Being a leader requires not only intellect; well let me rephrase, being a GOOD leader requires not only intellect but a concept known as emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence can best be defined as the ability to assess, control, and identify the emotions of one's self and of others. It sounds reasonably simple until you realize that emotional intelligence requires a great deal of critical thinking an intellectual perseverance. One of the great mistakes junior leaders make is thinking that you can have one aspect of these traits and not the others. It doesn't work that way. Leadership requires that all facets be present. I often use the metaphor of a gardener and apply it to a leader. A gardener weeds, fertilizes, prunes, waters, and nurtures the plants under his or her care. Much the same a leader needs to do the same for the persons or projects entrusted to his or her care. Neither one of these people will be successful if they can't understand both the needs of the people and plants as well as their own shortcomings.
Intellectual perseverance is what allows the leader to develop emotional intelligence in addition to critical thinking skills. Other skillsets will develop as a result of intellectual perseverance as well these may be anything from interpersonal skills, understanding office politics, and customer service skills. Intellectual perseverance sets the foundation for becoming a good leader.
Intellectual perseverance is defined as: having a consciousness of the need to use intellectual insights and truths in spite of difficulties, obstacles, and frustrations; firm adherence to rational principles despite the irrational opposition of others; a sense of the need to struggle with confusion and unsettled questions over an extended period of time to achieve deeper understanding or insight (Paul)
There are many other traits to intellect; however being able to persevere despite difficulties is really what makes many things possible. I doubt any of the great thinkers of our species started out as such. I imagine Benjamin Franklin, Henry Ford, Immanuel Kant, Proust, Isaac Asimov, or Dostoevsky having to persevere despite many challenges. Once again, it is important to understand that although intellectual perseverance may be the foundation, it does not exist in a vacuum.
There must be a constant feedback loop where intellectual perseverance both supports and is questioned by emotional intelligence and critical thinking. It is one thing to persevere and quite another to persevere in the wrong direction. When all parts of the system are working correctly, a leader can develop a healthy sense of confidence tempered by self-correcting self-analysis.
All in all, intellectual perseverance is a critical component of leadership. However, on its own it is useless.
Paul, R. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/valuable-intellectual-traits/528
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