A key source of value in today’s knowledge-driven economy is intellectual capital – everything from patents and trademarks, to software and ideas. This brings with it an increasing dependence on the people who generate it.

These are the highly talented individuals who have the potential to create disproportionate amounts of value from the resources made available to them. We call them “clever people”.

How you corral this group of extremely smart and highly creative people into an organisation, and then inspire them not only to achieve their fullest potential as individuals, but to do so in a way that creates wealth and value for all your stakeholders – customers, shareholders and the wider community – is one of the great organisational challenges of our time.

In our experience, getting the best from clever people requires many of the traditional leadership virtues, such as excellent communication skills and authenticity. But it also requires leaders to demonstrate some additional qualities.

Acknowledge their knowledge

Clever people have a distinctive and valuable knowledge base of their own. They do not see themselves as dependent on others and the leader must start by acknowledging their independence and difference. If leaders do not do this, they will fail at the first base. But – and it is an important caveat – the leader’s job is to make them understand their interdependence. Recognising the symbiotic nature of the relationship is critical to both the individual and the organisation.

Exhibit technical competence

Clever people do not expect their leader’s knowledge to match their own, but they do expect their leader to be an expert in their own field. Surprising juxtapositions of knowledge are often the most powerful. Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of communications company WPP, for example, is an accountant in a creative world. “I am seen as the boring, workaholic accountant and as a micro-manager,” he willingly concedes. “But I take it as a compliment rather than an insult. Involvement is important. You’ve got to know what’s going on.”

Win resources and give them space

Clever people want and need lots of resources; they are expensive to support. They need labs, libraries, equipment, training grounds, support staff, and so on. You could argue that all your staff want you to win resources for them, but what’s peculiar about clever people is that they perceive their own work to be so important that it must always be well resourced.

They are prone to obsession and it is from their obsessions that organisations can generate the most value. But this characteristic can make them very difficult to lead, because if you are unable to win the requisite resources they will come to believe that they cannot succeed in your organisation. The final irony is that having won the resources they require, they will then ask you to leave them alone.

Google is one organisation that has embraced this. The company prides itself on letting its people do their own thing and, reflecting the entrepreneurial spirit of founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, everyone who works at the company can spend one day a week on their own initiatives.

Be an umbrella

Clever people see the administrative machinery of the organisation as a distraction from their key activities, so they need to be protected from the organisational “rain”. If leaders get this right, they will establish exactly the right kind of relationship with their clever people. The pharmaceutical industry is full of such examples, since not every drug can go into full development. The most effective leaders in this context radiate rapport with the clever people while managing organisational realities.

At Genentech, for example, chief executive Art Levinson, a talented scientist in his own right, is fiercely protective of his “clevers”. When Avastin, a drug for treating colorectal cancer, failed in clinical trials in 2002, Genentech’s share price dropped by 10 per cent overnight. Some leaders would have pulled the plug on Avastin, but not Levinson. Instead, he and his senior managers knew the science well enough to know that their clevers were close to a breakthrough. Levinson protected them from the rain and in February 2004 the drug was eventually approved, resulting in sales of $774 million (£396 million) in the first three quarters of 2005.

Congratulate failure

Any organisation that strives for high levels of innovation – where clever people make a big difference – must recognise the necessity for failure. In pushing the frontiers of knowledge, clever people live on the edge of failure. Better that than mediocrity or passive acceptance of the status quo. Not all innovations can work. For every successful new pharmaceutical product, there are dozens of failures. The leaders of clever people need to recognise this.

Consider another pharmaceuticals example, from GlaxoSmithKline. When three high-tech antibiotics in the final stages of clinical trials all failed, former chairman Richard Sykes responded by sending letters of congratulation to the team leaders, thanking them for killing the drugs and encouraging them to move on to the next challenge.

Give direction

Clever people are often driven – but around their own goals and not those of an organisation. The leadership challenge therefore becomes not the traditional one of motivating staff, but of making sure your clever people are roughly aligned in their aims. Total alignment is impossible. What the leader should provide is coherent, shared meaning. Whatever you are in business to achieve, it is vital that it is both clearly communicated to the clevers but also that it is worthy of their talents. Witness Google’s motto, “Do no evil”, and Genentech’s slogan, “In business for life”.

Great leaders can find the meaning in every business. Insurance companies make our lives safer – and reduce risks. They help you to get your car repaired after it is vandalised, or get your roof fixed. Banks help us to buy a house and put our kids through college.

Recruit clevers

Clever people require a peer group of like-minded individuals, which means leaders should be highly selective about who they recruit. Universities have long understood this. Hire a star professor and you can be sure the aspiring PhDs in that subject will flock to your institution.

The same applies in business. At Microsoft, Bill Gates has always sought out the cleverest software programmers, insisting that the company requires the very best minds. When required, he will intervene personally in the recruitment process. The idea is that if you have what Microsoft calls “high IQ people”, this will act as a magnet for other clever people.

Listen to the silences

Leading clever people involves “listening to the silences”. For a non-specialist to gauge accurately the context in an environment populated by clever people requires highly acute situation-sensing skills – that is, the ability to judge morale, commitment and individual motivation in an area where the leader’s knowledge base is already stretched. One effective way of overcoming the intrinsic difficulties of this situation is to identify and relate to an informed insider from within the phalanx of clever people: someone willing to communicate the issues directly with you.

Be accessible

Effective leaders of clever people listen relentlessly to their needs. Martin Sorrell’s rapid response to emails is legendary at WPP. His message is clear: I am available. You are important. As he told us: “If someone contacts you, there’s a reason. It’s got nothing to do with the hierarchy. It doesn’t matter if they’re not a big person. There’s nothing more frustrating than a voicemail and then nothing back.”

Get recognition from outside

 It is a standard piece of advice for leaders to use a wide recognition range. But for those leading clever people, there are different issues of recognition. While they still require internal recognition, they are most turned on by recognition from outside – by an award for the best research paper, architectural prize, and so on. In other words, recognition from that wider group of clever people with whom they really identify.

Create a simplified rule environment

All organisations have rules, but clever people thrive under two particular circumstances. First, a relative absence of rules – that is, a few clear rules that are universally enforced. They will react badly to the miasma of bureaucratic rules characteristic of many large organisations – despairing of head office and its capacity to tie them down. Second, the rules need to be ones that they agree to – for example, rules on safety in pharmaceutical firms, risk rules in banks, integrity rules in professional services firms. Sociologists often call these “representative rules”, and they are precisely the ones that clever people respond to best.

Getting all of this right is a formidable leadership challenge. Yet, even if you get it right, don’t expect the clever people to be grateful. After all, they don’t want to be led.