Reading people is better than intelligence in management

Two great articles on management. Both sum up that it is better for a manager to be less intelligent since they will then know when they are out of their league and should defer to someone smarter. This explains why micromanagement is bad thing.

The Informed Reader - WSJ.com : Why Less Brilliant Presidents Do Better
"Especially intelligent people also have difficulty trusting the intuitions of less-articulate people who have more experience than they do. That might be why many smart senior officials in government have tried to reason their way through problems on their own, assuming their civil servants’ inadequate explanations rendered their judgments invalid."
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How many times has that happened in a job where you knew the subject best, but your boss got involved and it all went haywire? It is good advice for myself since I need to know when I don't know something. Most managers think that they are in their positions based on intelligence when often it is based on gathering the right people. I remember the difference between Joe Montana, long-time quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers (does he need explanation?), and Steve Young, who directly followed him. Joe Montana's philosophy was who could I get the ball to in order to win the game. Steve Young's philosophy was what could I do to win the game. Montana was the far better quarterback, but some would say, well he had a great players and a great team. I would say, no, he made everyone else look great by using their best qualities to succeed. It's not about me, it's about us.


Intelligence and Leadership: Becker
"The skills, for example, to succeed as provost of a university involves an ability to deal effectively with professors, to evaluate recommendations for professorial promotions and outside appointments, and to handle related faculty matters. Many provosts use success at that position to become candidates for presidents of universities, but the talents required to succeed as president are quite different. Presidents have to raise money, deal with businessmen, foundations, and legislatures, appoint deans, and make other basic administrative and organizational decisions. How well someone performed as provost gives some but limited insight into how well they would perform at the different tasks required of a president."
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This also goes back to a previous post where I state that a particular skill in a technical position doesn't translate into a good manager. Once you leave the technical position, you leave that field. Now you are in the management field.

I prefer to have a bunch of smart people around me and let them do their thing versus trying to be the hotshot and thinking I know best.