
Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders - jrwan
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-dislike-really-smart-leaders/
======
killjoywashere
Personal anecdote, but I wonder if my experience as a junior officer in the
Navy helped with this. The last comments in the piece are that intelligent
leaders should 1) seek creative metaphors and 2) speak charismatically. Coming
to the fleet from a bachelor's in physics, I knew I was reasonably
intelligent, but also that there were some people _much_ smarter than me (at
least my battered ego assured me of that).

So, walking aboard a frigate with sort of an academic's self-awareness and
certainty that the world is an uncertain place, I had to lead a division of
sailors who would do things that just left me dumbfounded. "Why would you
attempt to drive through the closed base gate?" "Why would you test the 440V
circuit with your fingers?" "Why would you go in the engine room without
hearing protection?" "Do you realize you installed all the valves backward?"
"Where did you meet this woman? No, she can't come on the ship!"

Then you have to get these folks to do work. They're not lazy, but trying
motivate them with the bigger picture could be challenging. Metaphor came to
hand more and more. And you sort of settle in. You're _not_ intellectually
challenged, and repetition and comfort bring confidence, which makes
charismatic patterns of speech easier.

When I went to grad school, I found myself using these same patterns of speech
to get things done. And I still do. It's always poor form to toot your own
horn, but the last few years, I have to say, I've realized more and more,
having a hard science degree and early leadership experience are an extremely
valuable combination. I have no idea how I'd be doing what I do now without
that.

~~~
Zak
I have to ask...

Why _did_ sailors try to drive through the closed base gate and test 440V
circuits with their fingers?

~~~
Raphmedia
I don't know. Why do we push files to production on a Friday evening? Why do
we snipe hot-fixes into production via FTP? Because we are all crazy & lazy
bums, I would guess.

~~~
wolfgke
> I don't know. Why do we push files to production on a Friday evening?

Because we worked for the whole week on it and now want that other people can
see it on their weekend. Since we are so proud of our work and trust in its
quality, we are willing to do an extra shift on the weekend, should problems
occur.

~~~
emacsgifs
Are you missing a /s?

~~~
felipemnoa
Since this sounds very familiar I would venture that he's being serious.

------
WalterBright
There could be something else at work here.

My father told me that con men preferred to go after smart people, like
doctors. The reason is that smart people thought they were too smart to get
conned, and hence were more gullible.

He was also an economist, and told me that there wasn't an economist born who
could stand the idea that the economy would run better (i.e. free market)
without their "help".

And I've noticed many smart leaders who thought they were much smarter than
they actually were, and didn't need to listen to others' advice, leading to
some very poor decisions.

~~~
guelo
> the economy would run better (i.e. free market) without their "help".

As if boom and bust business cycles aren't a thing in free markets. Or
monopolies. Or monetary policy. Or externalized costs. Or tragedy of the
commons.

That's just run of the mill anti-intellectualism.

~~~
roenxi
If putting economists in charge somehow curtails monopolies, externalised
costs, tragedies of the commons and boom and bust business cycles then someone
really should sit down and get that news out there. Nothing I've heard
suggests economists outperform a healthy democratic process.

Monetary policy is one that is more up for debate - it seems reasonable that
it can have a positive effect on gdp, but something has decoupled GDP from
measures that actually effect people. I think that something is monetary
policy, and note in passing that GDP was, prior to 1970, a much better proxy
for energy/capita than it is now [1].

I watch the US economy with curiosity and note, for example, that core
inflation, the central plank of US monetary policy, excludes basically
anything I spend money on.

[1] EDIT:
[https://wilcoxen.maxwell.insightworks.com/pages/804.html](https://wilcoxen.maxwell.insightworks.com/pages/804.html)

~~~
guelo
In healthy democracies politicians seek advice from economists for their
policy proposals.

~~~
coldtea
Or, usually, just seek the "expert" support from economists for validating
policies that promote their and their backers interests...

~~~
maigret
So then, there must be a visible, provable correlation between economist
activities and inequality.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Yes.

