I have never had the slightest idea what it means to "know who you are."
I have absolutely no idea who I am.
What does this even mean?
Self-awareness means a critical assessment of your strengths, weaknesses, personality, and affects on other people.
It's a rare trait among homo sapiens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiorityYes.
I'm not sure that I call this "gifted" in the way that we usually mean it here.
I
do think that the traits are distinct, however. Being charismatic is a part of "leadership" skill, and it goes along with "social" giftedness, for lack of a better term.
But that is very far from being
intellectually gifted. I also believe it to be a far cry from true leadership skill/gifts, as well. If one were to represent this as Venn diagram of differing skills or areas of competence/excellence, there might well be three or four different spheres of potential overlap (and yes, a regular Cartesian coordinate system might soon break under the strain of this, I suppose);
a) intellect
b) social awareness/empathy skills
c) charisma (this one is very hard to define, but everyone seems to know it when they see it-- it's the cult of personality, effectively)
d) common sense/courage/ethicism (this would be a component of leadership, certainly)
e) organizational/strategic skills
There are others, of course. I'm not really referencing anything here since this is simply my own hypothesis of how this all works together to produce seemingly savant talent in "leadership" on the one hand, versus baffling celebrity in instances where the object of it is neither intelligent nor particularly ethical/talented at anything.
My point is that what one might reasonably term an extraordinary "leader" (as opposed to managers) is someone who needs to have well-above-average traits in ALL of those areas. People who are good "managers" tend to be missing at least the charisma portion, and often the ethical and intellectual ones, too. Oh, they may be fairly cunning or have an excellent sense of self-preservation, well implemented thanks to extraordinary empathy/social skills... but there is a dark side of that, obviously. It's called being a master of manipulation.
I think it's clear that politicians tend to be of one stripe or the other these days.
So what to do with a child that seems to have the complete
package of those traits?
Well,
assuming that the child is also an extrovert by nature (and many of them are NOT), providing opportunities to act in leadership roles seems to me to be the best way of developing that packet of skills in concert with one another.
Scouting, faith communities, 4-H, sports, and clubs seem to offer some of the best chances to do that. We've also used community service and entrepreneurship, since those are perhaps better suited to kids who are not seeking the spotlight.
Does any of that help?
