Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders - Scientific American https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-dislike-really-sm...

Those with an IQ above 120 are perceived as less effective, regardless of actual
performance

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Intelligence makes for better leaders—from undergraduates to

executives to presidents—according to multiple studies. It certainly
makes sense that handling a market shift or legislative logjam
requires cognitive oomph. But new research on leadership suggests
that, at a certain point, having a higher IQ stops helping and starts
hurting.

Although previous research has shown that groups with smarter

leaders perform better by objective measures, some studies have
hinted that followers might subjectively view leaders with
stratospheric intellect as less effective. Decades ago Dean Simonton,
a psychologist the University of California, Davis, proposed that
brilliant leaders’ words may simply go over people’s heads, their
solutions could be more complicated to implement and followers
might find it harder to relate to them. Now Simonton and two
colleagues have finally tested that idea, publishing their results in
the July 2017 issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology.

The researchers looked at 379 male and female business leaders in

30 countries, across fields that included banking, retail and
technology. The managers took IQ tests (an imperfect but robust

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predictor of performance in many areas), and each was rated on

leadership style and effectiveness by an average of eight co-workers.
IQ positively correlated with ratings of leader effectiveness, strategy
formation, vision and several other characteristics—up to a point.
The ratings peaked at an IQ of around 120, which is higher than
roughly 80 percent of office workers. Beyond that, the ratings
declined. The researchers suggest the “ideal” IQ could be higher or
lower in various fields, depending on whether technical versus social
skills are more valued in a given work culture.

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“It’s an interesting and thoughtful paper,” says Paul Sackett, a

management professor at University of Minnesota, who was not
involved in the research. “To me, the right interpretation of the work
would be that it highlights a need to understand what high-IQ
leaders do that leads to lower perceptions by followers,” he says.
“The wrong interpretation would be, ‘Don’t hire high-IQ leaders.’ ”

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,”

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Antonakis says, “is to speak in charismatic ways.”

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