Can the Humanities Train you to be a Leader?

Are leaders trained and developed or are leaders born? Will any one degree prepare you for management and leadership? Is there a clear way to develop the correct skills and competencies and go from being a frontline manager to the c-suite?

Every person who starts as a frontline manager looks ahead in their career and thinks, “how far can I take this?” Some have dreams of the corner office while most are happy being a mid-level leader. But along the way the skills, competencies, and education of each person comes into play and how to develop is a constant focus of those who want to improve not only themselves, but to assist their long-term career efficacy.

The first question, “are leaders trained and developed or are they born” is perplexing. Sometimes people are born and they seem destined to lead. There is something about these people from an early age that predisposes them to leadership. Is it just because they are outgoing, confident, and tall? Maybe, but not always. At the same time, some people who do not seem like they could be good leaders come into their own later in life and become excellent leaders in their 30s or 40s. When it comes to personality types, are people who are predisposed to leadership always have to be ESTJ or ENTJ or could a leader be an INFJ or an ISTP?

The next question, “will any one degree prepare you for management and leadership?” The answer seems so obvious, a business degree will best prepare individuals to be a manager or leader. But is this true? If you look at many managers and leaders out in the real world (that have degrees), more often than not, they have a degree in business. Is this is good thing or a bad thing? It is neither. When it comes to choosing a degree, getting a business degree is a practical decision that can help students prepare for the uncertainties of a career. The knowledge learned and skills acquired getting a degree in business are general but they offer a wide breadth of understanding and basic preparedness that other degrees do not offer when it comes to the nuts and bolts of business and management concepts.

But are there other degree options? Yes.

In an excellent report called, High-Resolution Leadership, Development Dimensions International analyzed over 15,000 assessments they have given to frontline managers to c-suite executives (High-Resolution Leadership, 2016) to find interesting and useful information when training and developing leaders. In the section, Not Merely a Matter of Degree: How Education Both Informs and Misleads about leader Skills, it is easy to overlook the findings but if you dig deeper you find that when choosing a degree, there are more options than just business. Seven degrees, business, engineering, law, humanities, IT, natural sciences, and social sciences were rated against eight leadership skills, financial acumen, business savvy, compelling communication, driving execution, driving for results, entrepreneurship, influence, and inspiring others.

The degree that performed the best was business, which makes sense since the skills surveyed are all standard business skills that every manager and leader should possess, while on the opposite side engineering performing the poorest (to be fair, to be an engineer requires different skills). Below is a summary of how the different degrees fared; I added a scoring system to stack rank them (strength = 1; mid-range = 0; weakness = -1):

• Business = 5 (five strengths and three mid-range)
• Humanities = 3 (five strengths, one mid-range, and two weaknesses);
• Social Science = 0 (one strength, six mid-range, and one weakness);
• Natural Science = 0 (two strengths, four mid-range, and two weaknesses);
• IT = -1 (one strength, five mid-range, and two weaknesses);
• Law = -1 (two strengths, three mid-range, and three weaknesses);
• Engineering = -6 (two mid-range and six weaknesses).

Business scored the best with five strengths, three mid-range, and no weaknesses. This makes sense because the skills surveyed are are those skills required of managers and leaders and are taught throughout every business degree. But the standout from this report is that Humanities came in second with five strengths, same number as business, one mid-range, and two weaknesses. For the strengths, business and humanities overlapped entrepreneurship and influence, but were divergent on the others. Business has financial acumen, business savvy, and driving execution, while humanities had compelling communication and driving for results. Humanities also had two weaknesses, financial acumen and business savvy.