[https://img.4plebs.org/boards/pol/image/1429/19/142919512461...](https://img.4plebs.org/boards/pol/image/1429/19/1429195124610.gif)

The late 1970s were when neoliberal economic fundamentalism took over public
policy.

The graph shows the effect on equality.

~~~
amateurpolymath
I don't see this as evidence that economists => inequality. Even if we accept
the notion that economists are directly responsible for growing inequality,
it's worth remembering that there are disagreements within their ranks.

I would argue this is when most economists _lost_ influence in Washington,
while a few like Art Laffer gained massive influence. The New Deal era prior
to this was largely motivated by the work of noted economist John Maynard
Keynes. Although the causality is debated, the New Deal was followed by
recovery and economic growth. Economists gained influence in the public sphere
because of the effectiveness, real or imagined, or "Keynesian" economic
policy. These folks had lost sway in Washington by the early 70s due to the
stagflation crisis[1] and the collapse of the "New Deal coalition" after the
tumultuous 1968 presidential election.

The late 1970s was dominated by the ideas of economists like Art Laffer, who
took an uncontroversial economic idea "tax revenue is maximized at some point
between 0% and 100%" and turned it into "the tax revenue maximizing rate must
be lower than our current rate" without presenting sufficient evidence for his
claim. This was a convenient for some in Washington who already believed this
to be true, and thus the "Laffer curve" was born. The following era of
deregulation and lower taxes on the wealthy likely played a large role in
increasing income inequality.

[1] The causes of stagflation are still debated, but I am convinced this was
directly caused by the OPEC oil cartel using it's market power to quickly
inflate the price of oil by 400%, creating a massive supply shock that started
the stagflation spiral.

~~~
coldtea
> _I don 't see this as evidence that economists => inequality. Even if we
> accept the notion that economists are directly responsible for growing
> inequality, it's worth remembering that there are disagreements within their
> ranks._

It's not "economists => inequality" it's neoliberal economists (almost all of
them today) => inequality"

------
invalidOrTaken
>The study’s lead author, John Antonakis, a psychologist at the University of
Lausanne in Switzerland, suggests leaders should use their intelligence to
generate creative metaphors that will persuade and inspire others—the way
former U.S. President Barack Obama did. “I think the only way a smart person
can signal their intelligence appropriately and still connect with the
people,” Antonakis says, “is to speak in charismatic ways.”

This stood out to me. I would be interested to hear the thoughts of HN readers
on this.

~~~
mywittyname
I think charisma is best used to signal a lack of intelligence. Someone else
posted a link to a op-ed about GWB, but Trump follows a similar approach. Lots
of people question his intelligence and decision-making ability, yet, every
one of us hear or talk about him several times a day.

He also has a political sleight-of-hand that I don't think has ever been
matched. Every time a key policy decision is being debated, the news channels
are focused on Trump's latest gaffe rather than the decisions being made in
Washington.

Appeal to emotion to get results, not reason.

~~~
telchar
To use a metaphor as a counterargument, if there were a 6 foot spider in my
shower you'd better believe I would talk about it at least a few times a day.
That doesn't mean the spider has charisma, just that it's a clear and present
danger weighing heavily on my mind.

If anyone is exercising political sleight of hand I'd say it's the legislators
and executive staff who are getting in all their unpopular actions while the
getting is good, like a looter in a riot. Trump doesn't have to be politically
savvy or even aware of what they're doing for that to happen.

~~~
Consultant32452
Trump's skillset is that of a reality TV star. He knows what to say and how to
say it to engage people in drama. His presidency has been a continuation of
this. It freaks out the intelligentsia because it seems insane to them that a
person in such a high place of power could get involved in things like Twitter
flame wars. That's low class/blue collar behavior that is totally foreign to
their own culture. That is why people on the blue collar end of the spectrum
are more capable of realizing that this particular aspect of his behavior does
not represent a genuine threat, because it's part of their culture.

