Character is Intelligence

Intelligence is the mental ability- How one behaves in relation to knowledge, complexity and change. Character is the moral and social qualities- How one behaves in relation to oneself and other people.


A traditional education ranked Character higher than Intelligence, for both boys and girls. And perhaps they had a point. At least as taught in schools, Intelligence is largely to do with what a child can achieve on its own, and is tested for each child in isolation. Collaboration between children during tests and exams is regarded as cheating. In contrast, Character has to do with the behaviour of the child in social situations - in the playground or the sports field. Healthy collaboration, direct competition, responsible behaviour, standing firm against bullying. Even such apparently private matters as concentration or self-esteem have strong links with social behaviour.

If we're interested in what a person can achieve in isolation, then Intelligence may be an important factor. But if we're interested in what a person can achieve in collaboration with others, then Character may be just as important. In particular, Leadership is usually regarded as a question of Character rather than Intelligence. The leader doesn't have to be the most visibly intelligent person on the team. Do we have to make the choice between Character and Intelligence? Can't we have both? There are certainly people who have both Character and Intelligence. But it's often difficult to spot them. Because it is usually the people without Character that want to draw attention to their Intelligence, and the people without Intelligence that wants to draw attention to their Character.

The other debate is whether character is more important than intelligence or character is equally important to intelligence. One of my colleague pointed out, character is intelligence. hence the emphasis should be to built character and intelligence will be taken care of automatically.