Four Bad Habits of Super-Smart Leaders | leadersHum

Some leaders are too clever for their own good

While we often consider the blessings that accompany a high?IQ, we seldom think of the challenges that come with extreme intelligence. Yet there are many. In my role as an executive coach, I have had the opportunity to work with more than 150 major chief executives.

What is Super Smart?

While almost all chief executives would be considered ‘smart’, I would classify some as ‘super-smart’. While I don’t have a precise definition of super-smart, I will give the term a very personal perspective. At the risk appearing immodest, I would consider myself to be ‘smart’. I have a Ph.D. from UCLA, my Scholastic Assessment Test and Graduate Management Admission Test scores were exceptionally high, I have published 35 books and three New York Times bestsellers and I was recently ranked as the number one leadership thinker in the world. I consider most of the leaders that I am discussing in the article to be a lot smarter than I am.

1. Proving how smart we are

For ten years, I had the privilege of being on the board of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation. This gave me the opportunity to spend more than 50 days with the man who is – to my mind – the greatest management thinker who has ever lived. I would definitely put Drucker in the ‘super-smart’ as well as ‘super-wise’ category.

2. Proving how right we are

One night, I had dinner with a top, four-star general from the US Army. We were surrounded by the other two- to four-star generals. Each of these men and women had graduate degrees and were chosen to be two- to four-star generals over thousands of competitors. He asked me an interesting question...

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