~~~
couchand
> Twitter flame wars ... does not represent a genuine threat

...until it's a flame war between two nuclear powers with unstable leaders.

~~~
Consultant32452
Your depiction of Trump as unstable is exactly this cultural bias I'm
referring to. He doesn't exhibit the upper class white culture behaviors
you're willing to accept in a president, so he seems unstable.

It's worth mentioning that while he's always been rich, Trump spent a
significant portion of his youth around construction sites, so he has adopted
a lot of low class blue collar behavior.

------
sagebird
There is a simpler explanation. It is the Peter principle.

A person is promoted until failure. All else being equal, if two people are
leaders, leader A will be on average as good as leader B. If one were
significantly better, they would be promoted to the next level - eg a retired
philanthropist billionaire or enlightened monk or what have you.

If P and Q are qualities correlated with leadership, if P and Q are
independently randomly distributed, then a leader with higher P is expected to
have a lower Q.

An analogy: farmers who grew 2 truck loads of bananas meet up to compare
farms. On average the farms are 4 square miles. If farmer Joe tells you his
farm is half a mile wide, you might guess it is 8 miles high, because the area
is expected to be average. There was no causation at work — having a half mile
wide plot did not cause the plot to be 8 miles tall.

Why should we assume that there is a causal link between high iq and being
disliked, when it could be chalked up to correlation between factors of an
equivalence relation? High iq allows non-charasmatics to function higher than
they normally would, just as charisma may make up for a lack of brains.

~~~
zormino
If P and Q are independently randomly distributed, you can't tell anything
about Q from the value of P.

~~~
ssivark
... unless the sample being examined was selected for being above average in
at least one of P or Q. In such a sample, P and Q will be anti-correlated.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson's_paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson's_paradox)

~~~
zormino
Ok, that actually makes sense. If they are truly independent, they will be
unrelated. However since P+Q=LeadershipScore, and all LeadershipScore are
about the same, then a high P indicates a Low Q. The connection between the
two only exists because of that third piece of information, LeadershipScore,
being held constant. The only part I disagree with is that LeadershipScore
will be roughly the same in reality, I think a quick glance at the world's
leaders shows some are clearly better in most ways than others.

~~~
lookACamel
It should be P+Q = L (another random variable) >=
THRESHOLD_TO_BE_ACCEPTED_AS_LEADER

------
danharaj
In my experience really smart people can be arbitrarily wrong, perhaps moreso
than less smart people, because they can create elaborate mental models to
justify bad ideas, and someone significantly smarter than me can create
difficult to refute arguments that serve as a bulwark against pushback.
Remember that sophistry requires sophistication but is still little more than
the smart person's stupidity.

~~~
exolymph
Metacontrarianism! I'm always delighted when I get a chance to link to this:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metaco...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metacontrarianism/)

~~~
danharaj
It's a bit ironic to me that you linked lesswrong, because one example of an
argument I consider sophistic is the quantum mechanics sequence. In particular
because the relational formulation of quantum mechanics [0] pulls the carpet
right from underneath the argument in a rather dramatic way.

[0] [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-
relational/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-relational/)

------
rb808
Related: 'George W. Bush is smarter than you'. Elite leaders often make
themselves look dumber than they really are.

[https://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/](https://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/)

~~~
mlevental
this is a crock. it was a crock when it was written and it's still a crock
now. the idea that someone can for 8 years in the spotlight disguise
themselves so much so that appear wholly opposite is ludicrous. it takes
months for professional actors to produce 90 minutes of performance - the guy
was on camera for literally weeks. he's not "smarter than you" this kind of
revisionist nonsense is politically motivated - people were saying the same
exact thing about Trump before he took office and we are now all very sure
it's not the case.

~~~
tormeh
Do you think you could become president of the US if you just wanted to?
Probably not. Trump is smart. I would be in literal, not figurative, disbelief
if any president in the history of modern US weren't. The competition for that
position is very sharp and only the best make it. There are many problems with
Trump, but IQ isn't one of them. Hitler wasn't dumb either. Being a good
demagogue is hard. The strategy and skillset is somewhat different to ordinary
politics, but don't mistake that for ease. While we're at it: Youtubers and
fashion bloggers aren't dumb either.

Trump is narcissistic, insecure, mean, ignorant and has no honor, but dumb he
ain't. Underestimating the guy is unwise.

