It has been suggested that executive ability, in the sense of ability to deal effectively with human relationships, is specialized; that it is not closely correlated with IQ. Very few quantitative studies of the matter have been undertaken, largely because of the lack of means to gauge objectively “ability to handle people.” It is true that there exist persons whose ability to deal effectively with human relationships has stood the test of life—executives in professional bodies, in business, and in government. These persons have not, however, been subjected to mental examination. Their time is so valuable that investigators perhaps hesitate to encroach upon it. Even if this could be done, we should nevertheless lack proper data for correlational study. We should also need to know how many persons of an equal degree of intelligence had failed to succeed as executives. This would be difficult to discover.
Terman has given us a few facts, from his studies of superior children, which tend to indicate the relation between leadership and intelligence, in childhood. According to teachers’ judgments of leadership, children of over 120 IQ are much oftener leaders than children of less intelligence are, and they are usually well liked by other children, even when not designated as leaders. Very few children over 120 IQ are judged by teachers to be “unpopular.”
From observations of the frequency with which children of high IQ are leaders of other children, the present writer suspects that there is an optimum range of IQ, within which popular leadership is extremely frequent, but above which it is very improbable. The optimum range for leadership appears to fall between 110 and 130, when the total group has a median IQ of 100. Children of IQ over 160 seem to have little chance of leading their fellow children, when the median IQ of the group is 100. Children of IQ over 180 have almost no chance, in the observations of the present writer, to be popular leaders. Of the four New York children, previously mentioned in other chapters, measuring over 180 IQ (Stanford-Binet), only one is an organizer of fellow children, being designated by her teachers as “the most popular child in the school.” This child functions as leader of a group of highly selected children, with a median IQ of near 120. In a group of unselected children she probably could not achieve leadership, although highly endowed with physical and temperamental traits which favor leadership.
Why should too much intelligence militate against the achievement of popular leadership? It is clear that in order to organize and lead others, the individual must comprehend and share the interests of those led, and must in turn be understood by them. He must not consider their pursuits to be fatuous and without substance. They must not regard his interests as eccentric and unfathomable. Also, he must not experience too keenly the impact of the conflicting conations of those about him. To perceive and to experience too sharply the disappointments, misdeeds, punishments, and aspirations of others tend to disqualify for executive leadership.
The child of IQ over 160 tends to fall above the optimum range for leadership, for all of these reasons, in groups of unselected children. He is not interested in mumble-the-peg. They are not interested in the solar system. His interests are those of persons far beyond his age and size. But they will not accept his leadership because he does not “look like” a fitting captain for them. Thus only in very highly selected groups can such a child achieve leadership, that is, in groups which approximate his own IQ.
Too much intelligence thus tends to disqualify for executive leadership. The most intelligent persons born will usually be found leading only highly selected groups. Too little intelligence also undoubtedly tends to disqualify. It will be a nice problem to determine experimentally just what may be the optimum range of IQ for leadership of typical persons. Correlation is, of course, reduced by the various influences which we have been discussing. “Social intelligence” is in all probability not a specialized capacity, but merely an optimum section of the general intelligence curve (determined by ratio to the median intelligence of the led), combined with certain amounts of physical and temperamental traits.
These temperamental and physical traits are extremely important. The flighty, the unenthusiastic, the shy, the overbearing, the ungenerous, the irritable are not well fitted to organize and lead, even when their intelligence is optimum. Likewise, the small, the commonplace in coloring, the undistinguished in features, the ill-kempt, the shrill of voice, are handicapped by their physical characteristics. The executive leader is he who combines optimum intelligence with enthusiasm, generosity, cheerfulness, and other favorable temperamental traits in the optimum degree, and who is large, forceful in manner and voice, and distinguished in contour and coloring. Facility in handling people and getting their allegiance, is due, therefore, to total personality, mental and physical, of which intellect is but one determinant. Correlations between executive ability and general intelligence will thus be greatly reduced from unity, because temperament and physique are far from perfectly correlated with general intelligence.
REFERENCES
Beeley, A. L.—An Experimental Study of Left-Handedness; University of Chicago Press, 1918.
Downey, J. E.—“On the Reading and Writing of Mirror Script”; Psychological Review, 1914.