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.

This is interesting to me because DD's gifted magnet makes a big deal of emphaszing "leadership." It strikes me as a bit odd. Just because you're very bright doesn't mean you're a leader.

I almost feel like they are trying to create some sort of weird sense of "noblesse oblige" in these kids.

I thought one of the points of being more intelligent than everyone else was that you were obligated to take on the heavy burden of leadership in appropriately managing the direction of humanity.

That being said, what if Wren's daughter aspires to be nothing and chooses to live at home watching pro-wrestling and eating cheesy-puffs?

Or retired as a coupon clipper? If she wants to be a coupon clipper, she only really needs financial assets, which means that the most important thing is to transfer assets to her, rather than prepare her for anything.

They may in fact be unapologetically grooming kids for Ivy League colleges, which are at least as much about hooking into the power elite as they are about getting a good education.

Here's a very interesting piece that speaks to this:
http://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/

The first several paragraphs are rather dull, "educated people don't know how to talk to the plumber" kind of stuff, so I recommend starting at the 12th paragraph ("The political implications don't stop there . . .")

"Leadership," just as much as ability, is exactly the point at some of these universities, and at the feeder schools that start the culling process.

I have a friend who is an astrophysicist at Columbia. Lovely woman but you haven't heard of her. But most of us have heard of Brian Green. Even when you watch the Fabric of the Cosmos, you see the ones that break ground, take risks, travel to deliver their ideas. Leadership doesn't necessary mean money or politics. It can be showing leadership in thought.

(BTW DD7 is doing astrophysics at amnh next semester)

Lucounu, you really have it out for Palin. There is the thought that she is gifted, just super lazy. All those colleges etc. Couldn't apply herself. I think she is just a universal oddity of success without applying yourself at all. I don't want my kid to be like that.

Lots of kids at the Ivy schools will feel funny if they don't make it into the U.S. Senate within a few years of graduating college. The grooming is not an unalloyed positive for many of them.

DeeDee

So you admit that you are ruling out "coupon clipper" as a profession for her.

You're right, she is gifted. My bad, or bag, as the case may be.

I never had an opinion, just commented on the comments. I have no idea what her IQ is.

I published the link because I thought it was interesting. And I do not think that high IQ negates leadership or vice versa. To make a broad sweep and say that CEOs and politicians generally have low IQs is silly. You can say that Romney is a fool because he says stupid things, but I doubt he is a fool.

Obama is truly brilliant yet made stupid decisions. It took him 3 years to get his game on. Maybe leadership skills isn't such a bad plan.

Hello everyone,

Per the board rules,

"Avoid discussions about politics and religion, unless they specifically pertain to gifted education. There are other online resources for these subjects." (http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/ubb/boardrules/v/1.html)

In other words, please only bring up politics when discussing gifted ed legislation or policy (with info on it here: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/StatePolicy.aspx - shameless plug).

I don't want to lock this thread, but please try to refrain from political discourse. As always, please send me a private message if you have any questions.

Thank you!
Mark

Here's an article today that unintentionally highlights some more of what your article discusses regarding the elite and their sense of entitlement: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/where-s-the-boss--trapped-in-a-meeting.html

The unacknowledged takeaways... CEOs report a 55-hour work week... poor them, right? 5 hours of that is "business lunch." For the ordinary worker, that's called "lunch," but the CEO takes it as a paid perk, a tax deduction, and alleged working hours which cannot be counted by the rest of the employees against the workday, no matter how many workers they eat lunch with, how often their lunch is interrupted by work concerns, or even how often their managers keep scheduling meetings with them over their normal lunch times. Another 20 hours is "travel, exercise, personal appointments, and other activities." In other words, "the things everyone else is expected to do outside of normal working hours."

This leaves these entitled beings only 30 actual working hours a week, consisting mostly of sitting in meetings where little of value is accomplished.

I don't know if I think DD's school (which does not draw from a particularly wealthy population as far as I can figure; those kids don't seem to choose to transfer to the school because they're already enrolled in the creme de la creme public or in privates)is grooming kids to be part of the Ivy League elite. I actually think they are emphasizing this leadership business to make the "gifted" part sound more palatable, somehow. It doesn't work, IMO.