~~~
Hasz
Some of Trump's advisers are not to be underestimated. Their brilliance is in
using Trump -- who has off the charts emotional intelligence -- as a
president. They frame the issues, he taunts and captivates the press.

I would point to the incredible power struggle in the white house as a product
of the undue behind-the-scenes influence.

~~~
tormeh
Good point. I suspect Trump doesn't care about most issues, so GOP and
administration gets free reign on those. I suspect that's part of why he
hasn't been impeached and part of the benefits package of working for the
administration.

------
unabst
I'm a smart leader, and I am disliked. And it's this exact tone that they
dislike most.

They feel I lack empathy, but empathy is why I do it.

And when someone likes me, I know they know we know what's up. That's also why
I do it.

I find those who work hard to be liked creepy. I also find managers and
supervisors who are paid to be your friend disingenuous. And I'm not going to
butter someone up before I tell them they made a mistake. The last thing I
want is to spoil them or keep them in a bubble. But I'll also tell them to
focus on the problem, and not themselves. Don't be part of the problem.

Being liked is work in business. In our private lives it's personal
preference, but you can also choose your friends. Professionally, it's a
strategic decision, because it will inevitably involve people you may struggle
to like personally.

The prevalent anti-intellectualism does intellects injustice more than
anything else. Many would rather be spoiled than informed. They'd rather
protect their ego than gain competence. They'd rather be forgiven than
corrected for their mistakes. And they'd rather be paid for being who they
are, than be told they need to work or put in the work.

No one is paid for being who they are, not even celebrities. We're all being
paid for our work. Our image is part of our work, even for non-celebrities.

Anti-intellectualism is also at the root of anti-professionalism. And it's a
huge issue in America.

Out of pragmatism, out of optimism, and out of empathy, I am sorry, but I
choose to be unapologetically professional.

I am the apologetic asshole.

And that's what's up.

(didn't expect this comment to turn out this way, but I'm submitting it
anyway)

------
MollyR
My takeaway was that people don't like leaders that can't relate to them.

Obama related well to one part of the country, and Trump related well to
another part of the country.

Trump's case being more surprising since he's tries very hard to come off as a
class traitor. ex. Notice his love of the peoples food (fast food)

~~~
goatlover
Question is why do we need a leader we relate to? We're not living in tribes
any longer. The president of a country isn't likely to sit down and have a
beer with us.

~~~
Buldak
People feel that leaders they can relate to are more likely to take their
interests seriously.

~~~
ambrosite
It would be better to say, if a leader can relate to the people, then he may
be more likely to take their interests seriously.

~~~
goatlover
But is that true? Or do the campaign managers know that helps get their
candidates elected?

~~~
s73ver_
I believe that's the difference between genuinely being able to relate, and
faking it.

------
insickness
Immediately when I saw the title I assumed this had something to do with
Trump. Both Bush II and Trump have been chided as being stupid. Yet their
seemingly stupid demeanor is part of what attracts people. When people come
across as super intelligent they can also come across as fake, particularly if
there is already an inherent lack of trust in a domain like politics. When
Trump tweets, his lack of diplomacy and unpolished grammar make him sound like
a normal guy just talking about what he thinks rather than an elite, lifelong
politician which no one can relate to.

~~~
goatlover
And that's kind of scary. I don't want some average Joe I can relate to being
the most powerful person in the world. I want someone smarter than me with a
lot of solid political experience who knows how to navigate issues while being
pragmatic enough to get stuff done. Being president of the US isn't like being
a plumber.

