Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

James Heskett commented on an ongoing debate concerning the most important traits that leaders possess. He talks about studies on personality and management style of effective leaders and those that say "executive intelligence" is more important.

Concerning a study by Jim Collins called Good to Great, he quotes: "...among the most important attributes of leaders, people who John Kotter maintains achieve "extremely useful change," was the right mix of humility and a drive for success. More recently, Collins has added to his list (after studying successful leaders in nonprofit organizations) "legislative leadership," the ability to create coalitions both within and outside of organizations."

In contrast, Heskett talks about a book recently written by Justin Menkes called Executive Intelligence, that takes the stand that there is too much emphasis upon personality and style of leaders versus types of intelligence that boost leadership effectiveness.

Menkes asserts in the book that "when it comes to predicting work performance, cognitive-ability tests have been demonstrated to be approximately ten times as powerful as personality assessments ... Personality is not a differentiator of star talent. It is an individual's facility for clear thinking or intelligence that largely determines their leadership success."

Do you think that these concepts are opposed to each other? Are they compatible? Can someone be either one and still be an effective leader? What's your take on it?

James Heskett is a Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School