Why should too much intelligence militate against the achievement of popular leadership? It is clear that in order to organize and lead others, the individual must comprehend and share the interests of those led, and must in turn be understood by them. He must not consider their pursuits to be fatuous and without substance. They must not regard his interests as eccentric and unfathomable. Also, he must not experience too keenly the impact of the conflicting conations of those about him. To perceive and to experience too sharply the disappointments, misdeeds, punishments, and aspirations of others tend to disqualify for executive leadership. The child of IQ over 160 tends to fall above the optimum range for leadership, for all of these reasons, in groups of unselected children. He is not interested in mumble-the-peg. They are not interested in the solar system. His interests are those of persons far beyond his age and size. But they will not accept his leadership because he does not “look like” a fitting captain for them. Thus only in very highly selected groups can such a child achieve leadership, that is, in groups which approximate his own IQ. Too much intelligence thus tends to disqualify for executive leadership. The most intelligent persons born will usually be found leading only highly selected groups. Too little intelligence also undoubtedly tends to disqualify. It will be a nice problem to determine experimentally just what may be the optimum range of IQ for leadership of typical persons. Correlation is, of course, reduced by the various influences which we have been discussing. “Social intelligence” is in all probability not a specialized capacity, but merely an optimum section of the general intelligence curve (determined by ratio to the median intelligence of the led), combined with certain amounts of physical and temperamental traits. These temperamental and physical traits are extremely important. The flighty, the unenthusiastic, the shy, the overbearing, the ungenerous, the irritable are not well fitted to organize and lead, even when their intelligence is optimum. Likewise, the small, the commonplace in coloring, the undistinguished in features, the ill-kempt, the shrill of voice, are handicapped by their physical characteristics. The executive leader is he who combines optimum intelligence with enthusiasm, generosity, cheerfulness, and other favorable temperamental traits in the optimum degree, and who is large, forceful in manner and voice, and distinguished in contour and coloring. Facility in handling people and getting their allegiance, is due, therefore, to total personality, mental and physical, of which intellect is but one determinant. Correlations between executive ability and general intelligence will thus be greatly reduced from unity, because temperament and physique are far from perfectly correlated with general intelligence. REFERENCES