~~~
wfo
If you believe this you will always get a technocrat with a great resume who
has spent years enforcing the status quo, and, once elected, will do nothing
to change it. If you want anything to be better you need to move away from
gatekeeping "qualifications" because they are always bestowed upon proponents
of business as usual by proponents of business as usual. What does "smart"
mean? They went to Harvard and are therefore best buddies with the
ultrawealthy and elites of society? The pundit class says they're smart?
Rarely, once in 200 years, you'll get lucky with this approach and land on a
class traitor and hero like FDR, but you're actively selecting away from that
on purpose.

For a leader, you want a strong vision for the future, passion, a very strong
will, charisma. It's ridiculous that people obsess about "intelligence" or
"qualifications" \-- Obama was brilliant and supremely qualified, how did that
work out for us? We picked a constitutional law scholar who continued and made
permanent all the constitutional violations of the Bush admin. Friends with
the very intelligent economic experts on Wall Street and able to recognize
their expertise, he let them run his cabinet and bail themselves out and let
them pillage our country's economy.

~~~
philwelch
> For a leader, you want a strong vision for the future, passion, a very
> strong will, charisma.

Europe was plagued with many of this style of "leader" between the 1920's and
1940's and tens of millions of people died for it.

~~~
wfo
Oh yes I agree strong leaders like I've described with the power to change
society can be bad. Change is not always good. But a qualified technocrat will
not ever change anything much, for better or for worse. Why change a system
that worked perfectly for you? That you thrived in? Where you can do a bunch
of spreadsheets in your off time comparing private insurance plans and
cleverly pick the best one for you and save money, and if you screw up, your
child's hospital visit isn't covered and you are instantly homeless! How fun!
If you want change, don't pick the Harvard valedictorian "wonk".

They will suggest policies like: what if instead of feeding the hungry we
define a specific income bracket adjusted dynamically to the purchasing power
parity of... and in the first three words you've already lost 99% of the
population who thinks it's unnecessarily complicated because it is: they're
turning a moral issue into a technical one because they've been trained to do
technical analysis and to not see things in moral terms, rather, to shift
numbers around in spreadsheets. They are wholly incapable of stepping back and
recognizing that the spreadsheet itself is wrong, not technically wrong, but
morally wrong: that simpler is better, that universal programs (like roads,
NHS) are better than means-tested ones, that these things which are simple
moral imperatives should be able to be explained simply.

~~~
philwelch
Yeah, it's a good thing that the world isn't all that complicated and that all
of our problems can be solved with simplistic, well-intended platitudes.

------
elihu
It's possible that people have an innate tendency to be resentful of leaders
who are smarter than them, but there may be other explanations.

Perhaps high IQ test results correlate with some negative trait that wasn't
captured.

Perhaps it's unusually difficult for some reason to simultaneously be
successful in business, well liked by employees, and really smart.

Perhaps the population of business leaders contains an abnormally high
proportion of highly intelligent sociopaths.

Perhaps high IQ correlates with wealth, and employees tend to be resentful of
business leaders who earn, say, 100x or 1000x what they earn.

Perhaps on average high IQ leaders were more likely to have goals that
contradicted the goals of the workers (e.g. maximize profit at all costs vs.
make this a great place to work).

~~~
carlmr
Yeah, the article is quite shallow. I was thinking especially of your last
point. I'm working in software engineering. We have a lot of the smart and
driven software developers that you would want in management positions.
However they are smart and driven developers because they enjoy toying with
technical problems. They enjoy being developers. They mostly hate meetings
where we're talking about fluff. They don't WANT to go into management.

There's a strong self-selection going on, at least in my company.

------
DoreenMichele
If you are struggling with such issues, you might find some of the resources
at Hoagies Gifted Page helpful. I don't read it myself anymore, in part
because it is the smart version of _poor little rich boy._ In other words, it
whines a lot about "Oh woe is me. I am so smart and it is ruining my life."
But if you are having social challenges as a smart person, that isn't
necessarily a bad thing to be exposed to.

