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When Lee Dugatkin, Professor of Biology at the University of Louisville, placed guppies in a tank from which they could view predators in another tank,\u00a0some of the fish swam up to the barricade to observe the predators<\/strong>; he named these\u00a0\u201cBold\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0fish.\u00a0Others \u2013 the \u201cTimid\u201d fish \u2013 swam the other direction.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n When all the fish were placed directly in the tank with the predators, the Bold fish swam right up to the predators\u2013 and were eaten.<\/strong>\u00a0Their survival rate at 36 hours was roughly half that of the Timid fish, and at 60 hours their survival rate was zero compared to 40% for the timid fish.<\/span><\/p>\n
Possibly the answer lies in the fact that boldness is a much-admired trait in our society. Research shows that those step-forward, take charge, bold types of employees are much likelier to end up in leadership roles. As you go up the managerial hierarchy in corporate America, the ranks of the outgoing and bold swell as the quieter, more thoughtful and more risk-averse counterparts are left behind.\u00a0<\/span>
Is this leaving corporate America at risk for hasty, poor decisions? I think so<\/strong>. In fact, I coached a client a few years ago who was in the last stages of collapse from stress, stress resulting from her repeated attempts to alert her manager to the need to do contingency planning for some of the crises a large corporation such as theirs might experience. He, in the meantime, scorned her contributions and gave her a bad performance review based on the fact that she didn\u2019t participate easily in the games with which he warmed up for a meeting.\u00a0<\/span>
Her health became so poor she went on leave, ultimately left the company to go into business for herself, and watched from afar as one of those very crises enveloped her former employer.\u00a0<\/span>
Being watchful isn\u2019t necessarily a sign of high intelligence, but it is often a trait associated with introversion.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n