THE SYSTEMS BRAIN
Consider an executive identified in a study of those in government posts whose track record marked them as innovative, successful leaders.
His first job for the navy was in a ship's radio room. He soon mastered the radio system and, he said, "I knew it better than any one on the ship. I was the one they came to with problems. But I realized that ifl was going to be a success I had to master the ship." So he applied himself to learning how the different parts of
the ship worked together, and how each interacted with the radio room. Later in his career, when he got promoted to a much bigger job as a civilian working for the navy, he said, "Just as I mastered the radio room, and then the ship, I realized I had to master how the navy works."
While some of us have a knack for systems, for many or most leaders-like this executive-it is an acquired strength. But sys tems awareness in the absence of self-awareness and empathy will not be sufficient for outstanding leadership. We need to balance the triple focus, not depend on having just one strength.
Now consider the Larry Summers paradox: he no doubt has a genius IQand brilliance as a systems thinker. He was, after all, one of the youngest professors to get tenure in Harvard's history. But years later Summers was, in effect, fired as Harvard president by its faculty, who were fed up with his insensitive blunders-most not bly dismissing women's capabilities for science.
That pattern seems to fit what the University of Oxford's Simon Baron-Cohen has identified as an extreme brain style, one that ex cels at systems analysis but flunks empathy and the sensitivity to social context that comes along with it