You can also search for _social and emotional needs of the gifted_ for
additional material. You could look up _Beyond IQ_ as well.

~~~
cryoshon
i never got the self pity vibe from hoagies' page. i felt it was more
explanatory than comiserational. it's a great resource, though.

------
emmett
Correlation is not causation! This article says, very high IQ is anti-
correlated with perception of effectiveness.

That might be because having a high IQ causes people to perceive you as less
effective.

It also might be because having really high IQ makes you more likely to be
promoted, and is independent of other traits (like charisma or
conscientiousness) which impact perception of effectiveness and therefore the
population of people promoted without really high IQ tends to score higher on
those other traits on average. Selection bias, in other words.

Based on the evidence presented, we just don’t know. Everyone arguing over why
very high IQ “causes” the effect we are seeing might just be making stuff up,
because we don’t know if there is a causal relationship at all.

------
oblib
When I was a kid my family would often chide me for using "big words" and told
I was trying to "impress everyone" doing that.

The truth is, I was just trying to relate something I'd learned and thought
was interesting and every time that happened I was kind of shocked and left
wondering how they'd missed the gist of what I was talking about. My own
mother did it. I finally stopped sharing things I thought they'd attack me for
like that.

Then, in the 4th grade the city I went to school in had all the kids in the
district take a test to measure intelligence, though they didn't tell us
students that was what we were doing. About a month later my teacher asked my
mother to meet her. She told my mom that I'd tested the 2nd highest in the
district. She recommended that I be bumped up a couple grades so I could learn
more. My mother told her "No. He'll be in the same grade as his older brother
and that will cause problems at home." She also told the teacher that she
didn't believe I was "that smart".

My teacher was shocked by that. She pulled me aside the next day and told me
about the test, her conversation with my mother, and that she was sorry that
she couldn't do more for me.

I'd never given a thought about me being "smarter" than anyone. I knew that
school was easy for me as compared to some of the other kids that seemed to
struggle but I figured they'd get the lessons soon enough. I never talked to
anyone in my family about it. I knew they'd just humiliate me if I did.

A few years later I looked into IQ tests and saw the Bell Curve Graph and
where I stood on it. Since then I've almost never, ever, mentioned it to
anyone but a very few close friends who are no doubt in the same general area
on that graph because the first few times I did I got hammered on hard.

Just a few years ago (50 years later) one of my cousins came to visit where I
live now and I started talking about something I'd just read and they stopped
me right in the middle of it and said "Why are you always trying to impress
everyone by using big words." Brought me right back to when we were kids.

I've always known I couldn't be alone with these kinds of experiences, and
this article confirms that, but it got me to thinking about how little this
has has been discussed and how this kind of exposes that it's probably a far
more pervasive problem than we know.

I do know that over the years I've pointed out why something wouldn't work as
planned and been told I was wrong and then later proved right. More than a few
times it was an expensive lesson to be learned for those who ignored me. And
pretty much every time I was hated for pointing it out.

I've never given any thought to the problem or how to fix it but it would
probably be interesting to attempt to measure the costs and ponder solutions
to it.

~~~
zafka
I don't know my exact position on the curve, but I can relate. I find it
ironic that many of the folks who score pretty high on general intelligence,
often have an issue with social intelligence. I spend a lot of time now trying
to study human nature in a game of catch-up. What most people seem to learn
instinctively, I need to study.

~~~
ModernMech
> What most people seem to learn instinctively, I need to study.

This is 100% my wife vs me. I had heard about EQ before I met her, but I never
really witnessed the power of a high EQ in action until we started dating. She
knew so much about me by reading my face, reactions, gestures, etc. it
sometimes made me angry, like she was in my head or something. I watched as
she predicted people's actions easily, or convinced people to do what she
wanted just by talking to them a particular way. She really opened my eyes to
the idea that maybe having a high EQ is more beneficial than a high IQ, at
least in navigating life. I always considered it something people said they
had because they knew they weren't smart (side note, my wife also has a high
IQ, so if you're reading this honey, yes I know you're smarter than me too.)

