Plato argued philosophers should be kings, based on the idea that ruling was best done by those with knowledge. While having a philosophy professor running the show might not be the best idea, it makes sense to think intelligence is an important trait for good leaders. After all, good leadership requires making good decisions and intelligence can help here.
As might be expected, there is evidence for this view: there is a strong correlation between perceived leadership effectiveness and intelligence. Interestingly, there is positive correlation up until the leader’s IQ is 120. Above that and the leader is perceived as less effective. There are, of course, questions about IQ as a measure of intelligence, but let us set that aside for this discussion.
It is tempting to embrace the stereotype of the bumbling and ineffective intellectual and think that these higher IQ leaders are bad at leading because of their intelligence. To use a fictional example, consider the Star Trek episode “The Galileo 7.” In this episode, Spock and several crewmembers from the Enterprise crash on a planet and are beset by hostile natives. In the course of the episode, Spock uses his logic and intelligence to make decisions—but fails as a leader until he takes a desperate gamble to save everyone. The same, one might argue, can happen in the real world: a leader whose intelligence leads them astray when they try to lead. To use a real-world example, Jimmy Carter was often characterized in this manner. He was an intelligent (and compassionate) person, but many claimed he was a poor leader because he overthought things.
While this explanation has some appeal, especially in a political and social climate that is savagely anti-intellectual and anti-expert, it does not hold up to scrutiny. While there are intelligent leaders who are bad at leading, high IQ leaders are generally perceived as performing worse than their actual performance. As such, the problem is more one of perception of leadership than leadership.
It could be objected that this perception problem is a problem of leadership because a good leader would ensure that their leadership was properly perceived. On the one hand, this objection does have appeal because a key part of leadership is getting people to follow and shaping perceptions is important. On the other hand, it could be argued that the fault lies in the followers and the responsibility of learning how to perceive reality accurately lies with them.
In many ways, this challenge is like that faced by educators. A very intelligent teacher presenting difficult material to students who do not understand might be perceived as a bad teacher because of the students’ own ignorance. In contrast, a less intelligent teacher presenting simple material might be seen as a very good teacher (especially if the students get good grades). In the education scenario, one could blame the students as they should put in more effort to understand and in doing so would realize that the teacher knows their stuff. Of course, one could also blame the teacher: their job is not to show off their intelligence before uncaring students, but to teach them. As such, a good teacher must develop the skills needed to win the attention of students and the ability to guide them from ignorance to knowledge. In the history of education, the pendulum of perceived responsibility tends to swing between these two points depending on the dominant educational theory (and politics) of the day.
One approach is to take the middle-ground and argue that both intelligent leaders and their followers need to improve. That is, the followers should learn to assess leadership better and the high IQ leaders need to develop ways to connect to their followers and present themselves in a way that is not perceived as ineffective. This might, perhaps, involve dumbing things down. Or, more charitably, improving their explanations.
Another approach is to put more of a burden on leaders or on the followers, which harkens back to the education analogy—the tendency is towards the extremes rather than the middle ground. This leads to interesting questions about the responsibilities of leaders and followers. Since the leader is in the position of authority and more should be expected of them, the leader is responsible for ensuring that the followers perceive their leadership effectiveness accurately. But, going back to the teaching analogy, it is unfair to put all the burden on a teacher for making students learn and likewise for leaders. As such, the middle-ground approach is perhaps the fairest: high IQ leaders, like high IQ teachers, need to ensure that they are understood. But, followers, like students, must also assume responsibility to try to understand.
PS. actually I am reminded of a video I saw of a politician (certainly not an intelligent one) saying to another: ‘You have the charisma of a (‘wet rag’ or something like that, I can’t remember). As if it’s ‘charisma’ that gets someone far into politics? Obviously we all know about ‘charismatic’ leaders…..ironically, most of them were complete lunatics. I personally think that ‘charisma’ and intelligence are completely separate: you see someone ‘charismatic’ who is rarely intelligent, and might have someone who’s intelligent but not charismatic, but the latter are, I think, much rarer. Either way, I think charisma is in fact absolutely worthless, except in the field of entertainment, which is not the job of a leader. It is just what is also called ‘halo effect’. In fact, I believe it is not very intelligent people who are swayed by this….the intelligent ones will always try to see things and people beyond the surface, beyond the appearances. Sorry about the long messages.
I absolutely agree with Plato.
‘’While having a philosophy professor running the show might not be the best idea…’’. And why in fact people elect someone who is a populist, an ex estate investor, basically a common trader?
The answer, it seems to me, it’s quite clear: common people want to be lead by someone who is similar to them: another common person. Were it a philosophy professor, the crowd would probably feel even spite, for as Arthur Schopenhauer said: ‘It’s mediocre people saying ‘’You, are no better than the rest of us!’’.
I made this very stupid error myself, many years ago. I remember someone I knew mentioning some writings about Franz Kafka. Now, I had heard of Kafka, but I didn’t know anything about him or his writings. Guess what happened: I immediately felt insulted, because I knew the guy knew something I didn’t. It blew my ego away. And this is the reaction most people have, some for their entire lives.
So it’s a real problem: yes, philosophers only should be leaders, because philosophers see things from every perspective they can, and don’t forget to be reasonable, whereas the common, selfish and foolish, only from theirs, and admit of no exceptions.
In regard to the Star Trek episode, it is indeed a very bad story, for it supports the stereotype you mentioned about the intellectual. I believe it’s a trope I have heard very often, from the worst sources, such as ’self-help’ books: ‘don’t think too much’, ‘live in the now, don’t think about the past or the future’, etc etc. Obviously, these people would fare very poorly as philosophers. Living in the ’now’ is of course important, but learning from the past is too. The future, I agree, for it doesn’t exists, it’s merely an idea, an hypothesis.
You know as well as I that in the field of entertainment, such as cinema, it’s like Mac Donalds, mostly junk, with some very rare wholesome food here and there….what is seen as ‘cool’, is the ‘rule breaker’, or even the ignorant and stupid mobster. As long as they have ‘charisma’, they are great, no matter their low intelligence and their high degree of selfishness.
This very thing happens when people elect a leader: instead of intelligence, they look for ‘charisma’. They think that being a cocksure fool is far better than someone who is full of doubts (a conclusion I have drawn from something Bertrand Russell, who said: ’stupid people are cocksure; intelligent people are full of doubts’.
‘’…..This might, perhaps, involve dumbing things down…’’. A very interesting point, that I have experienced for myself: with people I knew, for example I had to do just that, dumbing things down. Otherwise an almost complete disconnect would results. This point was in my view, superbly explained by Schopenhauer (I mention him a lot because it’s the one philosopher whose writings I have read the most….I guess I have been too lazy to expand my ‘philosopher assortment’, but I am trying to fix that too. On a side note, I have discovered some impressive summaries of several philosophy treatises on Blinkist!, but I digress…). In short, it’s mostly about what people have in common: this is the reason why we’ll probably, sadly, never see a philosopher professor as a leader: there would probably be a disconnect there, namely in regard to intelligence. We see this in the very field of philosophy: I know of people (some famous in non-philosophical fields) who studied philosophy at university, yet you could see from miles away that they didn’t learn anything, for example they replied to a good argument with personal insults, or with a sarcastic response when they could have done a lot better than that. But the problem is, that’s the best they could do. And so, I believe that not only philosophers should be leaders, but also that very few can be in fact philosophers. I believe it’s a talent. Something has to be well in place before the whole journey starts.
Of course, I agree with all else you wrote. But maybe there’s hope….some intelligent people have been chosen as leaders before. Obviously, by smart people….