Advanced Critical Thinking Research Paper

Authors have filled the shelves with books about leadership personality, charisma, and emotional intelligence. Arguably, leadership is a complicated and somewhat abstract concept. Therefore, before making a hiring or promotion decision, successful companies consider a candidate's education, experience, behavior during the interview, references, and personal impressions. But too often, they overlook the critical factor that separates those who can succeed at the top of organizations from those who cannot: advanced critical thinking skills.

What is critical thinking?

Definitions of critical thinking vary, but in nearly every instance, the explanation addresses gathering information, evaluating it, and accurately drawing assumptions about it. For the purpose of this discussion, I offer this:

Critical thinking is a …show more content…
The two must work in tandem. Sometimes, but not often, I assess a candidate for hire or promotion who demonstrates well-honed skills for analytical reasoning but not the track record or motivation to act on this talent. Why? The simple answer is logic makes us think, but emotion makes us act.

People who have the ability to think logically but behave emotionally show no more promise than those who don't have the ability to start with. Dispassion and an ability to function in the arena of the abstract stand at the core of advanced critical thinking. People who can maintain this kind of global perspective can engage in long-rang strategic planning, simultaneously process information from a variety of sources, and multi-task. In addition to excelling at troubleshooting themselves, they can serve as strong sounding boards to others who struggle with complex or unfamiliar problems. Further, they possess a kind of internal crystal ball-a knack for seeing into the future to anticipate consequences and plan for