~~~
zafka
Hee, THe last line makes me think you are finally catching on also.

------
carapace
With the best kind of leader, when the work is finished, the people all say,
"We did it ourselves."

~Tao Te Ching

------
bjourne
Maybe I'm just dumb. But I read tfa twice now, and I can't find a hint of an
explanation. If I read an article is titled "Why People Dislike Really Smart
Leaders" I expect to read about why people dislike really smart leaders. I
feel that perhaps this article is just clickbait.

------
zafka
I would really like to see this study reproduced in an engineering
environment. I wonder if the same trend holds, just a higher set point.

~~~
Infernal
The article alluded to the point of diminishing IQ return varying depending on
the industry - I think it would be interesting to also measure the IQ of the
team behind that leader - I wouldn't be surprised to find the tipping point to
be some multiplier of the median IQ of the team in question.

~~~
jpeloquin
The underlying work, published in Journal of Applied Psychology, was
explicitly meant to the test the idea that the tipping point is a multiplier
of the team's IQ. From the abstract:

"Following Simonton's (1985) theory, we tested a specific model, indicating
that the optimal IQ for perceived leadership will appear at about 1.2 standard
deviations above the mean IQ of the group membership."

The researchers' findings are consistent with this theory in the group
examined ("midlevel leaders", which I think means middle management); they say
future work will test the theory with other groups who have different median
IQs.

[http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-14279-001](http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-14279-001)

------
4bpp
I am put off by the circumstance that in spite of the title, nowhere in the
article does it seem to say (nor even suggest that the paper answers) why
people dislike really smart leaders.

------
corpMaverick
May be related to this. I have the feeling that white rural Americans dislike
"smart" people more than they dislike immigrants, blacks, city slickers and
even billionaires.

~~~
dasil003
If by "smart" you mean arrogant urban sophisticates who think very highly of
their own intelligence then you're probably right.

~~~
goatlover
Or it could mean more cosmopolitan dwellers who understand living in a
connected, diverse world that's always changing better than your average rural
dweller.

~~~
dasil003
How would they identify that quality enough to dislike it? I'll tell you how:
the smugness.

------
rossdavidh
Simplest answer: IQ doesn't measure inter-personal skills, and people who are
really good at one type of thing (measurable by IQ) are often not as good at
other things (various proposed metrics of social intelligence).

~~~
vamin
Anecdotally, I've found the opposite. People who are smart tend to be good at
lots of things.

------
chunsj
Here, smart means intellectual quality and their subject on leadership is
private profit making. Why the rest of us should like those smart (highly
intellectual, however their interest lies in their own profit) leader?

I'd like to see the study on the subject of public/social interest and I think
that the result will be different.

------
candybar
I'm not sure if I would buy this conclusion without more data - it's quite
possible that higher-IQ types are in qualitatively different roles than lower-
IQ types in the same study. This would be very difficult to control for
because if you do control such that you're comparing two individuals who are
in similar roles but different IQ, you're then implicitly selecting for people
who have other compensating characteristics.

------
Rifu
Sci-hub link to the actual paper[0]

[0] [http://sci-hub.tw/10.1037/apl0000221](http://sci-
hub.tw/10.1037/apl0000221)

------
thriftwy
I guess it's not an option that gets widely offered.

Most people would like a leader who is a) really smart and that's proven by
"peer review", b) cares for their needs and not some other agenda, c) doesn't
hesitate to display all that.

But that's just not who gets offered in e.g. modern democracy setting.

------
ksec
I think there is "Smart", and there is "Wise". I have been thinking "Smart",
as intellectually, is little over rated.

Wise, I dont quite know how to describe it yet, but is a combination of many
many things.

------
scotty79
How did they establish that leaders with iq over 120 are not objectively
worse, not just in the eyes of their followers?

I think it's common intuition that you need some degree of stupidity to
sometimes make a prompt decision when more intelligent person would rather
wait for more data to make better (but possibly harmfully late decission).

