higher set point.

The article alluded to the point of diminishing IQ return varying depending on the industry - I think it would be interesting to also measure the IQ of the team behind that leader - I wouldn't be surprised to find the tipping point to be some multiplier of the median IQ of the team in question.

The underlying work, published in Journal of Applied Psychology, was explicitly meant to the test the idea that the tipping point is a multiplier of the team's IQ. From the abstract:

"Following Simonton's (1985) theory, we tested a specific model, indicating that the optimal IQ for perceived leadership will appear at about 1.2 standard deviations above the mean IQ of the group membership."

The researchers' findings are consistent with this theory in the group examined ("midlevel leaders", which I think means middle management); they say future work will test the theory with other groups who have different median IQs.

http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-14279-001

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#160

Post by mamon » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 10:29 PM UTC

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.

But that's the "issue" with democracy. There's a lot more of "average Joe's" than "really smart people" and the former gets the same number of votes (1) as the latter. So for the politician who wants to do something good for his country there are just two choices: pretend to be an idiot in order to win Average Joe's votes, or watch an actual idiot beating you to the office. I'm not exactly sure which one of those to cases we are now experiencing in the US ;)