Successful Executives Rely On Own Kind of Intelligence
Plan, Branch Out, & Adapt
INTELLIGENCE as measured by I.Q. tests appear to be related to success in school, but it seems to have surprisingly little to do with achievement in careers, according to a growing number of psychologists. Although the best executives almost always do at least moderately well on I.Q. tests, their ranking on these tests is simply not the factor that distinguishes those who advance from those who do not. Successful career people clearly do a lot of thinking on their way to the pinnacle and once they get there.
The hallmarks of cognitive complexity, according to Dr. Streufert, include the ability to plan strategically without being rigidly locked into one course of events; the capacity to acquire ample information for decision-making without being overwhelmed, and the ability to grasp relationships between rapidly changing events. Seeing problems in isolation from each other, and often rigidly holding to a single overriding goal, will be disastrous.