So what does this mean? When hiring managers and leaders look to fill the ranks, will they hire people with humanities degrees to lead their employees?. Yes and no. As stated in the report:

Humanities graduates struggled with business savvy and financial acumen but outperformed other degrees in many skills, and did so through strengths not only in interpersonal competencies (such as influence), but also in strong performance in results orientation and entrepreneurship. Many humanities programs incorporate debating, communicating, and critical thinking, which would contribute to well-rounded graduates in these fields. (Sinar, Paese, Aubrey, Watt, & Wellins, 2016, p. 35)

In addition, one of the actions from this sections stated the need to, “challenge--and encourage others to reevaluate--long-held assumptions based on education” (Sinar, Paese, Aubrey, Watt, & Wellins, 2016, p. 35). What this section from High-Resolution Leadership shows is that different degrees can provide different skills when it comes to a leadership team. The ideal leadership team will have diversity of thought by bringing different backgrounds, skills, and competencies to the table that will allow them to overcome challenges and solve problems as a high performing, collaborative team.

The next section that is interesting is, EQ vs IQ: The Surprising skills Where Each Matters Most. This section examined which skills were influenced by a person’s emotional intelligence (EQ) or cognitive ability (IQ). Using very standard measurement devices (see the report), DDI concluded that business savvy, financial acumen, and influence are mainly cognitive (IQ) while cultivating networks, driving execution, and leading teams are emotional intelligence (EQ).

If you take these findings with the previous section, Not Merely a Matter of Degree, people who have humanities degrees have potential for growth. The two weaknesses that humanities had, business savvy and financial acumen, were classified as cognitive abilities which is good because organizations need to constantly train their leaders to have better financial acumen and business savvy! In addition, those trained in the humanities often excel at emotional intelligence giving humanities an edge when it comes to communication, having empathy, and and just understanding people around them. One of the interesting comments from this sections states, “it’s fair to say that a larger percentage of leadership failures may be attributed to insensitivity than stupidity” (Sinar et al., p. 23).

Without letting this article become too long and potentially, unfocused; are there clear and authoritative answers to the questions at the top of this article? No. Leaders have a multitude of different personalities, have different degrees, and are constantly developing skills. That is why there are countless articles, books, and companies that provide ideas, perspectives, and training on how to become better leaders.

This is why there is such a bright spot for those trained in the humanities. Using the findings from High Resolution Leadership, along with countless articles about how the humanities and liberal arts are desperately needed in today’s world, gives hope to everyone trained in the humanities. When humanities people become frontline managers and have successful leadership careers, they will easily prove that they have the skills, competencies, perspectives, cognitive abilities, and emotional intelligence, to not only be successful, but to contribute to whatever leadership team they are part of and the overall success of the organization.

Postscript: it would be nice to see the data sets from High Resolution Leadership to better analyze the findings.

References:

Beecroft, A. (213). The humanities: What went right? The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/07/03/the-humanities-what-went-right/

Byrne, J. (2014). Why the MBA has become the most popular master’s degree in the U.S. Fortune. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2014/05/31/mba-popular-masters-degree/

Brendel, D. (2016). Reading the humanities promotes emotional intelligence and leadership capacity. Huffington Post. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-brendel/reading-the-humanities-pr_b_8489894.html

Coleman, M. S. & Hennessey, J. L. (2013). Lessons from the humanities and social sciences. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lessons-from-the-humanities-and-social-sciences/2013/11/14/7441f9b6-4655-11e3-a196-3544a03c2351_story.html?utm_term=.2244e7768a1a

High-Resolution Leadership. (2016). In DDI World. Retrieved from http://www.ddiworld.com/hirezleadership?elqTrackId=3e8bf8191d2e4945845dbdf79125c7f7&elqaid=946&elqat=2

Litt, M. (2017). Why this tech CEO keeps hiring humanities majors. Fast Company. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/40440952/why-this-tech-ceo-keeps-hiring-humanities-majors

Llopis, G. (2016). Is diversity good for business? Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2016/04/23/is-diversity-good-for-business/#45fab0564a40.

Sinar, E. Paese, M, Aubrey, S., Watt, B., & Wellins, R. (2016). High-resolution leadership. Development Dimensions International, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.ddiworld.com/DDI/media/trend-research/high-resolution-leadership-2015-2016_tr_ddi.pdf?ext=.pdf

Stewart, M. (2006). The management myth. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/06/the-management-myth/304883/