1 . When we think about people who are leaders, we often get a mental picture of someone who is older, smarter, and wiser than ourselves. Studies of leadership, though, have usually found that there is almost no relationship between skill as a leader and traditional measures of intelligence.
Some recent research by psychologist Red Fiedle and his colleagues suggests that both intelligence and experience may be important—but just now how important depends upon how stressful the work situation is and what kind of task is to be accomplished. The researchers obtained measures of intelligence, experience, performance, and stress.
Overall, these variables did not relate to one another. Men with high and low intelligence were equally likely to give good performance, as were men with more and less experience, or more and less stress with their bosses. When you look separately at those men who have high stress with their bosses, however, the picture changes.
In high stress situations, there was no connection between intelligence and performance, but there was between experience and performance. In other words, in difficult situations, it was helpful to “know the ropes”. In low stress situations, the findings were just the opposite. Experience was not related to good performance, but intelligence was. That is, when things are going well, intelligence is very useful in leadership.
A study of fire fighters’ performance under high and low stress conditions also found the experienced officers performed best under situations of stress. None of this is really very surprising. If you have ever had a supervisory job, you probably found that at least as much energy went into dealing with people as went into managing the job itself. Tests of intelligence—at least the ones we have now—do not predict success in dealing with people.
1. What kind of people can do the best job in stress situation?| A．intelligent people | B．experienced people |
| C．calm people | D．skilled people |
| A．to understand the situation | B．to control the situation |
| C．to get rid of the situation | D．to make sure what to do about the situation |
| A．a management job | B．an advisory job |
| C．a teaching job | D．an organizing job |
| A．In stress situations, there are no association between experience and performance. |
| B．Some recent research suggests that most leaders are lack of intelligence. |
| C．In low stress situations, intelligence plays an important role in leadership. |
| D．Generally speaking leaders are likely to be cleverer than ordinary people. |
