Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion stronger motivation trumped higher IQ

I was just looking up SSAT, since it is a middle school admission test, and they had some article links. I thought this was interesting.

http://www.educationnews.org/parenting/harvard-study-suggests-ways-to-develop-leadership-skills/

From the article:

'A new study that aims to “plot a pathway from childhood experiences to adult leadership” which takes into account factors like the parental influence, motivational drive, intelligence, social skills and personality traits, has claimed to have identified the key characteristics of a child most likely to become a leader in adult life.

The research, which highlights behaviors like embracing novel experiences and supporting peers, may also help educators encourage leadership once they know what to look for and support, writes Laura Pappano at Harvard Education Letter.

The research was even able to identify characteristics in children as young as two years old.

As Allen Gottfried, director of the Fullerton Longitudinal Study, says – how a child initially responds to a novel situation involving new foods, people or situations is important.

“Some hold off, some withdraw, some engage,” he said.

Those who engage, “tend to become more extroverted, socially engaging and become everyday leaders.”'



The article seems to tout extroversion, but according to my reading, introversion/extroversion is largely innate and not something one should try to alter (except in extreme cases). Both introverts and extroverts have their strengths, as discussed by Katharine Beals' site http://katharinebeals.com/ and book.

You left out the part about in winning leadership roles. I think that motivation obviously plays a big role in giftedness and development of intellectual ability, but leadership achievement is not the same as intellectual ability. Look at Sarah Palin.

I think leadership is also demonstated in Jobs, Gates. I thought that is part of the document. Willing to take risks.

As for Sarah Palin, I am not an admirer, but she convinced John McCain to choose her. A man who could have been president, making all kinds of decisions. And this was one. The girl has skills.

Wren, as usual, you are showing a focus on worldly success and leadership-- which is fine, but still doesn't turn worldly success or leadership into intelligence or intellectual achievement. What can we take away from the article that applies to a discussion of giftedness? That motivation is important to achievement in general, but certainly not that it "trumps" intelligence in terms of intellectual potential.

You might enjoy reading about Joseph Renzulli's three ring model of giftedness.

Congratulations to Harvard in discovering what's wrong with today's leaders. This survey says our leaders are not too smart, and have a tendency to self-entitlement and recklessness. Now we need to ask them why they're saying we need to do it more, instead of fixing the problem.

It's always so easy to look like a leader when you make decisions while blinded to their consequences and implications. Nuance does not translate well into a 5-second soundbite on the evening news.

"That's not enough, madam, we need a majority." Adlai Stevenson's response to a woman who told him he had the vote of "every thinking American"

I do not mean to imply that all elected officials are stupid, not by a long shot. Just that the qualities that are often required to win much more than a school board or small city council race these days are disproportionately absent in the gifted community- ie, extroversion and people pleasing desires or skills.

And as one of the commenters noted at the bottom of that article, there are different kinds of leadership. Sometimes what adults view as leadership in children is really just bossiness.

I think this article more aptly describes personality differences rather than intellectual ones.

bwahaha! Thank you for that!

My goal, as a parent, is to offer my kid options when she gets older. If she wants to be a fry cook, she can do that. But if she wants to be an astronaut, or president, I want to give her the options to do that.

If I make sure the doors at the top are open to her, all the doors down will definitely be. What is wrong with that?

Wren, nothing at all. I just wasn't sure of the relevance (getting a good job or making money in general definitely doesn't require profound or any giftedness), and I guess that I jumped to the conclusion that you meant that strong motivation trumps intelligence in general. If you were just referring to worldly success and attaining leadership positions as discussed in the article, then I guess I misunderstood due to the context here. I might have reacted similarly to "P90X workouts trump IQ", with a link to an article on fitness training.

I guess I never really assumed that high intelligence would be highly correlated with such things as achieving leadership roles on sports teams. Being a dunce probably doesn't help, of course. I definitely would never assume that a CEO or politician was very highly intelligent, and that intelligence was the prime factor in their success. With a CEO, I would expect to see a gentle rise in an IQ floor with the increasing size of company, perhaps with increased requirements in certain industries, and with some downward exceptions for socially adept academic dunces. For politicians, I really don't see how high intellectual ability is all that necessary either. Sarah Palin seems about as dim as they come, though I suppose she's got a pretty face and her stance appeals to a certain demographic; I would guess that she has helped to define the IQ floor for national candidates, with her fall from grace directly based on her apparent stupidity.

One area where we might differ is on the definition of giftedness. I take it to mean high intelligence, whereas I've seen broad definitions including leadership ability and tons of other things. I don't think the type of extroversion and motivation discussed in the article helps much as a mathematician, but it might well help a "gifted" leader.

Many brilliant people never become wealthy, and the most wealthy or powerful are not usually the most brilliant. This isn't news to me. Now, if your daughter wants to become an astrophysicist, for example, I'd say that motivation and intelligence are both key, but not so much extroversion.