High Intelligence and Hard Work Alone Are Not Enough for Success, Says Leadership Expert Bill Hoogterp

Bill Hoogterp, a performance consultant specializing in leadership skill development, asserts that high intelligence and constant hard work are not the sole keys to success. According to him, the most common traits among successful leaders lie in an unexpected combination of strong ambition, the ability to simplify tasks, and a knack for finding shortcuts.

He added that this “smart laziness,” as he calls it, helps managers achieve repeated breakthroughs by finding quick and efficient solutions rather than following traditional, lengthy paths.

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Hoogterp, who has spent decades training celebrities and executives through his company LifeHikes, has worked with over 700,000 people. He emphasizes that the common thread among the successful individuals he has coached isn’t innate genius but their ability to simplify tasks and intelligently seek the shortest routes.

In an interview with Fortune magazine, he stated: “Most prominent politicians or CEOs were not top students academically. They have immense ambition, and when that ambition combines with a tendency to conserve effort, it creates a brilliant mix of shortcuts that lead to frequent small wins.”

What is the Principle of Smart Laziness?

This type of “laziness” doesn’t imply negligence or giving up. Rather, it’s a systematic approach of asking: “How can I get this task done faster, easier, and more effectively?” The ultimate goal is to free up time and energy for more important matters. This principle is applied by people like Mark Zuckerberg, who early on in Facebook adopted the motto “Move fast and break things,” which led to phenomenal growth.

Jeff Bezos has also consistently encouraged his team to delegate tasks and avoid centralizing decision-making at the top. Likewise, Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, avoids holding one-on-one meetings with his 60 senior staff, preferring instead to share ideas in teams to ensure speed and collaboration.

In the same vein, Elon Musk enforces strict rules to eliminate time waste, including banning long meetings, avoiding hierarchical decision-making, and encouraging people to leave any meeting where they’re not adding value.

Hoogterp believes that intelligence is not a prerequisite for hiring or promotion. Instead, a positive attitude and willingness to learn are far more valuable than skills or experience. He points out that companies like Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft use personality tests to evaluate a candidate’s adaptability above all else.

This is echoed by Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, who says: “Behavior is what makes the difference in your career—especially in your twenties.”

Some managers even prefer to leave a position unfilled rather than hire a toxic person. As Luis von Ahn, CEO of Duolingo, puts it: “It’s better to have a gap on the team than to hire someone who ruins the overall vibe.”