[August 25, 2026] There’s nothing more resentful in a military force than a middle-grade staff officer who has been celebrated for his leadership, particularly when he was a junior leader, but hasn’t yet managed to transform that initial success into long-term status and accomplishment. These leaders often ask themselves, “Why am I not being promoted and given more responsibility?”
Being a leader, much of which is a given for some with specific personality types, aligns easily with the preconditions of leadership; some might call it a “gift” or a “talent.” They are proud of that, rightly so, since they were granted a level of conscientiousness and intelligence (the strongest predictors of success) that underpins good leadership.
However, conscientiousness and intelligence alone do not guarantee leadership success. The ability to work hard, be industrious, reliable, creative, honest, lucky, and having strong social connections is among the many predictors of medium- and long-term success as a military officer (among other professions).
If we look at personality attributes, the two most closely associated with morality are conscientiousness and agreeableness. Not intelligence. And these are not often seen in the same person. It doesn’t matter, but these two are places where virtue seems to be captured in our modern society.
Yet, there’s zero correlation with IQ (a measure of intelligence). We should be careful to link intellectual capacity or merit with a form of moral worth because it’s also the case that intelligent people have their temptations. The evil figures of history are always stellar intellects gone spectacularly wrong. That’s why it’s always the “evil scientist” in the modern stories where the enemies of the superheroes are the great brainiacs.
Being smart confers a tremendous advantage on a person in a complex organization like the military, because they can learn faster and the differences are not trivial. The biggest single difference between people is general cognitive ability, and that’s an appalling fact because it clearly is unfair and unjust.
General cognitive ability is not associated with morality, but it’s worse than that. Those who are intelligent have the “temptation of Lucifer.” It is too easy to worship your own intellect, and that’s a very dangerous thing to do, especially to develop the sense of wounded intellectual pride if people don’t “bow at your feet because of your undeniable intellect.” And because you’ve been gifted with intelligence, which you did not earn, that somehow you’re of stellar moral character. That is not necessarily so.
Just because you’re intelligent does not mean you are a good person. What we do in our Western culture, much too often, is to conflate moral cognitive ability and moral worth. From the materialistic, pernicious viewpoint, this is very easy to do, and very difficult to fight against.
And this, my friends, leads us to the path of resentment.
NOTE: Much of this article is taken from lectures by Prof. Jordan Peterson
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Middle-grade military officers who once shone as junior leaders often grow bitter when promotions and bigger jobs do not come their way. They ask themselves why their early success has not turned into lasting rank and responsibility. Being a natural leader feels like a gift of hard work and smarts, and they are proud of that talent. Yet smarts and steady habits alone do not guarantee long-term success in the military or any other field. Real progress also needs reliability, creativity, honesty, a bit of luck, and strong relationships with others. Intelligence has almost nothing to do with being a good or moral person. In fact, very smart people can fall into the trap of thinking their brains make them better than everyone else. They start to expect others to admire them simply for being clever, and they feel wounded when that does not happen. This mix of pride and disappointment is the road that leads straight to resentment.
Army Capt, yep you nailed it. I’ve seen this happen many times. I guess i can understand it, but it sucks to work for one of them.
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