Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Critical Thinking

Justin Menkes in his book EXECUTIVE INTELLIGENCE opined the importance of critical thinking for corporate leaders. A quote from the book;"...some individuals can understand and navigate complex interpersonal situations but are hopeless when it comes to analyzing a new strategic intiative. Others might have tremendous analytic skills, but when it comes to dealing with other people, they do blundering things at inopportunate moments. Still others are simply blind to their own shortcomings and unable to correct for their own missteps." Based from the hypothesis that a leader have to have the exact mix with regards to; task, people, oneself, Menkes argued that a leader must master all three aspects of leadership to be considered a star leader.

I am just wondering why a CEO should have to master all three when a process could be followed to finetune the decision making of the leader. He even quoted Robert Johnson; "Even the sharpest thinkers need teams of sharp people around them. And these high-performing teams develop over time. It is one of the basic laws of attracting talent: the more talented people you have, the more talented people you can attract. You get the highest level of input in decision making and the best critique of things you should or should not undertake when you are surrounded by such individuals. Once you reach that critical mass of talent, there's literally nothing you can't undertake."

A talented team may offset the weaknesses of the leader. Can it be said that a star leader is not really they key towards success but a team of highly intelligent people?

1 comment:

James Pawson said...

Of course one person does not usually possess all the qualities he says are necessary. You can hire someone like me to do your critical thinking for you-- but mine is not a popular type of consulting job, because there is a lot of pride involved in being in the leadership role. There is also the fact that hiring others to help offset personal weakness is a tacit admittance of weakness-- and that can be damaging. So much of business is about perceptions!