a model for developing leadership expertise
TRANSCRIPT
Acknowledgments
• Collaborators: The PACE Center at Yale and external collaborators, especially at USMA West Point
• Funding agencies: Army Research Institute, Institute of Educational Sciences, National Science Foundation
Goal: To Develop Expert Leaders
Criitcal message: The ends to which leaders apply their knowledge and the thinking processes that act on it, matter!
Components of Leadership Expertise
• WICS• Wisdom*• Intelligence• Creativity• Synthesized
• *Focus of today’s presentation
Why WICS?
• You need CREATIVE skills to come up with ideas
• You need ANALYTICAL skills to decide whether ideas are good ideas
• You need PRACTICAL skills to make your ideas functional and to convince others of the value of your ideas
• You need WISDOM to balance the effects of ideas on yourself, others, and institutions in both the short and long terms
Key Creative Decisions
• Redefine problems• Analyze solutions• Sell solutions• Realize the limitations of
knowledge• Take sensible, principled risks• Overcome obstacles
Key Creative Decisions
• Attain self-efficacy• Be courageous• Maintain a perspective on
oneself• Tolerate ambiguity• Allow time for creativity• Defy the crowd
Successful Intelligence
• Ability to attain one’s goals in live, within one’s sociocultural context
• By capitalizing on strengths and correction or compensating for weaknesses
• By adapting to, shaping, and selecting environments
Successful Intelligence
• Through a synthesis of analytical, creative, and practical abilities
Properties ofPractical Intelligence
• Tacit knowledge: What you need to know that it not explicitly taught and that usually is not even verbalized
• The role of tacit knowledge• Measuring tacit knowledge• Developing tacit knowledge
Key Findings regardingPractical Intelligence
• Experience matters, but what really matters is how much one learns from it
• Not much related to IQ or g• Not much related to personality
or cognitive styles• Predicts managerial
performance
Key Findings regardingPractical Intelligence
• Experience matters, but what really matters is how much one learns from it
• Not much related to IQ or g• Not much related to personality
or cognitive styles
Key Findings regardingPractical Intelligence
• Predicts managerial performance singly and incrementally
• Differs somewhat for management versus leadership
• Can be developed
Why Smart Leaders can be so “Dumb”
• The “what me worry” fallacy• The egocentrism fallacy• The omniscience fallacy• The omnipotence fallacy• The invulnerability fallacy
Is Intelligence Really Enough for Leadership?
The Machado Question
The Answer: The Flynn Effect
Lessons from The Tragedy of the Commons
Why Intelligence is not EnoughLeaders can be:• Creatively intelligent (e.g., in
generating novel, strategic targets for terrorist attacks)
• Analytically intelligent (e.g., in assessing the advantages and disadvantages of those targets)
• Practically intelligent (e.g., in delivering the attacks to those targets)
without being wise!
Why Wisdom is Especially Important in Current TimesHumans have made enormous strides
in technology, including destructive technology, without corresponding advances in their wisdom with regard to the uses of this technology (and perhaps with regard to anything else either)
This mismatch between the development of technology and the lack of development of wisdom places the world at enormous risk!
Wisdom Means
• Knowing what you know• Knowing what you do not
know• Knowing what you can know
(at a given time and place)• Knowing what you cannot
know (at a given time and place)
Is Wisdom Universal?
Fundamental values (not necessarily beliefs) appear to be largely the same across the world’s great religions and ethical systems, for example, in their stressing, in relations with others:
1. Reciprocity (the Golden Rule)2. Sincerity3. Honesty4. Integrity5. Compassion
The Balance Theory of WisdomWisdom is1) The application of successful
intelligence2) Toward the attainment of a
common good3) Through a balance among
intrapersonal, interpersonal, and extrapersonal interests
The Balance Theory of Wisdom4) Over the short term, and long terms5) Through the mediation of values6) By acting so as to balance
adaptation to, shaping, and selection of environments
Successful Intelligence
Common GoodG O A L
Adaptation
Extrapersonal
SelectionShaping
Balance of Interests
Intrapersonal Interpersonal
Balance of responses to
environmental context VALUES
Wisdom as Balance
The Problem with Proverbs
1. They sometimes contradict each other (e.g., “Out of sight, out of mind” and “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”)
2. They sometimes are plain wrong (e.g., “Spare the rod, spoil the child”)
3. The lessons they teach are often a matter of interpretation (e.g., “All’s well that ends well”)
Conclusions
• WICS provides a useful model for leadership. It begins with wisdom. Without wisdom, there is no expert leadership. Wisdom can and should be developed.
I’m happy to hear from you!
• Robert J. Sternberg
• www.yale.edu/pace