Anyway. I read the article. I think the author's parents have a bit to answer for.


Yeah, that's not your college's fault. That's your parents' fault, and it's your fault, for having a very limited imagination.


I didn't go to an Ivy, but I did go to a prestigious small liberal arts school, as did my husband, as did many of my friends. Maybe it's a function of the people I chose to befriend, but on the whole, we are not locked into this limited mode of thinking. Few of us are wealthy, but most of us love what we do.

Mostly what that essay did for me was convince me that I don't want my kids to go to Yale.

I thought the political commentary was starting to sound a little trite, like the e-mails that are in circulation, which are funny, don't get me wrong...that's why I forwards them between different sides of the family just so I can see all the funny ones going around. (sad to say, I'll be teaching my kids Grammer soon).

I couldn't read the original article. I clicked on it a few times the last couple of days and it just said error 404, page not found. On topic itself, it lends itself to the support of redshirting. Lead by example would be getting your work done and advancing so that your work is at your equevelant level. Let their success be our inspiration (some FFA slogan). It seems like this "leadership" idea could be turned around to mean "cultivating a big fish in a little pond". (redshirting). The best case scenario, according to popular opinion, would be engaged students working hard together developing a sort of positive peer pressure. Those dynamics lend themselves to showing off a kind of group dynamic that they can use as a template to know what leadership is in future situations.

I'm going to blame the awkward wording of this post on the sick, teething baby that didn't let me sleep last night. Is mommy-brain a real thing?

Mm, my previous post seems to have been lost in the digital ether. I didn't mean to make political commentary, and am actually an independent voter (and FWIW like John McCain quite a bit in some aspects, though I didn't wind up voting for him). I just think politics is an excellent example of a pursuit where intelligence is trumped by leadership and charisma far too often.

I would never claim that "high IQ negates leadership", or "make a broad sweep and say that CEOs and politicians generally have low IQs". I'm merely remarking that they don't seem to me to generally have the highest IQs, and that sometimes their apparent intelligence is quite low. It's nothing more than an affirmation that yes, intelligence often takes a back seat in such occupations.

Here are the principles of leadership. I read them once a week.

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm

Anyone can take these principles and apply them to their own field and be successful.

A 21 year old nearly illiterate Marine Lance Corporal with a year under his belt leading a squad overseas can outlead a whole boatload of Yalies.

Leaders are made by hard work, they are not born nor created by any school, least of all by the Ivy colleges. The most dangerous "leader" is one filled with arrogance, entitlement, and fancy ideas, ie your average Ivy League grad.

Austin-

I liked that link, particularly this part:

Marines by nature are inquisitive. To promote efficiency and morale, a leader should inform the Marines in his unit of all happenings and give reasons why things are to be done. This, of course, is done when time and security permit. Informing your Marines of the situation makes them feel that they are a part of the team and not just a cog in a wheel. Informed Marines perform better and, if knowledgeable of the situation, can carry on without your personal supervision. The key to giving out information is to be sure that the Marines have enough information to do their job intelligently and to inspire their initiative, enthusiasm, loyalty, and convictions.

My husband was an army first sergeant and we had discussions about whether or not it is important to learn to blindly follow rules without asking why and never asking if they could do something differently if they think there might be a better way to do it. He said when he was a first sergeant he wanted his soldiers to know why they had to do things, that it important for the reasons mentioned above. These discussions all started with our public school's insistence that our kid should learn to color in the lines because they said to do it without explaining why it was important. My husband said that he always told his soldiers why when he was teaching them because it was very important. My husband was promoted very quickly because of his leadership ability and intelligence and it didn't matter that he came from a poor family and worked his way through high school. Maybe his strong motivation came from being poor. He made a higher score on tests than a lot of people who had a better education. I think he, like a lot of smart people, learned more on his own than at school anyway because he was highly motivated. His mother was motivated to make sure her kids developed a love of reading before she died. That was her legacy. Her youngest daughter was about 5 when she died and her life was not easy but she worked hard and became a college professor. She had to have been highly motivated to do that but then I guess she would have to have a high IQ also.

