Smarts: The View from the Cockpit

Every team needs someone in the driver’s seat, not to control the car, but to guide it.

I’ve found smarts to be the most misinterpreted or misunderstood of the three virtues.  Patrick Lencioni, in his book The Ideal Team Player, provides greater detail to ensure the description is clear to all, as the word itself can be misleading, given our traditional definitions.  Without the proper context, the terms Smart and Humble could easily conflict with one another.

In Lencioni’s framework, smarts isn’t about IQ or academic success. It’s about people sense, the ability to read situations, pick up signals, and steer through the messy middle where strategy meets human behaviour.  Some would equate it closely with emotional intelligence, though even that doesn’t fully capture its essence.

If humility is the chassis and hunger is the engine, then smarts is the cockpit. It’s the driver’s seat, the dashboard, the gauges, the steering wheel, and the windshield, all the tools that help you make sense of what’s happening as you move.

Seeing What’s Really There

In a car, your view isn’t perfect. There are blind spots, distractions, and glare. The same goes for teams. Smart leaders learn to check their mirrors before they make a move.

They read the tone of a meeting the way a driver reads the road. They notice when tension builds or when a teammate’s silence says more than words. They sense when to accelerate and when to ease off.

That’s not emotional manipulation, it’s awareness. It’s knowing that the best decisions depend on reading both the gauges and the people.

Gauges Don’t Lie (But They Don’t Tell the Whole Story)

Look down at a dashboard. You’ll see data: speed, fuel, temperature, and RPM. In business, we have the same: KPIs, metrics, and scorecards.

But a good driver doesn’t stare at the speedometer. They glance, interpret, and adjust. Data gives context, not commands.  They pay the utmost attention to what is happening around them: a speeding driver coming up in the rearview mirror, a sign indicating there is a lane closure ahead.  It all forms the environment and inputs for the driver.

I’ve worked with numerous teams that were drowning in dashboards but starving for meaningful insights. They had all the numbers but no feel for the road. Smarts is the ability to blend those, to know when the numbers matter, and when they’re just noise.

The same is true for people data. Engagement surveys, feedback forms, and performance scores are all valuable, but not enough on their own. Smart leaders connect the dots. They look up from the gauge cluster and actually see what’s happening outside the windshield.

Steering Through Complexity

Smarts shows up most when things get messy.

Projects stall. Communication breaks down. People pull in different directions. That’s when the cockpit matters most.

Smart team members navigate complexity without overreacting. They don’t slam the brakes at the first pothole or swerve wildly to avoid it. They steady the wheel, assess the situation, and make small corrections in the right direction.

The best teams do this collectively. They sense tension, talk it through, and adjust course before things spiral. That’s people smarts, using awareness to protect progress.

The Feel of the Wheel

When you’ve driven long enough, you start to feel the car. You know when something’s off, a vibration, a pull, a subtle noise you can’t quite place.

That’s intuition built on experience. In teams, smarts feels the same.

The more time you spend with people, the more you sense those small shifts in tone and trust. A missed deadline isn’t just about time management; it might be a signal of overwhelm, confusion, or lack of alignment.

Smart leaders pay attention to those early signals. They don’t wait for the “check engine” light to come on.

They course-correct early and calmly.

When Smarts Is Missing

Without smarts, the car still runs, but it runs into things.

Teams without situational awareness tend to talk past each other. Misunderstandings multiply. Meetings end with confusion instead of clarity.

You’ll see great ideas derailed by tone-deaf comments or good intentions lost in poor timing.

And when things go wrong, the instinct is often to push harder, more meetings, more emails, more dashboards. But what’s really needed is better awareness, not more horsepower.

Without smarts, all that hunger and humility can’t find direction. The engine revs, but nobody’s steering.

The Balance Between Logic and Feel

I’ve always been drawn to data, that affinity for math and numbers, I guess. I like things that can be measured, compared, and improved. But the older I get, the more I realize how much of leadership lives outside the spreadsheet.

You can’t quantify a glance across a table or a well-timed pause that lets someone else speak. Yet those moments are often what build trust, and trust is what turns strategy into action.

Smart leaders move fluidly between logic and feel. They read the gauges and the road. They use intuition, but they back it with evidence. It’s not one or the other. It’s both, working together.

How to Build Smarts in a Team

Smarts can be developed, just like technical skills. It starts with curiosity.

Ask more questions than you answer. Notice how people respond to feedback. Watch who speaks first in meetings and who hesitates to speak. Track not just the what, but the why.

Simple habits, such as pausing before you reply, summarizing what you've heard, and checking your assumptions, build awareness over time.

And don’t underestimate the power of humility and hunger to reinforce smarts. Humility opens you to learn; hunger pushes you to apply it. Together, they give smarts room to grow.

Seeing Through the Windshield

At its core, smarts is about clarity. It’s about seeing the road ahead while understanding the conditions around you.

In my work, I’ve seen teams that drive with fogged-up windshields, data everywhere, and noise everywhere, with nobody quite seeing where they’re headed. And I’ve seen others zoom (safely) down the highway because everyone shares the same line of sight.

That’s the difference awareness makes.

You can’t control every curve or traffic jam, but you can control how clearly you see and how smoothly you steer.

The Driver’s Reflection

If you’ve read this far, take a moment to look up from your own dashboard.

What’s your view like right now? Are your gauges giving you clarity or clutter? Are you reading the road, or reacting to it?

Smarts isn’t about being the smartest person in the car. It’s about being the one who knows where you’re going, what’s around you, and how to get there without losing the team along the way.

Ultimately, the goal isn’t to drive fast. It’s to arrive together, safely, and with enough gas left in the tank to keep going.