Leadership certainly consists of a range of qualities, among which intelligence is sometimes regarded as the most important. While I accept that it is difficult for one to be a good leader without being intelligent, one’s management skills are arguably of equal significance.
It is undoubtedly true that a leader’s main job is to make decisions, which invariably affect the future of the business, organization or country, and making fruitful decisions unequivocally requires one to be smart. This is because the decision-making process requires one to wisely access the situation, and then come up with careful plans or innovative ideas to address the problem(s) at hand or seize the opportunity that is presenting itself. Indeed, these tasks cannot be done properly if the leader is not smart enough. Evidence for this can be seen in cases of highly intelligent individuals such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, who are unquestionably great leaders of our time.
However, to say that one’s level of intelligence is the most essential attribute is to downplay the importance of one’s management skills. In fact, many leaders have failed miserably due to their
inability to manage their staff. For example, Steve Jobs, who was extremely smart, was kicked out of Apple, the very company that he founded, because of his aggressive management style. A sizable proportion of his employees felt that they could not think creatively and failed to work to the best of their ability due to the extreme level of stress that they had to endure every day under Steve’s reign.
In conclusion, although it would be decidedly challenging for one to be an effective leader without a high level of intelligence, one’s management skills are surely of equal importance.