A Model for Developing
Expert Leaders
Robert J. Sternberg
robert.sternberg@yale.edu
Acknowledgments
• Collaborators: The PACE Center at
Yale and external collaborators,
especially at USMA West Point
• Funding agencies: Army Research
Institute, Institute of Educational
Sciences, National Science
Foundation
Goal: To Develop
Expert Leaders
Criitcal message: The ends to
which leaders apply their
knowledge and the thinking
processes that act on it, matter!
Components of
Leadership Expertise
• WICS
• Wisdom*
• Intelligence
• Creativity
• Synthesized
• *Focus of today’s presentation
Why WICS?
• You need CREATIVE skills to come up
with ideas
• You need ANALYTICAL skills to decide
whether ideas are good ideas
• You need PRACTICAL skills to make
your ideas functional and to convince
others of the value of your ideas
• You need WISDOM to balance the
effects of ideas on yourself, others,
and institutions in both the short and
long terms
Key Creative Decisions
•
•
•
•
Redefine problems
Analyze solutions
Sell solutions
Realize the limitations of
knowledge
• Take sensible, principled risks
• Overcome obstacles
Key Creative Decisions
• Attain self-efficacy
• Be courageous
• Maintain a perspective on
oneself
• Tolerate ambiguity
• Allow time for creativity
• Defy the crowd
Successful Intelligence
• Ability to attain one’s goals in
live, within one’s sociocultural
context
• By capitalizing on strengths and
correction or compensating for
weaknesses
• By adapting to, shaping, and
selecting environments
Successful Intelligence
• Through a synthesis of
analytical, creative, and
practical abilities
Properties of
Practical Intelligence
• Tacit knowledge: What you need to
know that it not explicitly taught and
that usually is not even verbalized
• The role of tacit knowledge
• Measuring tacit knowledge
• Developing tacit knowledge
Key Findings regarding
Practical Intelligence
• Experience matters, but what
really matters is how much one
learns from it
• Not much related to IQ or g
• Not much related to personality
or cognitive styles
• Predicts managerial
performance
Key Findings regarding
Practical Intelligence
• Experience matters, but what
really matters is how much one
learns from it
• Not much related to IQ or g
• Not much related to personality
or cognitive styles
Key Findings regarding
Practical Intelligence
• Predicts managerial
performance singly and
incrementally
• Differs somewhat for
management versus leadership
• Can be developed
Why Smart Leaders can
be so “Dumb”
•
•
•
•
•
The
The
The
The
The
“what me worry” fallacy
egocentrism fallacy
omniscience fallacy
omnipotence fallacy
invulnerability fallacy
Is Intelligence Really
Enough for Leadership?
The Machado Question
The Answer: The Flynn Effect
Lessons from The Tragedy of the
Commons
Why Intelligence is not
Enough
Leaders can be:
• Creatively intelligent (e.g., in
generating novel, strategic targets for
terrorist attacks)
• Analytically intelligent (e.g., in
assessing the advantages and
disadvantages of those targets)
• Practically intelligent (e.g., in delivering
the attacks to those targets)
without being wise!
Why Wisdom is
Especially Important in
Current Times
Humans have made enormous strides
in technology, including destructive
technology, without corresponding
advances in their wisdom with
regard to the uses of this technology
(and perhaps with regard to anything
else either)
This mismatch between the
development of technology and the
lack of development of wisdom
places the world at enormous risk!
Wisdom Means
• Knowing what you know
• Knowing what you do not know
• Knowing what you can know
(at a given time and place)
• Knowing what you cannot
know (at a given time and
place)
Is Wisdom Universal?
Fundamental values (not necessarily
beliefs) appear to be largely the
same across the world’s great
religions and ethical systems, for
example, in their stressing, in
relations with others:
1. Reciprocity (the Golden Rule)
2. Sincerity
3. Honesty
4. Integrity
5. Compassion
The Balance Theory of
Wisdom
Wisdom is
1) The application of successful
intelligence
2) Toward the attainment of a
common good
3) Through a balance among
intrapersonal, interpersonal, and
extrapersonal interests
The Balance Theory of
Wisdom
4) Over the short term, and long
terms
5) Through the mediation of values
6) By acting so as to balance
adaptation to, shaping, and
selection of environments
Wisdom as Balance
Common
Good
GOAL
Adaptation
Balance of
responses to
environmental context
Shaping
Selection
Extrapersonal
Balance of Interests
Intrapersonal
Interpersona
l
Successful Intelligence
V
A
L
U
E
S
The Problem with Proverbs
1. They sometimes contradict each
other (e.g., “Out of sight, out of
mind” and “Absence makes the
heart grow fonder”)
2. They sometimes are plain wrong
(e.g., “Spare the rod, spoil the
child”)
3. The lessons they teach are often a
matter of interpretation (e.g., “All’s
well that ends well”)
Conclusions
• WICS provides a useful model
for leadership. It begins with
wisdom. Without wisdom, there
is no expert leadership.
Wisdom can and should be
developed.
I’m happy to hear
from you!
• Robert J. Sternberg
• Robert.sternberg@yale.edu
• www.yale.edu/pace