"He is brilliant.” "She is incredibly intelligent." Those are words we would all like to hear about ourselves. Let's face it; we all want to be smart.Its normal to desire to be seen as an expert in your given field of study or work. Sometimes I think we put too much emphasis on IQ competency and not enough on EQ capacity. A senior executive was talking with me about developing leaders within his organization when he said: "Don't mistake brilliance for direction and purpose".
So many times we look for experts when what we really need are leaders.Leaders know how to gather experts and access knowledge. Experts know how to dispense knowledge about a certain subject. Both are important but only one can accomplish things greater than his or her abilities. I have witnessed countless "smart" experts who are not effective leaders outside of their own technical expertise. The results are many times destructive to their team members and even themselves. Many times, when we find all of our value in our technical or specific competency, we set ourselves up for a narcissistic leadership style that centers on ourselves.
The strongest and most effective leadersare those who surround themselves with others who are smarter in some area. In other words, these leadersrealize the importance of driving direction and purpose in an organization, team or even a home. The skill of leading a diverse group of experts to accomplish a unified vision results in high achieving teams and organizations.
Choose to not always have to be the smartest person in the roomand you will make a difference.
- Larry
