A Model for Developing Expert Leaders Robert J. Sternberg robert.sternberg@yale.edu.

A Model for Developing Expert Leaders

Robert J. Sternbergrobert.sternberg@yale.edu

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

• Robert.sternberg@yale.edu

• www.yale.edu/pace