Are you intelligent or wise?
As leaders, we all hope to have an equal balance between intelligence and wisdom, but invariably our followers seem to categorize us. Personally, I never recall being accused of one, but am, rather consistently referred to as the other.
On occasion, I have given some thought as to why this occurs and my disposition on where my followers have placed me on their spectrum. Am I insulted? Honored? Bewildered? Which side of the scale do I believe I should be judged? If I had to choose between the two, where is it I’d like to be aligned?
Dictionary.com defines intelligence as:
Noun
1. capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.
2. manifestation of a high mental capacity:
3. the faculty of understanding.
Sounds like a good place for a leader to be associated…and yet, wisdom is defined as:
Noun
1. the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.
2. the soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment
3. the body of knowledge and principles that develops within a specified society or period.
So does this imply one must be old to be wise?
I find it curious that both words are nouns, as a result, perhaps it really makes no difference if we’re viewed as either, for without any action each is only self-serving.
So…are you wise or intelligent? Perhaps the REAL question is now that you've decided what will you DO? Just askin…
Be good to yourself…
I would think that one has to be reasonably intelligent to have attained all the things the dictionary says you need to be wise.
ReplyDeleteTo be wise, you might need time to gain the experience and knowledge but to act wisely, you might not. Perhaps there is meta-wisdom - where people who are not particularly wise, do the one wise thing they can and ask, what would be the wise thing to do here - figure it out and then do it. In that case thought hey might not be all that experienced, they might be able to follow the route of wisdom.
We need to get our kids on the path to wisdom as soon as possible - or maybe we need to make sure that they are not derailed from it by parents, school or society.