EXECUTIVE INTELLIGENCE
What All Great Leaders Have
By Justin Menkes, Ph.D.
Publisher: Collins
Publication date: November 2005
ISBN: 0-06-078187-4
Media contact: Andrea J. Stein
908-522-0332
andreaatwesmanpr@aol.com
Book summary
Finding and assembling the very best people should be the first priority of every business, but what is it that makes executives perform at the highest level—and how do you recognize it?
In his book Executive Intelligence: What All Great Leaders Have Justin Menkes identifies the aptitudes that comprise great leadership and management. In eight years of research during which he interviewed outstanding CEOs, such as Jack Welch and Andrea Jung, Menkes delves beneath surface achievement to examine the process by which top business executives accomplish their work.
Beginning his research on the premise that managerial work can be broken down into three main areas, Menkes set out to identify the core aptitudes that all great executives share:
- Practical intelligence skills—the ability to appropriately define a problem; question underlying assumptions; anticipate unintended consequences; and differentiate primary objectives from secondary concerns.
- Social intelligence skills—the ability to recognize underlying agendas; understand multiple perspectives; anticipate likely emotional reactions; and identify core issues within a conflict.
- Emotional intelligence skills—the ability to recognize personal biases; pursue constructive criticism; recognize flaws in own ideas and actions; and recognize when to resist objections and stand one’s ground.
Though these cognitive skills play a profound role in determining a manager's success, they are not what most employers focus on when recruiting or promoting executives. Instead, most concentrate on personality type, style or IQ testing. Menkes explains that while these tools measure important attributes, such as experience or business knowledge, they fail to measure the specific skills that make up executive intelligence.
This book seeks to refocus attention on what really determines leadership aptitude and to show that the accomplishments of star leaders are made possible by specific, identifiable skills that can be measured—and improved.
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