Leadership QuoteWe know from Daniel Coleman in the HBR article – What Makes a Leader – that effective leaders are distinguished by a high degree of emotional intelligence in five areas: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill. Coleman’s findings are based on research at nearly 200 large, global companies.
We know from the McKinsey article – Decoding Leadership: What really matters – that the secret to developing effective leaders is to encourage four types of behavior: being supportive, operating with strong results orientation. seeking different perspectives and solving problems effectively. McKinsey’s global survey includes 189,000 people in 81 diverse organizations.
And now we know, according to Spencer Stuart, a global chief executive search and leadership consulting firm, that CEO success can be predicted. Spencer’s “Executive Intelligence” assessment approach quantifies a candidate’s critical thinking, conceptual thinking, social and emotional intelligence, and dynamic learning.

CEO Brief–the crux of the Spencer Stuart article:

  1. Learning intelligence is an especially powerful predictor of executive potential.
  2. Individuals who are strong in this area recognize and accept new information, even when it contradicts their own assumptions.
  3. They pursue constructive criticism, recognize their personal biases and flaws, and change their ideas and actions based on these sources of new or contradictory information.
  4. CEOs, in particular, benefit from learning intelligence.
  5. Because of their position of authority, CEOs tend to be insulated from ideas and information that contradict their thinking.
  6. This happens either because they are farther away from the sources of new information or because others are more guarded about sharing potentially contradictory views.
  7. The CEOs who are best at learning intelligence not only seize spontaneous opportunities to learn but also build channels to enable learning, for example, creating their own advisory councils to keep their thinking fresh.