If there's a yes or no decission to be made you already have 50% chance of
success as a leader even if you are no smarter than a cointoss. Smart leader
might take too long to try to improve the odds or to verify that you can't
improve them. Slightly dumber leader can decide faster "it's too hard, let's
go with my gut feeling".

Maybe 120 is perfect for recognizing that often more thinking doesn't matter
but at the same time recognizing instances when thinking pays off.

------
drozycki
How you define intelligence? The person who knows their audience and speaks in
a way that connects with them is more intelligent than one who does not. And
this is not measured by an IQ test.

~~~
matte_black
Not necessarily. You might not care about connecting with your audience, or
you might be maliciously intelligent and purposefully choose to alienate your
audience by sounding smart.

------
doctorstupid
It's simple. People are selfish so they like those which are like themselves
and they want their self-images to be successful.

------
evolighting
Maybe the "Really Smart Leaders" not the real smart one?

------
godelmachine
Trump these days is bragging how smart and genius he is, and well, we all know
how disliked he is !! :)

------
Toast_25
Looked up an IQ test to see if I'm too smart or too stupid to communicate.

Apparently I'm too smart. Thankfully that can be fixed! Lead poisoning, here I
come! I'll pick up my old weed habit just to be safe.

~~~
IshKebab
Don't believe online IQ tests...

~~~
Toast_25
It wasn't really an IQ test, it was the mensa "IQ test" where they tell you if
you might be able to join mensa based on your results. Apparently it's within
my possibilities. You can see it here:

[https://www.mensa.lu/en/mensa/online-iq-test/online-iq-
test....](https://www.mensa.lu/en/mensa/online-iq-test/online-iq-test.html)

------
kaycebasques
I appreciate that that article was short and to the point.

~~~
craftyguy
Definitely. I really dislike the current trend in article writing, where the
author(s) feel a need to start off with a multi-paragraph, tangentially-
related (at best) narative about how their cousin's friend's sister's aunt
felt this way and that about something, and the actual meat of the article is
buried somewhere in the last 1/4th of the text.

~~~
criddell
They even do that for simple things like recipe websites. I google some food,
find a recipe, and most of the time the first four paragraphs are describing
the first time the author cooked with saffron or the cultural impact of the
spice trade a thousand years ago. You know what? All I want is the recipe for
my pressure cooker.

~~~
mywittyname
Serious Eats is good about this. They have a 'read the whole story' link on
the recipe page for people that really care that a Magnum Unicorn is the best
device for cracking peppercorns for steak au poivre. But the recipe page right
to the point for those that don't care.

------
louithethrid
The problem with highly intelligent people is that they have a competition
among themselves, and the most intelligent one coming out of those
competitions is usually the one with the most measurable success (money) for
the least amount of measurable input (work).

Meaning, there is a herd effect at work here, where renomee is nothing and
looking down among the less intelligent ones is everything. Thus its a race
away from productive intelligent endavours with lots of input (science)
towards optimal endavours (hacking the system aka lawyer, investor). Meaning
that blackhats among the intelligent always outcrowd the white hats in the
long term deteriorating society as a whole.

Some streetsmarts might recognize the dynamic and engage it with disrupting
countermeasures before the system itself is destroyed by a upper society where
it is not feasible to be anything else then a well dressed game theory con-
men.

~~~
robocat
The smartest people I know mostly have widely different goals, and mostly
don't use money as a proxy for a measure of success (however I am not from the
US...)

> competitions is usually the one with the most measurable success (money) for
> the least amount of measurable input (work)

I remember thinking this way during my education years, but out in the real
world I have learnt otherwise.

------
bob_theslob646
The link is broken, FYI.

EDIT. Link is fixed.

~~~
gumby
Might have been fixed — works for me.

------
grawprog
I wonder how the study was conducted. Was it only iq they tested? Did they
test the social abilities of the leaders? It may have more to do with higher
iq people generally having less good social skills than people with lower iq's
than anything to do with the actual intelligence of the person.

