Often people freeze under severe pressure, but that says nothing about their ultimate capability- only their level of preparation.

In the past there was not much social acceptance of men taking a primary care taking role at home. That has changed, and along with it, the opportunities for mothers to take on more demanding executive roles.

Business schools need to help students learn how to thrive under pressure. To understand themselves and their psychological vulnerability that might inhibit their ability to be effective in roles that involve ongoing complexity and duress. Preparation is essential.

The intelligence gap is essentially a shortage of executives with superior thinking skills who are needed by every business, as compared with the number of decision-making positions available.

The principles that make someone a master in the chief executive role deal with whether or not they can thrive in an environment of ongoing duress, and teach others how to do so.

Those who have high business acumen display specific, identifiable cognitive skills that permit them to perform better than their peers. Once we understand that street smarts is skill-based, we can measure it, compare it, and improve it in the general population.

Executive Intelligence is about the specific skills one must have in order to succeed in senior leadership positions, i.e. the ability to evaluate underlying assumptions, recognize the likely emotional reactions of individuals, or sense a misstep and make appropriate adjustments.

Research has shown that one's level of intelligence is the single most predictive component of professional success - better than any other ability, trait, or even job experience. Yet, too often, employees are selected because of their likeability, presence, or charisma.

Executive Intelligence , and its evaluation are very must about one's ability to think under pressure. Given the evolution of global business, this is more important today, and it's going to stay that way.

The development and/or revelation of a CEO's potential for great leadership requires slow escalations of experiences that involve pressure, each time given the tools to succeed. Successful experience breeds confidence, as well as an eventual restlessness to try more.

CEOs must master three essential attributes, realistic optimism, subservience to purpose, and finding order in chaos. One's capacity in each determines their ability to cope with today's business environment.

Once an individual is given a taste of the gratification that comes from triumph, and the tools to bring it about, they will spend a lifetime in its ongoing pursuit.

Individuals with high executive intelligence cannot reach their potential unless surrounded by others with a similar level of skill. Without a concerted effort on the part of businesses to seek out those with exceptional decision-making abilities, the gap between who businesses actually need, and who they hire and promote, will remain wide.

Only recently have we begun to understand the specific cognitive skills that contribute to business success and how to measure them. Hopefully, this insight will allow us to more keenly focus our attention on indentifying and cultivating decision-making abilities in the executive population.