My husband sometimes had to deal with officers who were well educated and arrogant but the army looked at his record and promoted him based on that. They were more interested in what he could do than how much education he had.

My son is very motivated because he wants to make his dad proud and with his disabilities I think it is that motivation that will get him through more than his IQ although the high IQ will certainly help.

Thanks Lori.

My dad did very well in the Army for many of the same reasons.

I am constantly amazed at the lack of leadership I see around me and in many organizations. Most people have no training or mentoring and just flounder.

The other key trait other than leadership, is imagination to see how things can be improved.

I guess that the importance of leadership and related skills in the sciences has probably grown greatly in the last 100 years, but is still going to be regulated by the extent to which a person would need to lead a research team, engage in fundraising, etc. Motivation is always highly important, and so is creativity. The ideal industry or political leader would possess all of these traits plus high intelligence.

One bit of curriculum that is missing from a college degree program is leadership training, but the military expends quite a bit of emphasis on it.

In addition, the military is an awesome laboratory environment for someone wishing to learn about leadership, because it's a too-many-chiefs sort of situation, so not only do you get to learn about leadership, you also get to observe and experience a huge variety of leadership styles and methods.

Also, the military is really good at curing someone of a sense of entitlement... at least for enlisted folk.

And creating PTSD, which results in 100% service connected disability, and then they land in my office. That was earlier this week.

Also, the army results in blown off limbs, which then results in your wife divorcing you because you will not longer be able to achieve her dream of an "army career". One of my sister's pro-army friends (I grew up near the Army War College).

So, maybe you need to add an "in relative peacetime" to your statement. Once Afghanistan is finished, we will be back to that state again.

My point was that businesses and educators have something of value to learn from the military about leadership. I'm pretty sure businesses and educators have already learned "don't blow your people up."

It also goes without saying that not all military positions are on the front lines.

Yes, I think there is something to learn about leadership from the military.

You don't really get to vote on where you go when you enlist, so if you want to use enlistment as a leadership-development tool, you need to do it during a period like the one between the first Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq.

You can vote not to serve in the foxholes by enlisting in the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard.

And I can't speak for the other forces on how much control you can exercise once you're enlisted, but I can say I didn't end up in Hawaii on accident.

The military is the place to start when learning about leadership. The chain of command is used every day. And its up or out.



Not true. Yes, do get to choose your MOS or job, and many get to pick the unit they will go to. After reenlistment,almost all get to pick the schools and units they get posted to. There are some mandatories, like fleet service or overseas like Korea, etc.

And by being squared away, learning all the time, and volunteering for everything, you can get some pretty cool assignments even if you are posted to a pretty bad place.

PTSD is all around us. People get burned out in the civilian world as well. I have a number of people working for me who cannot handle the "front lines" so to speak.


I doubt if things will be "peaceful" for some time. We are entering a period more like the "thirty years war."

I thought the article would provoke some interesting conversation but I didn't expect a debate on military training...

I am not so in favor of promoting military training to DD for leadership skills. I hope there is a safer way.

Though military has been used for many people to pay for graduate school. I know some MDs that went that way. And it is a great way to learn skills like air traffic control and air plane mechanics.

Addendum: I know I have DD doing a lot of things. (feel the critique) Though at the same time, I want her to know you can stop and have fun. We are leaving for the DR on Sat for 8 days. Have eco-tourism hanging with crocodiles, swimming with sharks and dolphins. And half laying in the sun (that is me) while she hangs in the pool with other kids). And she asked for 2 ziplines. One in the south and one in the north. I am not the worst mother.

Wren, I would have loved to have a mother who cared as much as you do about providing opportunities.

And I just met with a Navy guy who was poisoned (to the point of permanent lung damage) by the (U.S. locals) who apparently did that for fun to the navy guys. Less than honorable discharge. Ouch.

I agree.

"Wren, I would have loved to have a mother who cared as much as you do about providing opportunities."

Me too! I think, Wren, it is very obvious (to me) how fiercely you love your daughter and how lucky she is to have you as her mum. I have different ideas about what success looks like, but I think you are incredibly creative and determined in creating experiences for your dd. I often read your posts and think 'wow, what a fantastic opportunity'.