Comment by nradov
2 years ago
For a classic example see former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. By any conventional measure he was very smart, and yet he made a series of catastrophically bad decisions which are still impacting US national security today.
Intelligence is overrated in leaders. Character, humility, principles, and discipline are far more valuable in avoiding huge mistakes.
It really depends on the organization being led. Vision is not something you can easily outsource or task subordinates with. I mean one of the classic leader types would never set himself up to fail in early days SpaceX.
What a startup, a market leader and a government organization need are distinct types of leadership. Sometimes there are prodigies who can do two of these. Musk did.