In the past years, endless Internet posts and trade publication articles have made a connection between ‘people smarts’ and performance at work. Once a role involved supervising, managing, or leader others, people smarts start to become even more important than technical ability.
However, the way the connection is made is too simplistic to be useful to recruiters as they make final candidate potential performance predictions. Some role require ‘charismatic’ leadership. Others require ‘humble leadership. Few of us exhibit both, as well as the personal emotional maturity and cognitive ability to apply the aspects of each one required by the circumstance of a specific, concrete, situation.
Exhibiting People Smarts is a performance driver that acknowledges that situational leadership is what drives high levels of performance. Having the ability to respond in the moment to the personal and social needs of the individual or the group is really what ‘exhibiting people smarts’ is all about.
